Nuclear Power and Other People’s Money
Arnie Gundersen, https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/05/28/nuclear-power-and-other-peoples-money/
Nuclear Power would never have existed without government handouts and ratepayer subsidies. The commercial nuclear power Gordian knot, from mineral extraction to component manufacturing to reactor operation to Price-Anderson Nuclear Insurance, and ending in waste disposal, exists only because of opium, whoops, OPM, Other People’s Money, in the form of taxpayer subsidies. Intense political pressure from the DC-based Nuclear Energy Institute prevents national and state politicians from cutting that twisted knot into pieces.
The financial problems associated with constructing and operating commercial nuclear power plants and the need for federal subsidies had been identified as early as 1958 by Time Magazine.
“The program needs a strong infusion of Government aid because
commercial nuclear power is so new, complex, and costly that private
companies cannot carry that burden alone,”[1]
And again at the turn of the 21st century according to Scully Capital Services Inc, a Washington-based investment and financial services firm, when the “Nuclear Renaissance” was being hyped by NEI:
“without government participation, some risks and costs of new nuclear reactors may remain at unmanageable levels.” [2]
Just before the Fukushima meltdowns in February 2011, the Union of Concerned Scientists again identified how heavily subsidized nuclear power had been and continued to be:
Government subsidies to the nuclear power industry over the past fifty years have been so large in proportion to the value of the energy produced that in some cases it would have cost taxpayers less to simply buy kilowatts on the open market and give them away… Piling new subsidies on top of existing ones will provide the industry with little incentive to rework its business model to internalize its considerable costs and risks.[3]
In 2018, sixty years after that Time Magazine subsidy analysis, the United States Congressional Research Service issued an analysis[4] of total government energy research and development funding spanning 71 years between 1948 and 2018. The report concluded:
Energy-related research and development (R&D)—on coal-based synthetic petroleum and on atomic bombs—played an important role in the successful outcome of World War II. In the postwar era, the federal government conducted R&D on fossil and nuclear energy sources to support peacetime economic growth. … For the 71-year period from 1948 through 2018, nearly 13% went to renewables, compared with nearly 5% for electric systems, 11% for energy efficiency, 24% for fossil, and 48% for nuclear.
The graph [on original]shows that for seventy years after the secrets of the atom were unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, America plowed almost half (48%) of its research funds into more nuclear subsidies. What did those expenditures buy us? At the peak of the Atoms for Peace nuclear building spree in 1990, nuclear power provided about 20% of America’s electricity. But electricity is only a small part of the total energy America consumes; most of the US energy consumption comes from fossil fuels for transportation and heating. The nation’s overall energy consumption shows that nuclear power provides about 9 percent of the energy that our society runs on[5]. The bottom line is that half of America’s research expenditures over 70 years subsidized nuclear power’s 10% energy contribution. That is hardly a worthwhile investment unless you are the companies receiving all that cash!
I can understand that subsidizing a nascent industry in 1950 might be a reasonable policy decision, but nuclear subsidies have continued for eight decades. When your kids return from college, letting them have their bedroom back might be reasonable. But when the kids turn eighty years old, it’s long past time to end that subsidy. And ending those subsidies is exactly what the Nuclear Energy Institute was created to prevent.
It’s time to pick up the pieces from Atoms for Peace. Without subsidies, nuclear power is simply not competitive with renewable energy.
power is simply not competitive with renewable energy.
NOTES
1. February 10, 1958 Time Magazine ↑
2. July 2002 Business Case for New Nuclear Power Plants, Scully Capital Services, Inc. ↑
3. https://www.ucs.org/resources/nuclear-power-still-not-viable-without-subsidies?utm_source=SP&utm_medium=more&utm_campaign=NuclearSubsidies-02-23-11-more ↑
4. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RS22858, Renewable Energy R&D Funding History: A Comparison with Funding for Nuclear Energy, Fossil Energy, Energy Efficiency, and Electric Systems R&D, CRS Product Number RS22858 ↑
5. https://usafacts.org/articles/what-kinds-of-energy-does-the-us-use/ ↑
Arnie Gundersen is the Chief Engineer, board member, and resident “science guy” at the Fairewinds Energy Education NGO. Since the catastrophe at Fukushima, Arnie focuses his energy worldwide on the migration of radioactive microparticles. During his multiple trips to Japan, Arnie has met and trained community-volunteer citizen-scientists to study the migration of radioactive microparticles from Fukushima in two co-authored peer-reviewed scientific articles.
Spending watchdog warns £38bn cost of Sizewell C nuclear plant is ‘risky’
risks surrounding the project “could easily turn Sizewell C into a financial disaster” while the funding model meant its investors were “the only ones who can’t lose”.
