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Helion and Microsoft Lead World Down Nuclear Fusion Rabbit Hole

manufacturing the lasers used at Livermore and creating other inputs to set up the fusion process require much more energy than is accounted for in the final equation.

there’s so much money in the system, and so much desire to have this technological solution, people are very excited — and totally ignoring the fact that there is no result that has any energy output to it.”

Gizmodo, Molly Taft, May 12, 2023

Are we closer to the “Holy Grail” of clean energy? Silicon Valley wants you to believe.

This week, nuclear fusion startup Helion announced that it had inked a first-of-its-kind deal with Microsoft to provide 50 megawatts of power from a yet-to-be built power plant, all within the next five years. Unlike nuclear fission, the process that powers all the nuclear power plants existing today, nuclear fusion could create potentially unlimited energy. It’s a dream that scientists and engineers have been chasing for decades, with little luck.

The announcement from Helion and Microsoft is historic — and raises a lot of thorny questions about fusion, the role of tech in promoting new energy sources, and whether all this talk about fusion is even doing any good for the planet.

What is nuclear fusion, and why has it been so difficult to achieve?

Nuclear fusion is, simply put, the same process that powers the Sun. The Sun turns matter into energy through the enormous pressures and high temperatures at its core.

“If you smash atoms together hard enough and in a hot enough and dense enough environment, you can get essentially free energy,” said Charles Seife, a journalism professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and the author of Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking. “It’s enormous amounts of energy from very little fuel,” he told Earther.

Physicists have been chasing the dream of replicating the fusion process since the 1940s, when research into building nuclear reactors began. It quickly became clear that the problem was not replicating fusion itself but rather creating conditions in which the process produces more energy than it takes in. Fusion needs an enormous amount of energy, and almost all of the demonstrations of fusion scientists have accomplished thus far have not been able to reach the point where the energy output is greater than the input.

Seife said that the Livermore announcement is significant but pointed out that manufacturing the lasers used at Livermore and creating other inputs to set up the fusion process require much more energy than is accounted for in the final equation. He’s less impressed by the numerous nuclear fusion startups that have cropped up in Silicon Valley and elsewhere in recent years.

“I think there’s been something of a hype cycle” around fusion recently, he said. “There’s been a lot of venture capital flowing, and people have gotten better and better at leveraging dumb money into hype. You’ve got a lot of startups blooming everywhere that are replicating stuff that we were able to do in the 1960s in small labs, and putting their own spin on it. Because there’s so much money in the system, and so much desire to have this technological solution, people are very excited — and totally ignoring the fact that there is no result that has any energy output to it.”

What is Helion, and what is it promising?

Speaking of startups: enter Helion. Helion was founded in 2013 and was helped along by an infusion of cash from startup accelerator Y Combinator in 2014. That year, its CEO claimed that Helion could get a fusion reactor up and running in three years; two years ago, he said that the company would be able to generate fusion power and “go after commercially installed power generation” by 2024.

Despite the repeated misses on the timeline, Helion broke ground on its first reactor site in 2021, thanks in part to a $US375 million investment from Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sam Altman. It has now become the first fusion company to ink an actual power purchasing agreement for its services, and says that it will start supplying power to Microsoft in 2028 — more than 10 years after it initially said its reactor would be built.

Earther reached out to Helion to ask about its confidence in the timeline given its past misses. The recent results of its sixth prototype of a fusion reactor, a spokesperson wrote in an email, “give us great confidence that our timeline is realistic and that we can build the first fusion power plant by 2028.”

Can they actually do it?

Despite the company’s cheery outlook, there’s a lot of scepticism from experts around the Helion and Microsoft announcement, particularly the truncated timeline — including from Seife, who nevertheless says that he understands the hype.

“It’s so beautiful on paper,” Seife said. “That’s the appeal of it.”

Beyond Helion’s ability to perfect a process in five years that decades of research hasn’t yet gotten us to, there’s also a marked difference between advancing the science of fusion itself — which would alone be an incredible feat — and harnessing fusion for energy. A lot of the funding behind nuclear fusion in recent years in the U.S. has focused on achieving ignition, without an additional focus on creating usable energy from fusion; it’s a whole separate ballgame to actually put energy on the grid with the process. (Building a power plant alone is already a big infrastructure project that can take a couple years at best.)

“The classic joke is, ok, if you can produce energy, make me a cup of tea,” Seife said. “Once you make me a cup of tea, I will consider paying you money to do something, but first, make me a goddamn cup of tea.”

Is banking on fusion good for the planet?

A spokesperson for Helion told Earther in an email that the details of its power purchasing agreement with Microsoft won’t be made public. “That said, this is a real PPA, with commitments and obligations as well as penalties for failing to meet them,” the spokesperson said.

There are many questions left unanswered — has Microsoft paid Helion any money up-front? What are those commitments, obligations, and penalties, specifically? And, perhaps most importantly from a climate perspective, how much is Microsoft banking on this carbon-free fusion power?

………………………….. we don’t have much time to make the big changes we need. Creating plans that rely on technologies that haven’t been fully tested — and listening to Silicon Valley technocrats who keep making big promises and aren’t held to account when they don’t deliver — wastes valuable time, energy, and money that we could be spending on the clean energy technologies that we have today or are much nearer to deployment……  https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2023/05/helion-and-microsoft-lead-world-down-nuclear-fusion-rabbit-hole/

May 13, 2023 Posted by | technology, USA | 2 Comments

The Quiet Warrior: Russell Jim’s Struggle Against Nuclear Colonialism

CounterPunch, MAY 12, 2023, BY JOSHUA FRANK

The following is an excerpt from the award-winning Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America (Haymarket Books, 2022).