National Audit Office says potential benefits are ‘considerable but uncertain’ while risks are ‘immediate and substantial’
Jillian Ambrose Energy correspondent, Guardian, 20 May 26
The cost of the government’s £38bn nuclear plant in Suffolk is subject to “significant uncertainty” and may outweigh the benefits for UK households until at least 2064, according to the government’s spending watchdog.
The National Audit Office (NAO) has warned that although the potential benefits of the Sizewell C nuclear plant are considerable, they remain uncertain. The risks, however, are “immediate, substantial and borne by the public”.
The government claims the nuclear reactor, expected to generate the equivalent of enough low-carbon electricity to power 6m homes when it begins operations in the late 2030s, could save £2bn a year from the electricity system compared with using other low-carbon technologies.
However, for households the overall savings could be outstripped by the cost of supporting its construction until almost halfway through its 60-year operational life. The project could take even longer to “break even” if there are cost overruns or delays, the NAO warned.
“Sizewell C is a project of exceptional scale, complexity and significance for taxpayers,” said Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the chair of the public accounts committee, which oversees the work of the NAO. “Experience from comparable nuclear projects in the UK and overseas highlights their vulnerability to delays and cost overruns.”
Sizewell C is being developed by French state nuclear company EDF as a successor project to the Hinkley Point C reactor in Somerset, the first nuclear plant to be built in the UK in a decade. It has invested £1.1bn to take a 12.5% stake in the project alongside the UK government, which has invested £14.2bn as the majority stakeholder.
British Gas’s parent company, Centrica, owns 15% of Sizewell C while the Canadian pension fund La Caisse and the investment fund Amber Infrastructure own 20% and 7.6%, respectively……………………………………………….
Households began paying for the Sizewell C project via home energy bills at the start of the year to help fund construction. This financial framework, known as a regulated asset base model, is a marked change from the Hinkley Point deal, which will begin to earn a guaranteed stream of revenues from home energy bills only once it begins generating in the early 2030s.
Critics of the regulated asset base model, including the campaign group Stop Sizewell C, have warned that any construction delays could mean that bill payers support Sizewell without receiving power for longer than expected, while the government would be on the hook for the project’s financial risk.
Stop Sizewell C said the risks surrounding the project “could easily turn Sizewell C into a financial disaster” while the funding model meant its investors were “the only ones who can’t lose”.
The NAO has urged the government to mitigate the risk by using “close monitoring, greater transparency to parliament, and by securing value for money from the significant public and private investment”. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/may/20/spending-watchdog-warns-38bn-cost-of-sizewell-c-nuclear-plant-is-risky
Sizewell C’s financing places more risks on public purse ‘than other electricity projects’
That DESNZ went ahead with the Sizewell C investment decision on the basis that consumers would not benefit until 2064 beggars belief.
New Civil Engineer 20 May, 2026 By Tom Pashby
The financing of Sizewell C has been scrutinised by the National Audit Office (NAO), which found it “places more risks on taxpayers and consumers than other electricity projects” and that benefits to consumers will only outweigh costs after 2060.
In July 2022, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) announced it had secured the final investment decision (FID) for the project on the Suffolk coast, which is expected to produce 3.2GW of electricity.
Achieving the FID meant that investors and the government had agreed the terms on which investment would be put into the project, how returns on investment would work, and what this meant for consumers.
The government confirmed that the project would cost “around £38bn”, nearly double the original £20bn estimate stated by EDF in 2020.
Today’s [20 May] NAO report, simply titled Sizewell C, assessed “the implications of the deal for taxpayers, electricity consumers, and investors, and provides a baseline against which progress can be measured.”
A statement from the NAO, announcing the report, said DESNZ’s “delivery model for Sizewell C places more risks on taxpayers and consumers than other electricity projects, but the Department believes this model has reduced finance costs and will allow the project to be delivered on time and to budget.”
It added that the “novel approach has costs and relies on big assumptions
Once construction at the plant has been completed, the government’s modelling “predicts that the net benefits for consumers could be up to £18bn, primarily delivered through energy bill savings and reduced electricity costs compared to other ways of reaching net zero,” the NAO said.
“However, as a large infrastructure project, DESNZ’s modelling of these benefits shows they will not outweigh the costs to consumers until after 2060.”
The report also assessed the claims by Sizewell C that it will be easier to build because it is largely copying the designs of Hinkley Point C.
The NAO pointed out that Hinkley Point C “is currently expected to cost double its initial projected cost, with a seven-year delay”, and that this “has sparked concerns that these problems may be mirrored in Sizewell C”.
The spending watchdog said DESNZ hoped to avoid repetition of mistakes by “applying the lessons and final designs from Hinkley Point C”, and, as such, “Sizewell C’s plans are already at a much more advanced stage than Hinkley’s were at the equivalent point”.
NAO head Gareth Davies said: “Sizewell C forms a significant part of the government’s plan for a secure and affordable clean energy supply. There has been a concerted attempt to learn from the problems of previous nuclear power construction projects and other large infrastructure schemes.
“This has resulted in a novel financing structure and DESNZ will need to monitor the risks to taxpayers and billpayers closely.”
Public Accounts Committee chair Geoffrey Clifton-Brown commented on the report, raising concerns about the “substantial” risks of Sizewell C, which are being borne by the public.
“Sizewell C is a project of exceptional scale, complexity and significance for taxpayers. Costs are estimated to be £38.2bn, largely financed by government”, he said.
“While the potential benefits are considerable, they remain uncertain; by contrast, the risks are immediate, substantial and borne by the public. Consumers are already contributing through their electricity bills, and the government has assumed most of the project’s financial risk.”
He added: “Experience from comparable nuclear projects in the UK and overseas highlights their vulnerability to delays and cost overruns.
“Although the government has introduced a new delivery and financing model to mitigate these risks, it must now ensure it works in practice through close monitoring, greater transparency to Parliament, and by securing value for money from the significant public and private investment.”
Reaction to the report..…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
University of Greenwich emeritus professor of energy policy Steve Thomas gave NCE his reaction to the NAO report, asking, “Is this the best NAO can do after a year of effort?”
He pointed to a line from the NAO press release about the report, which said: “Sharing risk between the investors and taxpayers and consumers appears to have reduced the cost of financing Sizewell C, but the rewards for investors still appear high.”
He said the statement that financing costs had been reduced was “rubbish on two grounds”.
“First, the finance costs are being paid by consumers in the construction period under the RAB (Regulated Asset Base) surcharge. Getting someone else to pay does not reduce them, it just shifts them.
“Second, the finance is being provided by the government National Wealth Fund and the interest rate will be whatever the government tells it to charge, so if finance charges are lower because the interest rate is reduced, that is because the government has imposed the interest rate.”
The press release also said: “Investor financial returns will cost consumers over £4bn but will be justified if they help the project to cut construction costs and speed up delivery times.” Thomas described this as “unclear”.
He said: “If it refers to the 4.8% of the 10.8% real rate of return investors will be given, that will be a gift from consumers to investors, it is an underestimate. Centrica says that of its £3bn equity contribution, only £1.3bn will come from itself, the rest will come from this 4.8% which investors are required to use as equity contribution.
“Centrica euphemistically describes this as ‘RAB Growth’.”
The NAO statement adds that DESNZ assumes “the involvement of private investors is justified, as their expertise will reduce construction costs and speed up delivery.”
In response, University of Greenwich academic Thomas asks: “What expertise does La Caisse, Centrica, NLF have on building nuclear projects? EDF has expertise but that didn’t stop Hinkley, Flamanville, and even Taishan going horribly wrong.”
He also questions the government’s use of £38.2bn as a baseline cost for Sizewell C, describing it as “wrong”, because the lower regulatory threshold cost is £40.5bn, which the government is using as its central estimate.
“£38.2bn is clearly the lower end of the range. A very basic element of project appraisal is to use central estimates, not bottom of the range ones,” he added.
A Stop Sizewell C spokesperson told NCE that the campaign group shares a lot of the NAO’s concerns, and asked for the government to commit to a public, “realistic” completion date for the project.
“The NAO’s report confirms what we already suspected – that ‘big assumptions’ and the ‘significant uncertainty’ of factors underpinning DESNZ’s claimed benefits could easily turn Sizewell C into a financial disaster, with its investors – thanks to RAB – being the only ones who can’t lose,” the spokesperson said.
“As the NAO confirms, households are relying on those investors to produce significant savings and reduce Sizewell C’s construction time to justify the nuclear tax on our energy bills, but we share the NAO’s questions about whether investors can or have the incentives to do this.”
They added: “We had asked the NAO to look at Sizewell C before it reached Final Investment Decision and are dismayed it did not do so, but at least some critical information withheld by the government is now in the public domain.
“We agree with the NAO that DESNZ must provide transparency of forecast cost and schedule for Sizewell C. We call for the government’s promised Sizewell C Strategy and Delivery plan, containing a public, realistic completion date, to be laid before parliament immediately.”
Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) also called for the NAO to “carry out a review of the Value for Money assessment supporting the government decision” to pursue Sizewell C.
TASC spokesperson Chris Wilson told NCE: “The NAO report regarding the Sizewell C project confirms that this government’s ideological pursuit of nuclear power is based on hope and belief rather than objective judgement.