He was the catalyst in my belief that Indian tribes should be treated as full, equal participants in the process.

— James Asselstine

There are not a lot of heroes out here. Few in recent memory have risen to the daunting challenge, immersing themselves in Hanford’s scientific complexities and its historic and cultural implications. If there are any champions of the cause, Russell Jim (Kii’ahł) was certainly one of them. The “Quiet Warrior,” Jim was a lifelong advocate for the Yakama Nation. The “conscience of the cleanup,” Jim was considered by many to be the spiritual leader of the Hanford resistance. Jim served as the head of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Indian Nation’s Environmental Restoration and Waste Management Program (ERWM), a position he essentially created. In 2018, Jim passed away after battling heart trouble and pneumonia after a long bout of cancer, which he believed was a direct result of the time he spent in and around Hanford’s radioactive haze.

“I think he’s been a major player in the Hanford cleanup and he’s been one of the sharpest critics of the process and a very constructive one,” said John Bassett, president of Heritage University, when Jim was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2017.

By all accounts, Jim had an unwavering moral compass and was the rare advocate who possessed the ability to peer through the layers of Hanford’s bureaucratic stratum. He was able to envision its future while never losing sight of the past and the gainful lives that the region provided his people over many centuries. The Yakama Nation, in defiance of their forced relocation, refused compensation from the federal government. They have never stopped fighting back against the settler colonialism that has destroyed their Native lands…………………………………………………………………………

For those keeping tabs on Hanford throughout the 1980s, like the Yakama, the situation was ominous. By 1985, four decades after Hanford began producing plutonium, not a single independent study looked at the cumulative damage the site had unleashed on nearby communities or Native tribes. DOE officials blew off calls for such an inquiry and contended that it would be unworthy of the department’s time. They argued that radioactivity was all but nonexistent outside of Hanford’s boundaries. Citizen activists noted an uptick in certain cancers in their communities and believed a longitudinal study on the human population was the only way to get a handle on Hanford’s long-term impacts………………………………

Terry R. Strong, who served as head of the Radiation Control Section of the Washington Department of Social and Health Services in 1985, strongly disagreed with the DOE’s lack of monitoring and openly criticized the state of Washington for allocating a meager $87,000 a year to keep an eye on Hanford’s environmental impact. The threat was so grave, Strong believed, that the state should have been spending at least $2.5 million. Others, including British physician Dr. Alice M. Stewart, who helped author a study of Hanford workers during the early 1980s, argued the government was also far too lenient with its radiation safety levels.

The study found a connection between low radiation doses and cancer deaths—particularly multiple myeloma—among workers. Hanford employees, the study reported, experienced at least a 5 percent higher risk of developing cancer than the general population. “If they stick to present safety levels,” warned Dr. Stewart, “they will have more trouble than they think they are going to have.”

A Challenging Adversary

Russell Jim knew there was a major problem at Hanford and the government was planning to make it worse. By the late 1970s, Hanford and Yucca Mountain were the two prime contenders to become depots for spent nuclear fuel. While the Western Shoshone stood their ground and tried to fight the use of Yucca as a repository, they ultimately lost. Jim, representing Yakama Nation, took the lead on keeping the stuff out of Hanford. The waste was to sit in man-made tombs for the next ten thousand years. Flabbergasted at the thought of such an idiotic undertaking, Jim took his fight to the United States Senate. Testifying before a Senate subcommittee on nuclear regulation in 1980, Jim made an impassioned plea to the senators about his peoples’ connection to the land, hoping they’d consider viewing the Hanford issue from his point of view: “There is something you need to understand that is unique between my people and yours. Yakama Indian people do not get most of their food supply from the local A&P or Safeway store,” said Jim. ………….

Jim not only intimately understood the science behind the nuclear mess at Hanford, he also was well-versed in the laws and the rights of his people. The time he spent in Washington speaking at various hearings and meeting personally with numerous Senators and staffers was beginning to pay off. When the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 was passed, it included specific language that recognized Indian sovereignty. It was powerful language. As a result of Jim’s efforts, tribes like the Yakama, along with states, could veto their lands from becoming nuclear waste depositories. And it would take a majority of both houses of Congress to overturn such vetoes……………………

Jim’s activism during this time forced the federal government to drop their insidious idea of using Hanford as a nuclear dumping zone. He had won. His people had won, and so had the environment that had sustained them for generations. While others had joined the cause, without Jim’s tenacious work, Native voices would have been ignored, as many senators admitted they believed the states would speak up in Natives’ interest. Jim, of course, straightened them out, making it clear they were more than capable of speaking for themselves………………

Jim’s activism during this time forced the federal government to drop their insidious idea of using Hanford as a nuclear dumping zone. He had won. His people had won, and so had the environment that had sustained them for generations. While others had joined the cause, without Jim’s tenacious work, Native voices would have been ignored, as many senators admitted they believed the states would speak up in Natives’ interest. Jim, of course, straightened them out, making it clear they were more than capable of speaking for themselves……

………………….. Abnormally high incidence[s] of thyroid tumors and cancers have been observed in populations living downwind from Hanford,” reported Dr. Helen Caldicott, a scientist and anti-nuclear activist. “Strontium-90, Cesium-137, and Plutonium-239 have been [atmospherically] released in large quantities, as was, between 1952 and 1967, Ruthenium-106. People in adjacent neighborhoods were kept uninformed about these releases—before, during, and after—and none were warned that they were at risk for subsequent development of cancer.”