“Ignoring all the warnings and project risks, the usual optimism bias regularly expounded by the nuclear industry is there in spades, at the same time negative assumptions are made about the cost of renewables
“That DESNZ went ahead with the Sizewell C investment decision on the basis that consumers would not benefit until 2064 beggars belief.
“The NAO report highlights a stark imbalance in DESNZ’s Sizewell C funding model: the investors are shielded from risk while reaping massive profits, leaving the public purse and electricity consumers to shoulder an unfair and excessive financial burden.”
Wilson added: “A major concern highlighted by the NAO is the lack of incentive for EDF to complete Sizewell C on time and budget – they will get paid to develop and supply major components while receiving a guaranteed return on their investment.
“EDF have been involved in every previous EPR reactor project and all of them have gone woefully over time and budget – they now have the added distraction and priority of building the new EPR2 reactor programme in France. What could possibly go wrong?”
Power from Sizewell C will be more expensive than Hinkley Point, says UK watchdog
National Audit Office report says consumers will pay higher
amount for energy from Suffolk project compared to its Somerset
counterpart. Electricity from the Sizewell C nuclear project is set to be
more expensive than power from Hinkley Point, even though the Suffolk plant
is cheaper to build, Britain’s public spending watchdog has said.
Sizewell C is on course to cost about 22 per cent less than Hinkley Point
C, which is being built in Somerset. But the latter has agreed to sell its
electricity at a fixed price, limiting the cost to end users because
developer EDF has to absorb any cost overruns.
A National Audit Office
report published on Wednesday estimates that if construction costs are in
line with forecasts of £38bn-£48bn, electricity from Sizewell C will cost
between £131-£155 per megawatt hour in 2024-2025 prices. This compares to
£129 per MWh for electricity from Hinkley Point C.
The government and a
consortium of developers had regularly highlighted that Sizewell C would be
cheaper to build than Hinkley amid concerns about the cost of the project.
But the NAO report says: “Although Sizewell C should cost less to build
than Hinkley Point C, it is likely that consumers will pay more for
energy . . . because the price of Hinkley’s electricity was set
before its cost over-ran (which has been borne by EDF), and the cost of
borrowing has also increased since then.”
FT 20th May 2026,
https://www.ft.com/content/c3bf8b2d-5f9f-4f3a-bd30-e86bb9a320f2
5 Stocks That Benefit From the Government’s $94 Million Spending Spree on Nuclear Reactors.
The Trump administration is giving out money to small
nuclear reactor projects, and a handful of public companies should benefit.
The Energy Department announced $94 million worth of cost-sharing grants to
build out America’s nuclear infrastructure.
The government will pay for
up to 50% of the projects. It’s the second such grant given out to
nuclear players. The first one went to the Tennessee Valley Authority, a
federally controlled utility, and Holtec, a privately held nuclear operator
that’s building small reactors. Holtec is expected to go public sometime
this year.
The government’s involvement is meant to fast-track a U.S,
nuclear renaissance, which has moved slowly so far because most private
companies don’t want to take the financial risk.
Barrons 15th May 2026,
https://www.barrons.com/articles/nuclear-reactor-stocks-e23d92f1
Questions grow in Belgium over plan to nationalize Engie nuclear plants.
Government faces scrutiny over reactor restart costs and long-term energy strategy
Seyma Erkul Dayanc, 15 May 2026,
Questions are growing in Belgium over the government’s plan to acquire the Belgian nuclear activities of French energy company Engie, according to French daily Le Monde on Friday.
The project, backed by Prime Minister Bart De Wever, comes as five of Belgium’s seven nuclear reactors remain shut down, with some already undergoing dismantling procedures.
Le Monde reported that restarting the inactive reactors could require investments estimated between €3 billion ($3.4 billion) and €4 billion ($4.5 billion), particularly to comply with post-Fukushima safety standards.
The Belgian government has already decided to extend the operation of two reactors — Tihange 3 and Doel 4 — by 10 years.
The report added that financial and technical audits will be carried out before a memorandum of understanding (MoU) expected by Oct. 1.
“There is always a possibility that there will be no agreement,” Belgian Energy Minister Mathieu Bihet said.
AA 15th May 2026, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/questions-grow-in-belgium-over-plan-to-nationalize-engie-nuclear-plants/3938781
While Pentagon Spends Billions on War, Military Families Say They’re Getting Short-Changed
Spouses of deployed military say they’re struggling with the costs of child care, groceries, housing.
CAPITAL & MAIN, 13, 2026, By Marcus Baram
On April 21, nearly two months into the Iran war, the Pentagon unveiled a $1.5 trillion budget request that promised to bolster services for members of the military and their families.
The proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins in September includes $90 million in additional funding specifically for the design of military child development centers and barracks, as well as pay increases ranging from 5% to 7% for service members.
“With this funding request, we directly invest in our people, recognizing and respecting our warfighters, their families and the daily sacrifices they both make for our nation,” said Lt. Gen. Steven P. Whitney, who oversees force structure, resources and assessment at the mammoth agency.
But for some military families whose loved ones are currently deployed overseas, those changes may be too little, too late. The vast sums being spent on the war effort, at least $29 billion as of May 12, has not prompted the Trump administration to provide enough support services to help those families cope with their extra burdens.
The war-related inflation — gas prices rising more than $1.50 a gallon, higher energy bills and more expensive groceries — is hitting military families especially hard, say spouses of active-duty military and advocacy groups for military families. They also say that they’re not seeing the support services that have been offered during previous wars, such as the Iraq War.
“Our costs keep rising and it’s hard to keep up,” said the wife of a serviceman deployed overseas in the Mideast since last fall. She lives near a cluster of military bases south of Denver, has a full-time job and is studying at night for her PhD, forcing her to pay for babysitting for her 8-year-old son. She and another spouse of active-duty military deployed in the Middle East requested anonymity to speak openly due to their fears of reprisal.
The Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment.
Before the government shutdown last fall, the Military Families Advisory Network surveyed members and found that one in four active duty military families were struggling with food insecurity. The group is finalizing a more recent survey and already sees that the degree of food insecurity has “significantly increased,” said Shannon Razsadin, the executive director of the group.
“One of the things that families are citing as a pain point is the rising cost of groceries, which is one of the first times that we’ve seen that specifically called out in the research.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://capitalandmain.com/while-pentagon-spends-billions-on-war-military-families-say-theyre-getting-short-changed
Brookfield wants to revive a South Carolina megaproject failure known as ‘Nukegate.’ Can it succeed where others failed?
What could go wrong?
At V.C. Summer, the first time around, almost everything did.
By the time 2016 rolled around, the original budget had nearly been spent, construction wasn’t even half-finished, and Westinghouse’s relations with key partners had degenerated into finger-pointing, lawsuits and withheld payments
Santee Cooper’s CEO retired. Prosecutors targeted top officials at the companies involved: SCANA’s former CEO was among those sentenced to prison time
Perhaps the biggest wild card dealt to Brookfield is President Trump.
One of the most daunting hurdles for nuclear projects is obtaining financing. Mr. Trump seemingly made that easier: Just days after Santee Cooper announced its partnership with Brookfield, the U.S. government announced that Japan had agreed to provide up to US$332-billion toward building energy infrastructure on American soil; at least US$80-billion had been specifically earmarked for Westinghouse reactors.
Matthew McClearn, The Globe and Mail, May 8, 2026, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-brookfield-vc-summer-nuclear-project-south-carolina/
The Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Station, in a sparsely populated corner of Fairfield County, S.C., is a graveyard for nuclear dreams.
Nearly a decade ago, the termination of construction of its two reactors (known as Units 2 and 3) marked an end to hopes of a rejuvenation of American nuclear energy. It bankrupted storied companies. It spawned lawsuits and sent executives to prison. It’s been called the biggest business failure in South Carolina’s history – or just “Nukegate.”
Since workers abruptly departed in 2017, new tenants, including vultures and Canada geese have taken up residence. So far this year, the plant’s owner, Santee Cooper, has identified 14 osprey nests, some atop utility poles. Especially when nesting, the ospreys have “no sense of humour at all,” said Steve Nance, the company’s director of nuclear production and development. With wingspans of about a metre, they’ve been known to attack people and drones.
“They’re extremely territorial,” he said. “If you get close to the light pole, she’ll take off. You’ve got about five minutes before you’re going to get a visit.”
Nonetheless, people are returning to V.C. Summer. Inside a warehouse, roughly 30 workers from nuclear giant Westinghouse Electric Co. have begun reviewing and scanning 5,200 large cardboard boxes of documents. They were generated during construction, which was aborted abruptly in 2017 amid massive delays and cost overruns. Studying them is part of an effort to assess what’s necessary to finish the job.
Eight years after its purchase of Westinghouse, the Brookfield BN-T -1.65%decrease empire (which is now based in New York, but has Canadian roots) stands to reap a huge windfallthat would validate its nuclear gambit.
Santee Cooper, the state-owned utility, selected Brookfield Asset Management as its preferred buyer for the incomplete units. This opportunity squares well with U.S. President Donald Trump’s ambition to reinvigorate the American nuclear sector, and he has publicly identified Westinghouse reactors as a preferred choice for construction.