Jim knew the toll on the Yakama was great, not only to cultural heritage, but to their health. No big decision was made at Hanford without input from Jim, and while it didn’t always go his way, he never backed down. He was prescient and brave. He was able to articulate the lunacy of the Hanford project and the government’s continued ignorance and outright deception. His quest for information and knowledge about what was actually taking place at Hanford forced an immeasurable amount of transparency, which remains all too important if the DOE and its contractors are to ever be held accountable. Up until his death in April 2018 at the age of eighty-two, Jim was working hard to fight the federal government’s effort to declassify Hanford’s nuclear waste, which would allow the radioactive leftovers to be more freely transported and dumped, with obviously grave implications………………………………………………….. https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/05/12/the-quiet-warrior-russell-jims-struggle-against-nuclear-colonialism/

May 13, 2023 Posted by | indigenous issues, USA | Leave a comment

Putin Still Selling U.S. Nearly $1 Billion in Nuclear Fuel

NewsWeek, BY ANNA SKINNER ON 5/11/23

The United States has done a thorough job of sanctioning Russia, but it still relies on the nation for one key resource.

The U.S. and other Western nations were quick to sanction Russia after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Western allies joined forces in sanctioning resources like Russian oil and gas to deprive the Kremlin of financial gain amid funneling money into its war against Ukraine. International companies located in Russia also were quick to leave, further damaging the Russian economy, but Russia still maintains a firm grasp on a horde of something that many other countries want: nuclear fuel.

Nuclear energy, which generates power through a process of splitting uranium atoms, has evaded sanctions more than a year into the war. Enriching uranium is a highly specialized process that can only be done in certain countries, such as Russia. Russia has some of the world’s largest uranium supplies, and it also excels in the necessary process of converting it to enriched uranium, which then can be used as nuclear fuel. Commercial plants converting uranium operate in Russia, Canada, China and France, with Russia having the most infrastructure needed for the conversion……………..

Because of this, Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation—Russia’s collection of nuclear suppliers—provides a quarter of the U.S.’s nuclear fuel, and the United States continues to pay for the resource, spending a collective $1 billion last year, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

………………. In March, the U.S.’s first nuclear reactor in seven years started nuclear reactions in Georgia. CNBC reported that including the new reactor, there are 93 reactors throughout the United States providing a fifth of the nation’s energy. A quarter of the nuclear resources needed to power that energy is sourced from Rosatom.

U.S. companies are paying steeply for the resources needed to power its reactors, which means it is funding both Russia and Ukraine during the war….. https://www.newsweek.com/putin-selling-us-nearly-billion-dollars-nuclear-fuel-1799788

May 13, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, USA | 1 Comment

Germany’s Nuclear Energy Phase-Out, Explained

NIRS, May 8, 2023

On April 15, 2023 utilities in Germany shut down the country’s three
last remaining nuclear power plants. These closures mark the successful
planned phase-out of German nuclear energy from the nation’s grid. What does this mean for Germany? What lessons should the U.S. take away from the
German energy transition?

Germany’s Energiewende (“energytransition”) is an overarching policy commitment to achieve a low-carbon, nuclear-free economy and transition to renewable energy. While the recently completed phase-out of nuclear power is a major milestone for Germany’s energy transition, it was by no means a perfect process nor is the current
energy system in Germany a perfect example to follow.

But, Germany’s transition shows that an energy policy grounded in environmental values works – and the earlier climate policy is implemented, the sooner the
climate policy goals can be realized. Above all, the German energy
transition shows the tremendous power of active citizenry, organized social
movements, and activism to transform policy and successfully demand change.

more https://www.nirs.org/germanys-nuclear-energy-phase-out-explained/

May 13, 2023 Posted by | ENERGY, Germany | 1 Comment

Nuclear Free Local Authorities issue appeal to King over Lincolnshire Nuke Dump

Save our sceptred isle: NFLAs issue appeal to King over Lincolnshire Nuke Dump. https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/save-our-sceptred-isle-nflas-issue-appeal-to-king-over-lincolnshire-nuke-dump/ 11 May 23

Just days after the Coronation, the English Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLAs) have written to the nation’s new Sovereign to ask His Majesty King Charles III to intercede over the plan to locate a nuclear waste dump in East Lincolnshire right next to the first Royal nature reserve.

The East Lincolnshire coast has been selected as the first of the ‘King’s Series of National Nature Reserves’ to mark the commencement of His Majesty’s Reign. A formal announcement by Natural England is expected in the summer.

The ‘Lincolnshire Coronation Coast Nature Reserve’ will cover some 21 square miles, centred upon existing protected areas at Theddlethorpe and Saltfleetby comprising mud flats, salt- and freshwater marshes and sand dunes, which support a diverse variety of wintering and breeding birds, natter jack toads, insects, and plants. The establishment of the reserve would enhance the area’s existing offer to visitors, many of whom flock to adjoining Mablethorpe to enjoy the beautiful Blue Flag award winning beaches.

So it was with regret that Councillor David Blackburn, Chair of the English Forum of the NFLAs had to sound a note of caution in his letter to His Majesty that Nuclear Waste Services has plans to locate a Geological Disposal Facility, a nuclear waste dump, right next to the reserve.

This would be the destination for Britain’s high-level, heat emitting radioactive waste, including its huge stockpile of plutonium. This waste has either already been generated through the UK’s military and civil nuclear programmes over the last 70 years or will be generated in the future through their continuance.

The GDF would comprise a surface facility approximately 1 square KM, which would most likely be located on the site of the former Conoco gas terminal in Theddlethorpe. This would be the railhead receiving regular shipments of nuclear waste. This waste would be transported below ground and out through tunnels beneath the North Sea. As nuclear waste is transported by rail, and there is no current infrastructure in place, there would be a necessity to construct a new rail line to serve the location.

The process of selecting a site for this facility could take between 15 and 20 years after which the construction and operation of such a facility would last more than 100 years.

In his letter, Councillor Blackburn contends that the project is ‘of such an immense size and in (such) a wholly inappropriate location’ that it would be ‘massively disruptive and harmful’ to the flora and fauna of the local environment, including that of the Royal Reserve, and to local people, as well as ‘massively ruinous’ to the local tourist and agrarian economy. Councillor Blackburn ends by appealing to the King on behalf of ‘His Majesty’s many loyal and anxious subjects in the affected area to intercede with relevant Ministers of the Crown to end this folly ‘.

Commenting Cllr Blackburn said: “The creation of this Royal Reserve is a wonderful idea and wholly in keeping with His Majesty the King’s known love for the natural environment. I can only hope that by drawing the Sovereign’s attention to the government’s lunatic plan to locate a nuclear waste dump next to the reserve that the King might be able to intervene to end the threat of it.”

May 13, 2023 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

Pentagon wants authority to start work on new technologies without Congressional approval

Jared Serbu @jserbuWFED, May 8, 2023 

Over the last several years, Congress has passed several pieces of legislation meant to speed up the Defense Department’s acquisition system. Now, DoD officials have an idea of their own: they’re asking for new authorities that would let the military services begin early work on critical new programs without lawmakers’ explicit permission, arguing the current approval process takes too long and risks putting the U.S. military at a technological disadvantage.

………………………………….. If Congress agrees to the proposal as part of next year’s Defense authorization bill, DoD would be able to spend up to $300 million on new programs without getting Congressional approval: lawmakers would only be notified about a new start after a decision has been made………………………. https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-news/2023/05/pentagon-wants-authority-to-start-work-on-new-technologies-without-congressional-approval/

May 13, 2023 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | 2 Comments

The terrible toll of A-bomb tests — Beyond Nuclear

This week on Nuclear Hotseat, host Libbe HaLevy looks into the terrible toll taken on the people of French Polynesia from the French atomic tests there. She interviewed Dennis Riches who, after the meltdowns at Fukushima-Daiichi in 2011 began writing a blog about nuclear issues. In 2018, several of the blog posts were published as a…

The terrible toll of A-bomb tests — Beyond Nuclear

May 13, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

French nuclear group Orano (previously Areva) evacuates foreign workers to Niger capital following security threat

NIAMEY, May 12 (Reuters) – French nuclear group Orano has evacuated 18 expatriate workers from a uranium mining site in Arlit, northern Niger, to the capital Niamey on Friday, following a security threat, a spokesperson for the company said in statement to Reuters.

Orano ceased exploiting uranium at the mine in 2021 due to the depletion of reserves, but plans to operate in the country to retrain workers and remediate the mining site for at least a decade.

The spokesperson did not give details about the security threat but said it occurred in a village halfway between the border with Mali and Arlit, which lies some 800 km (500 miles) to the northeast of the capital.

May 13, 2023 Posted by | Niger, safety | Leave a comment

Sowing Seeds of Plunder: A Lose-Lose Situation in Ukraine

President Zelenskyy put the land reform into law in 2020 against the will of the vast majority of the population who feared it would exacerbate corruption and reinforce control by powerful interests in the agricultural sector. 

The largest landholders are a mix of Ukrainian oligarchs and foreign interests — mostly European and North American as well as the sovereign fund of Saudi Arabia. 

Ed note: The irony of it! Ukrainians hold the hated memory of Soviet Russia starving Ukraine, as it sent their grain to Russia. Now we have the Western world helping themselves to Ukraine’s agriculture – with increasing farming for export, – pushing out the livelihood’s of Ukrainian small farmers. Zelensky – seen as a hero/saviour for now – – but how will this clown be remembered?

y Colin Todhunter, 10 May 23  https://www.globalresearch.ca/sowing-seeds-plunder-lose-lose-situation-ukraine/5818851

It’s a lose-lose situation for Ukrainians. While they are dying to defend their land, financial institutions are insidiously supporting the consolidation of farmland by oligarchs and Western financial interests.  

So says Frédéric Mousseau, Policy Director of the Oakland Institute, an independent think tank.  

Depending on which sources to believe, between 100,000 and 300,000 Ukrainian soldiers (possibly more) have died during the conflict with Russia. That figure, of course, does not include civilian casualties.  

The mainstream narrative in the West is that Russia grabbed Crimea and then invaded Ukraine. Russia is portrayed as the outright aggressor which wants to restore its control over large swathes of Europe.   

The expansion of NATO towards the east, the US-backed coup in 2014 – followed by eight years of the shelling of the ethnic Russian eastern parts of the country by the regime in Kyiv resulting in around 14,000 deaths – led up to the military intervention by Russia, which regards the expansionism and militarism as an existential threat.  