What could go wrong?
At V.C. Summer, the first time around, almost everything did. Now, Brookfield must deliver what the U.S. nuclear industry’s best and brightest could not, even as it enters business arrangements that bind it more closely with the capricious Trump administration. Its reputation as a shrewd risk manager, built over many decades, is about to undergo what could be its most formidable test.
Brookfield’s nuclear gambit
Located less than an hour’s drive northwest of Columbia, South Carolina’s capital, the Units 2 and 3 construction site sprawls over more than 1,000 hectares. Located roughly a kilometre away, the original unit has generated power since the 1980s.
Each of the two units features a large cylindrical structure that would have housed an AP1000 reactor, Westinghouse’s flagship product. Inside Unit 2’s cavernous, roofless structure, the reactor vessel is already concealed by concrete. Those permitted to visit the site can stand inside a tank designed to store 2.4 million litres of water, which would be released into the reactor by an explosive valve during a dire emergency. The silence is punctuated by the sound of dripping water and the occasional indignant, whistling cry of an angry osprey overhead.
Nearby, a larger, skeletal rectangular structure houses steam turbines and other equipment. Inside Unit 2’s turbine building rest three large Hyundai 9,000-horsepower electric pumps. They’re open to the weather but have been maintained: Santee Cooper spent several million dollars annually on maintenance throughout the plant.
“The guys come and rotate them, change oils and desiccant bags,” Mr. Nance said of the giant pumps.
“They do preventative maintenance on them as if they were in service. And that’s what’s going to keep us from having to replace them.”
Large white storage tents scatter the site. Inside one, Unit 3’s 420-ton reactor pressure vessel rests on its side, covered in a thin layer of rust.
Another tent nearby contains two towering assemblies known as integrated head packages, which would be placed atop the reactor vessels. Each weigh about 360 tons and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
In another tent sit four bright yellow Caterpillar diesel generators, which look brand new. The 500-ton crane used to lift components into place, though disassembled, remains on-site.
Mr. Nance said that under the original contract, Westinghouse and its partners got paid to deliver equipment, whether installed or not. The upshot is that an estimated 85 per cent of components required to finish both units are already there. Inspections thus far offer a favourable prognosis on their condition, he added: “So far, nobody’s found any showstoppers or deal-breakers.”
That’s part of Santee Cooper’s pitch to Brookfield: Whoever else might answer Mr. Trump’s call to construct AP1000s, the V.C. Summer units have a considerable head start.
Brookfield’s journey to commencing what has been dubbed the first privately funded nuclear project in American history was circuitous. In 2017, an opportunity arose when Westinghouse sought protection from its creditors. Brookfield’s private equity unit bought the stricken company for US$4-billion – far less than the cost of a single nuclear reactor.
It was a gamble.
Westinghouse’s roots date from the nuclear age’s earliest days, having designed and supplied the world’s very first commercial pressurized water reactor in Shippingport, Pennsylvania. It went on to dominate: Most reactors worldwide are pressurized water reactors, and most of those use Westinghouse technology.
By virtue of that legacy, Westinghouse held more than 1,500 patents. Its intellectual property included the AP1000, among the few reactor designs already certified by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC. Westinghouse also had talent, employing 11,500.
But Westinghouse’s collapse did great violence to its prestige. Having botched V.C. Summer so completely, it was hard to conceive how it could attract further orders for AP1000s.
Fortunately, there was more to Westinghouse’s business: It was also a major service provider to utilities, earning revenues during regular outages when reactors needed refuelling and maintenance. “We could really see a path to seeing our returns in that part of the business,” said Jennifer Mazin, a Brookfield partner who sits on Westinghouse’s board, at a conference held by CIBC in Toronto in March. (Brookfield declined several interview requests for this story over a period of a few months.)
Sales prospects for AP1000s have improved considerably since then. Last year, Mr. Trump issued a flurry of executive orders, one of which demanded that construction begin on 10 large new reactors on American soil by 2030. Another order initiated a radical restructuring of the NRC aimed at speeding the permitting process. Yet another order called on the Secretary of Energy to prioritize “completing construction of nuclear reactors that was prematurely suspended.”
Jimmy Staton, Santee Cooper’s chief executive, had already been looking for ways to restart construction. Reading that executive order, he said, “we had a pretty good idea” Mr. Trump meant V.C. Summer.
“The government’s very supportive of this,” he added.
Brookfield agreed to buy the two V.C. Summer units on a “as-is, where-is” basis and finish the job. It’ll pay Santee Cooper US$2.7-billion in exchange for a 75-per-cent ownership stake. (Santee Cooper would retain the remaining quarter.) Potential buyers for the electricity include large data companies, or other utilities in South Carolina, Mr. Staton said.