It is not the purpose of this article to explore these issues. Much has already been written on this elsewhere. But billions of dollars’ worth of military hardware has been sent to Ukraine by the NATO countries and hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainians have died.   

They died in the belief that they were protecting their nation – their land. A land that is among the most fertile in the world.  

Professor Olena Borodina of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine says:  

“Today, thousands of rural boys and girls, farmers, are fighting and dying in the war. They have lost everything. The processes of free land sale and purchase are increasingly liberalised and advertised. This really threatens the rights of Ukrainians to their land, for which they give their lives.”  

Borodina is quoted in the February 2023 report by the Oakland Institute War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine’s Agricultural Land, which reveals how oligarchs and financial interests are expanding control over Ukraine’s agricultural land with help and financing from Western financial institutions.  

Aid provided to Ukraine in recent years has been tied to a drastic structural adjustment programme requiring the creation of a land market through a law that leads to greater concentration of land in the hands of powerful interests. The programme also includes austerity measures, cuts in social safety nets and the privatisation of key sectors of the economy.   

Frédéric Mousseau, co-author of the report, says:  

“Despite being at the centre of news cycle and international policy, little attention has gone to the core of the conflict — who controls the agricultural land in the country known as the breadbasket of Europe. [The] Answer to this question is paramount to understanding the major stakes in the war.”   

The report shows the total amount of land controlled by oligarchs, corrupt individuals and large agribusinesses is over nine million hectares — exceeding 28% of Ukraine’s arable land (the rest is used by over eight million Ukrainian farmers). 

Amidst Chaos of War, a New Report Exposes the Stealth Take-over of Ukrainian Agricultural Land

The largest landholders are a mix of Ukrainian oligarchs and foreign interests — mostly European and North American as well as the sovereign fund of Saudi Arabia. A number of large US pension funds, foundations and university endowments are also invested in Ukrainian land through NCH Capital – a US-based private equity fund, which is the fifth largest landholder in the country.   

President Zelenskyy put the land reform into law in 2020 against the will of the vast majority of the population who feared it would exacerbate corruption and reinforce control by powerful interests in the agricultural sector.   

The Oakland Institute notes that, while large landholders are securing massive financing from Western financial institutions, Ukrainian farmers — essential for ensuring domestic food supply — receive virtually no support. With the land market in place, amid high economic stress and war, this difference of treatment will lead to more land consolidation by large agribusinesses.  

All but one of the ten largest landholding firms are registered overseas, mainly in tax havens such as Cyprus or Luxembourg. The report identifies many prominent investors, including Vanguard Group, Kopernik Global Investors, BNP Asset Management Holding, Goldman Sachs-owned NN Investment Partners Holdings, and Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages Norway’s sovereign wealth fund.  

Most of the agribusiness firms are substantially indebted to Western financial institutions, in particular the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank, and the International Finance Corporation – the private sector arm of the World Bank.   

Together, these institutions have been major lenders to Ukrainian agribusinesses, with close to US$1.7 billion lent to just six of Ukraine’s largest landholding firms in recent years. Other key lenders are a mix of mainly European and North American financial institutions, both public and private.   

The report notes that this gives creditors financial stakes in the operation of the agribusinesses and confers significant leverage over them. Meanwhile, Ukrainian farmers have had to operate with limited amounts of land and financing, and many are now on the verge of poverty.    

International financial institutions are in effect subsidising the concentration of land and a destructive industrial model of agriculture based on the intensive use of synthetic inputs, fossil fuels and large-scale monocropping.  

Much of what is happening in Ukraine is part of a wider trend: private equity funds being injected into agriculture throughout the world and used to lease or buy up farms on the cheap and aggregate them into large-scale, industrial grain and soybean concerns. These funds use pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowment funds and investments from governments, banks, insurance companies and high net worth individuals (see the 2020 report ‘Barbarians at the Barn‘ by Grain.org).  

Financialising agriculture this way shifts power to people with no connection to farming. In the words of BlackRock’s Larry Fink: “Go long agriculture and water and go to the beach.”  

Funds tend to invest for between 10 and 15 years, resulting in good returns for investors but can leave a trail of long-term environmental and social devastation and serve to undermine local and regional food insecurity.   

By contrast, according to the Oakland Institute, small-scale farmers in Ukraine demonstrate resilience and enormous potential for leading the expansion of a different production model based on agroecology and producing healthy food. Whereas large agribusinesses are geared towards export markets, it is Ukraine’s small and medium-sized farmers who guarantee the country’s food security.   

This is underlined by the State Statistics Service of Ukraine in its report ‘Main agricultural characteristics of households in rural areas in 2011’, which showed that smallholder farmers in Ukraine operate 16% of agricultural land, but provide 55% of agricultural output, including 97% of potatoes, 97% of honey, 88% of vegetables, 83% of fruits and berries and 80% of milk.  

In June 2020, the IMF approved an 18-month, strings-attached $5 billion loan programme with Ukraine. Also that year, the World Bank incorporated measures relating to the sale of public agricultural land as conditions in a $350 million Development Policy Loan (COVID ‘relief package’) to Ukraine. This included a required ‘prior action’ to “enable the sale of agricultural land and the use of land as collateral.”  