Brookfield must finish assessing the project’s feasibility and report back to Santee Cooper on a proposed schedule for completing construction. Arriving at a decision on whether to proceed is expected to take between 18 and 24 months, and could cost as much as US$200-million. Mr. Staton said that according to early estimates, it could take five to seven years to finish the plant.
Brookfield can still back out. But if it proceeds, it will accept risks that Westinghouse itself has sworn off.
Unmitigated disaster
Westinghouse had long acted largely as a reactor designer, providing crucial plans that others could use to build nuclear plants.
That changed after Japan’s Toshiba Corp. purchased the company in 2006. Two years later, Westinghouse signed an agreement with Santee Cooper and its partners (the most important of which was South Carolina Electric & Gas, or SCE&G) to build V.C. Summer Units 2 and 3, at an estimated cost of about US$9.8-billion. Westinghouse guaranteed completion of the first reactor by April 1, 2016, the second by 2019 – and agreed to substantial penalties if it missed those targets.
It was a risky move for Westinghouse and also for South Carolinians. That’s because SCE&G had persuaded state lawmakers to introduce legislation that would allow it to recover some of its capital costs during construction.
Scott Elliott is a Columbia-based lawyer who practices mainly before the South Carolina Public Service Commission. His client roster includes the South Carolina Energy Users Committee, which represents large industrial power users. Its members were happy to have a nuclear plant, he said, but worried about the legislation’s implications.
“It made it awfully easy for SCE&G, and the utilities in general, to raise rates,” he said.
Those fears were realized after V.C. Summer got off to a bad start. After Westinghouse had already signed the contracts, the NRC demanded changes to the AP1000’s design, leading to early delays. Concrete wasn’t poured until 2013. Unavailability of basic materials such as standard rebar led to further delays.
“There were like five cost overrun proceedings,” Mr. Elliott recalled.
“And they kept going up: $200-million, then $500-million, and the last one was over $1-billion.”
By the time 2016 rolled around, the original budget had nearly been spent, construction wasn’t even half-finished, and Westinghouse’s relations with key partners had degenerated into finger-pointing, lawsuits and withheld payments.
“I don’t think Westinghouse knew what they were doing,” Mr. Elliott said.
Westinghouse faced a dilemma: It could either pony up the additional billions of dollars needed to complete the plant, or bail out and pay massive penalties. Unable to afford either option, it applied for court protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
The fallout was ugly for all involved.
Toshiba withdrew from the reactor-building business and took a US$6-billion writeoff. It eventually agreed to pay US$2.2-billion to exit its obligations.
SCE&G’s owner, SCANA Corp., abandoned the project in 2017. Teetering on bankruptcy, SCANA agreed to merge with Dominion Energy Inc. within months.
Santee Cooper’s CEO retired. Prosecutors targeted top officials at the companies involved: SCANA’s former CEO was among those sentenced to prison time.
Worsening matters, V.C. Summer wasn’t Westinghouse’s only failed project. It was simultaneously the main contractor on two nearly identical units under construction at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia, just two hours away by road.
Georgia Power teamed up with new partners to complete Vogtle. Its AP1000s started generating power in 2023 and 2024, seven years late. The two units cost nearly US$37-billion, as compared to an original budget of US$14-billion. Vogtle has been dubbed the most expensive power plant ever built.
Take two
One lesson from V.C. Summer and Vogtle is that when building a nuclear power plant, one must select one’s partners carefully.
Read more: Brookfield wants to revive a South Carolina megaproject failure known as ‘Nukegate.’ Can it succeed where others failed?Contracts must be structured such that all parties are motivated to solve problems as they arise – because they inevitably will.
After Chapter 11, Westinghouse vowed to never again assume the huge risks of constructing a nuclear plant. Brookfield has deep experience in power generation generally, and has also worked on complex hydroelectric, real estate and infrastructure projects. But it has never before built a nuclear plant. Can it woo the right partners on the right terms?
This could be tricky.
Experts told The Globe that it will probably need a utility partner that is licensed as a nuclear operator by the NRC.
“Let’s say they build the danged things,” said Mr. Elliott. “State law would require them, if they’re going to sell the electricity, to be a regulated utility.”
For Santee Cooper’s part, Mr. Staton makes it clear he has no intention of assuming more risk or contributing capital to the project. It’s Brookfield’s show.
“I feel like we found the best partner in Brookfield,” he said.
“They have a great balance sheet. Most importantly, though, they are risk managers.”