According to the Oakland Institute: 

“Ukraine is now the world’s third-largest debtor to the International Monetary Fund and its crippling debt burden will likely result in additional pressure from its creditors, bondholders and international financial institutions on how post-war reconstruction – estimated to cost US$750 billion – should happen.”  

Financial institutions are leveraging Ukraine’s crippling debt to drive further privatisation and liberalisation – backing the country into a corner to make it an offer it can’t refuse.   

Since the war began, the Ukrainian flag has been raised outside parliament buildings in the West and iconic landmarks have been lit up in its colours. An image bite used to conjure up feelings of solidarity and support for that nation while serving to distract from the harsh machinations of geopolitics and modern-day economic plunder that is unhindered by national borders and has scant regard for the plight of ordinary citizens.  

May 12, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, Reference, Ukraine | 1 Comment

Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant facing ‘catastrophic’ staff shortage amid Russian evacuation

Russia plans to relocate thousands of staff from nuclear plant, atomic energy company claims, warning of ‘catastrophic lack of qualified personnel’

Associated Press, 11 May 23

Russia plans to relocate about 2,700 Ukrainian staff from Europe’s largest nuclear plant, Ukraine’s atomic energy company has claimed, warning of a potential “catastrophic lack of qualified personnel” at the Zaporizhzhia facility in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine.

Workers who signed employment contracts with Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom following Moscow’s capture of the Zaporizhzhia plant early in the war are set to be taken to Russia along with their families, Energoatom said in a Telegram post on Wednesday.

The company did not specify whether the employees would be forcibly moved out of the plant, nor was it immediately possible to verify Energoatom’s claims about Moscow’s plan.

Removing staff would “exacerbate the already extremely urgent issue” of staff shortages, Energoatom said.

The Moscow-installed governor of the region ordered civilian evacuations from the area last Saturday, including from the nearby city of Enerhodar where most plant workers live. The full scope of the evacuation order was not clear.

Russian forces seized the Zaporizhzhia plant days after Russian president, Vladimir Putin, ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Russian occupiers left the Ukrainian staff in place to keep the plant running but the exact number of workers currently at the plant is not known.

Fighting near the plant has fuelled fears of a potential catastrophic incident like the one at Chornobyl, in northern Ukraine, where a reactor exploded in 1986 and contaminated a vast area in the world’s worst nuclear accident.

Zaporizhzhia is one of the 10 biggest nuclear plants in the world. While its six reactors have been shut down for months, it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features…………………. more https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/11/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-facing-catastrophic-staff-shortage-amid-russian-evacuation

May 12, 2023 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Regulator issues permit for New Mexico nuclear waste facility against wishes of  local, state, and federal leaders

By Simon Druker, https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2023/05/09/3631683671382/

May 9 (UPI) — The agency that governs nuclear power in the United States issued a permit Tuesday to build a facility to store nuclear waste in New Mexico.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission permit goes against the wishes of both state and federal elected officials.

“I have been strongly opposed to the interim storage of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste in New Mexico, which would pose serious risks to our communities. But today’s announcement paves the way for New Mexico to be home for indefinite storage of spent nuclear fuel,” Sen. Ben Ray Lujan D-N.M., told The Hill in a statement.

“This approach — over the objections of many local, state, and federal leaders — is unacceptable,” he said.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-N.M., in March signed legislation prohibiting the facility from being built by Florida-based Holtec International.

It’s not clear what effect her law would have on the NRC’s federal permit.

Lujan Grisham called on President Joe Biden to intervene.

The NRC permit grants Holtec the right to build the consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in the state’s Lea County. The company can store 500 canisters, or approximately 8,680 metric tons, of spent nuclear fuel for 40 years.

Holtec said it plans to eventually apply for amended licenses in order to eventually store up to 10,000 canisters or approximately 173,600 metric tons over an additional 19 phases.

The company was founded in 1986 in New Jersey and specializes in manufacturing parts for nuclear reactors. It also offers existing nuclear waste storage services.

Despite having the permit, Holtec is not fully committed to moving ahead with the project.

“We’re still working with our partners and the key stakeholders to understand what our paths are … what our potential options are. Then we’re going to head forward from that,” the company’s director of government affairs and communications Patrick O’Brien told the Albuquerque Journal in an interview Tuesday.

May 12, 2023 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Robert Kennedy Jr: America needs a revolution

The 2024 outsider on Biden, Ukraine and Covid misinformation, more https://unherd.com/thepost/robert-kennedy-jr-america-needs-a-revolution/ 4 May 23

For decades, as a scion of the Kennedy family and environmental litigator, Robert F. Kennedy Jr was considered an establishment hero. In recent years, however, his rhetoric against Covid lockdowns and vaccines sealed his reputation among most commentators as irresponsible and potentially dangerous. So, since he announced that he was running for president two weeks ago, challenging Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, he has presented the establishment media with something of a conundrum. He is already polling at 20% — should he be ignored or interrogated?

UnHerd‘s Freddie Sayers invited RFK Jr. to the studio to discuss his campaign promises and get behind the controversies.

May 12, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Canada’s radioactive waste and decommissioning policy is a failure

by Ole HendricksonMay 8, 2023   https://rabble.ca/columnists/canadas-radioactive-waste-and-decommissioning-policy-is-a-failure/

Ole Hendrickson argues Canada’s new radioactive waste and decommissioning policy ignores Indigenous rights, public input and international safety standards.

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) issued a news release on March 27 headlined “Now Live: Government of Canada’s Modernized Policy for Radioactive Waste and Decommissioning for Canada.” 

NRCan then waited five more days before making the policy available on its website. 

Why the delay? 

If a government agency knows that information will generate a negative reaction from the public, it posts it quietly on a Friday to minimize media attention. 

The Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) gave the policy a failing grade, saying, “There is no provision for independent management of nuclear waste.”  

Nor does the policy acknowledge Article 29(2) of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

“States shall take effective measures to ensure that no storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or territories of indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent,” the Article reads.

After NRCan released a draft of the policy a year earlier, the Council of Canadians sent out an action alert that triggered 7,400 emails demanding “an independent oversight body free from industry influence to regulate our radioactive waste.” 

Nuclear Waste Watch submitted An Alternative Policy for Canada on Radioactive Waste Management and Decommissioning based on International Atomic Energy Agency safety standards and requirements for decommissioning, waste storage, and waste disposal.

Why does Canada’s new radioactive waste and decommissioning policy ignore Indigenous rights, public input and international safety standards? Is this a desperate attempt to revive a fading nuclear industry by allowing it to ignore its waste problem?

The new policy illustrates the conflict of interest facing NRCan Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, charged with promoting nuclear energy under the Nuclear Energy Act.

When Budget 2023 was tabled, John Gorman, president of the Canadian Nuclear Association, wrote in a LinkedIn post, “I am personally grateful to Minister Wilkinson in particular, and his team of dedicated staff at NRCan (including but not limited to Mollie Johnson, Claire Seaborn, John Hannaford, and Debbie Scharf), who have championed the role of nuclear in Canada.”

As NDP deputy leader Alexander Boulerice noted at a recent press conference, NRCan has been infiltrated by pro-nuclear proponents. 

“They don’t have to knock on the door to get into the house because they own the house,” Boulerice said.

In other OECD countries, multiple competent regulatory authorities are involved in radioactive waste management and decommissioning. Nearly all have a national oversight body.  France also has a national financial evaluation commission to assess the funding of costs of dismantling nuclear installations and of managing spent fuel and other radioactive waste. 

In contrast, Canada suffers from a nuclear waste governance void. Canada’s benign nuclear regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), allows the nuclear industry to propose its own waste disposal projects with limited technical oversight and no financial oversight.  The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is a private organization run by the nuclear utilities that produce the waste.

Canada also now has a weak, hands-off, industry-friendly policy.  

Nuclear non-proliferation experts have warned Canada that extracting plutonium from high-level fuel waste risks weapons proliferation. The policy shirks responsibility for the oversight of plutonium extraction (or “reprocessing”), even as the government has given $50.5 million to a start-up company, Moltex Energy, to develop this technology.

The new policy will allow current projects for abandonment of federal nuclear waste to continue. In 2015, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited contracted private companies to manage its $16 billion waste liability. 

Without prior consultation with local First Nations, these companies (Texas-based Fluor and Jacobs, and SNC-Lavalin), through their Canadian Nuclear Laboratories subsidiary, quickly announced plans to create new permanent waste disposal facilities next to the Ottawa and Winnipeg Rivers.  

Their hastily conceived projects are now dragging through licensing and environmental assessment processes, opposed by municipal governments and citizens’ groups.  

Parliament is responsible for scrutinizing public spending and ensuring proper accountability of expenses. The lack of cost-benefit analysis of disposal projects for the federal government’s own waste is irresponsible. The private companies behind these projects would be happy to receive waste management funds in perpetuity.

The old policy stated clearly that waste owners are responsible for funding waste management facilities “in accordance with the ‘polluter pays’ principle”.  The new policy merely calls upon the industry to develop “conceptual approaches” and to update on “funding plans.” This opens the door to federal subsidies for non-federal waste owners.

The new policy acknowledges for the first time ever that Canada’s nuclear industry is importing waste in the form of radioactive “sealed sources” not of Canadian origin.  These waste imports and other industrial radioactive wastes eventually end up in Canada’s only licensed commercial waste storage facility at AECL’s Chalk River Laboratories, potentially increasing the federal nuclear liability.


The new policy is silent on small modular reactor (SMR) fuel waste. According to a 2022 study in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, SMRs would produce up to 30 times more waste per unit electricity generated, and novel SMR waste types would pose serious disposal challenges.

Rather than requiring transparency in the form of credible cost estimates and technical analyses of safety for disposal facilities in its new policy, the federal government is subsidizing new reactors that will create additional wastes, impose financial burdens on future Canadians, and create risks of nuclear weapons proliferation.  

Canada’s new radioactive waste and decommissioning policy is a failure.

Ole Hendrickson is an ecologist, a former federal research scientist, and chair of the Sierra Club Canada Foundation’s national conservation committee.

May 12, 2023 Posted by | Canada, decommission reactor | Leave a comment

Profitable industry in trying to clean up dead nuclear reactors

Magnox is ready to start a major decommissioning project to clean-up and
demolish four ‘blower house’ superstructures that surround Berkeley
site’s two reactor buildings. Altrad has bagged a £31m contract for the
design, asbestos removal, deplant, demolition and construction works in and
around the blower houses.

The firm will also be supported by Veolia KDC
Decommissioning Services, NSG Environmental, OBR Construction, Mammoet, and
Cavendish Nuclear. Ross McAllister, Magnox programme delivery director
said: “This is one of the largest decommissioning projects that Berkeley
site has seen for several years.

“It was originally planned for the
2070’s so it is fantastic to bring that forward by five decades in our aim
to deliver our mission better, faster and even safer. “The blower houses
circulated gas through the reactors to transfer heat into 310 tonne boilers
to create steam to turn the turbines and generate electricity. The last of
the 15 gigantic metal boilers was transported to Sweden for cleaning,
smelting and recycling in 2013. “The buildings will be emptied of the
residual metallic low-level waste and undergo a full asbestos clean before
being demolished.

Construction Enquirer 10th May 2023

Altrad bags £31m Berkeley nuclear station clean-up job

May 12, 2023 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

US nuclear companies urge Congress for $billions, as Russia’s nuclear industry profits from both sides of the Ukraine war

U.S. companies collectively sent almost $1 billion last year to Rosatom.

“That’s money that’s going right into the defense complex in Russia,”

“We’re funding both sides of the war.”

The West Needs Russia to Power Its Nuclear Comeback. WSJ 10 May 23

U.S., Europe add reactors but still heavily dependent on Moscow for crucial ingredients to produce fuel

Nuclear power in the West is having a long-awaited revival, with new reactors opening in the U.S. and Europe and fresh momentum toward building more soon.

A gaping hole in the plan: The West doesn’t have enough nuclear fuel—and lacks the capacity to swiftly ramp up production. Even more vexing, the biggest source of critical ingredients is Russia and its state monopoly, Rosatom, which is implicated in supporting the war in Ukraine………….

Nuclear power supplies nearly 20% of U.S. electricity, and roughly 25% of European electricity, but in recent decades has struggled to gain traction in most of the West as a green alternative to fossil fuels, for reasons ranging from cost to waste disposal and an erosion of expertise in building reactors.

Pockets of stiff resistance remain: Germany closed its last reactors in April, in a phaseout that began more than a decade ago………………………….

A recent Gallup poll found that Americans are more supportive of the technology than at any point in the past decade…………………………………..

Westinghouse, a storied pioneer of electric power, has struggled in the nuclear sector and repeatedly changed hands amid market swings and tighter industry regulation after the reactor accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima.

A group including private-equity firm Brookfield Asset Management bought Westinghouse for almost $8 billion in October, in a move billed as a bet on nuclear power’s resurgence.

Westinghouse said this month that it next plans to launch a line of smaller reactors that could cost as little as $1 billion each.

Despite the industry’s progress, the dependence on Russian enriched uranium for nuclear fuel has proven intractable. 

Nuclear fuel is one of the few Russian energy sources not banned by the West as a result of the war in Ukraine. The reason is rooted in a program from the early 1990s, soon after the Cold War ended, aimed at shrinking the threat of Soviet nuclear warheads falling into the wrong hands.

Under the 1993 deal, the brainchild of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher named Thomas Neff and dubbed Megatons to Megawatts, the U.S. bought 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium, enough for 20,000 warheads, and had it converted into reactor fuel. 

Arms-control advocates hailed it as a win-win: Moscow got urgently needed cash, Washington reduced its proliferation headache and U.S. utilities got inexpensive fuel. It remains one of the world’s most successful nuclear-disarmament programs.

The deal “did what was promised,” Dr. Neff said in an interview. “We have many fewer nuclear weapons and stuff to make them out of than we did.”

The problem, critics said, was that the deal delivered Russian nuclear fuel so cheaply that rival suppliers struggled to compete. Before long, U.S. and European companies were scaling back and Russia was the world’s biggest supplier of enriched uranium, with nearly half of global capacity.

Before the deal ended in 2013, Russian suppliers, now organized as Rosatom, signed a new contract with the U.S. private sector to provide commercial fuel beyond the government-to-government program. Rosatom still supplies as much as one-fourth of U.S. nuclear fuel.

U.S. companies collectively sent almost $1 billion last year to Rosatom, according to a recent analysis from Darya Dolzikova at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

“That’s money that’s going right into the defense complex in Russia,” said Scott Melbye, executive vice president of uranium miner Uranium Energy and president of the Uranium Producers of America, an industry group. “We’re funding both sides of the war.”

Rosatom was formed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2007 from various parts of the country’s nuclear-power industry and is closely controlled by the Kremlin. Its top managers have been deeply involved in running Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear-power plant, Europe’s largest………………….

A proposed new generation of reactors, which proponents and investors including Microsoft founder Bill Gates are touting as less risky and more environmentally friendly than current reactor designs, requires a special type of fuel that is the nuclear equivalent of high-octane gasoline.

The only source of that fuel today is Rosatom.

……………………….. The multinational Urenco owns one of only two uranium-processing facilities in the U.S., in Eunice, N.M., just across the Texas border. The company says it is spending roughly $200 million on new capacity and can invest much more if Russian uranium is sanctioned.

The catch: It wants government guarantees on quantities allowed in the market.

Urenco’s fear, said Kirk Schnoebelen, head of U.S. sales, is that in several years low-price Russian enriched uranium might swamp world markets, tanking prices……….

But because of the Megatons deal, “the business case for that project was utterly destroyed,” Today that history “absolutely” informs the U.S. nuclear industry’s thinking and makes corporate boards reluctant to invest the necessary billions…..

Westinghouse’s Mr. Fragman said the legislation is long overdue……… https://www.wsj.com/articles/nuclear-power-makes-a-comeback-underpinned-by-russian-uranium-24ed8e12

May 11, 2023 Posted by | politics, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

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