But Brookfield is not keen to repeat Westinghouse’s mistake of shouldering the bulk of the project’s risks. At the CIBC conference, Ms. Mazin said Brookfield regards creating a “risk-sharing model” among the parties involved as crucial to the project’s success.
“We’re looking at all the components of having off-takers, utility, lenders, governments, partners, share risk,” she said.
Brookfield can further reduce risk by not overpaying for the project. As compared to the US$9-billion that Santee Cooper and its partners reportedly spent on the project, the US$2.7-billion Brookfield has promised to pay might seem like a steal.
Tom Clements, an activist and director of Savannah River Site Watch who intervened for many years before the Public Services Commission concerning the project, doubts rosy assessments of the plant’s condition. His organization monitors energy and nuclear issues, particularly nuclear wastes and plutonium management at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. He points out that much of the plant’s equipment has been exposed to the elements.
A bigger concern, he added, is that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must certify that plant equipment meets a high standard known as “nuclear quality.” But NRC inspections ceased after the project was halted.
“The fact that Santee Cooper may have been keeping it in buildings with air temperature and humidity controlled, I don’t know if that’s enough to certify that they’re nuclear qualified – the valves, the pipes, the pumps, the whole bit.”
An additional complication is that some plant components were sold. Mr. Staton confirmed that “small components here and there” had been sold to Vogtle as replacement parts, and Santee Cooper also struck an arrangement to sell plant components to Ukraine, which had been exploring construction of AP1000s.
On the other hand, the AP1000’s design has matured greatly during the last 20 years. Mr. Staton said Vogtle’s completion represents a tremendous advantage: It allows would-be AP1000 builders to learn from previous mistakes, and hire professionals who’ve already built one.
“We’ll be able to bring that kind of experience to the table here in South Carolina,” Mr. Staton said.
To that end, Brookfield announced earlier this month that it had formed a partnership with The Nuclear Company, a startup unveiled in 2023 that has hired dozens of former Vogtle and V.C. Summer veterans (some out of retirement) and markets itself as having been “built on the field of Vogtle.” The two partners will establish a new company specializing in deployment of Westinghouse reactors, including the AP1000 – and Brookfield has selected the new company as project manager to complete the V.C. Summer units.
Moreover, Westinghouse recently submitted an application to the NRC seeking to establish Vogtle Unit 4 as the standard design for future AP1000 deployments.
Uneasy bedfellows
Perhaps the biggest wild card dealt to Brookfield is President Trump.
One of the most daunting hurdles for nuclear projects is obtaining financing. Mr. Trump seemingly made that easier: Just days after Santee Cooper announced its partnership with Brookfield, the U.S. government announced that Japan had agreed to provide up to US$332-billion toward building energy infrastructure on American soil; at least US$80-billion had been specifically earmarked for Westinghouse reactors.
Santee Cooper said the unfinished V.C. Summer units will not qualify for that financing. But that money could springboard new AP1000 constructions. In a conference call late last year, Brookfield Asset Management’s then-president, Connor Teskey, said that funding “positions Brookfield at the centre of a historic build-out of clean baseload power, creating one of the most compelling growth opportunities across our transition platform, and potentially one of the most successful investments in Brookfield’s history.”
But Mr. Clements, of Savannah River Site Watch, noted that in the year since that financing was announced, there haven’t yet been any takers.
“Where are the electric utilities that are in on the deal, saying, ‘We want two of these AP1000s right here’?” Mr. Clements asked.
“They’re all looking at Vogtle and they don’t want to get burned. So who’s going to be first out of the gate?”
Brookfield’s co-owner of Westinghouse, Saskatoon-based uranium miner Cameco Corp., has acknowledged uncertainties about what might come out of Westinghouse’s arrangement with the U.S. government. In a recent filing, it noted that Westinghouse’s financial performance will depend on “the ability of the executive branch of the US government to obtain funding and support for the deployments” – a reminder that it’s not a done deal.
If the U.S. government places a final order of US$80-billion for Westinghouse reactors, it earns the right to 20 per cent of the resulting profits, worth about US$17.5-billion. And if Westinghouse reached a valuation of at least US$30-billion by January, 2029, the government could acquire a 20-per-cent ownership stake in Westinghouse.
Brookfield says that stake would come without governance rights. It regards the U.S. government as an unbeatable partner: that US$30-billion target valuation is more than seven times what Brookfield paid for the company in 2018.
Another perennial challenge for nuclear projects is acquiring permits. But Mr. Trump has quickly retooled the U.S. nuclear industry’s regulatory apparatus with a view of establishing “lasting American dominance.” One of his executive orders argued the NRC’s long licensing processes had brought development of nuclear power in the U.S. to a halt. The NRC had “tried to insulate Americans from the most remote risks,” according to Mr. Trump, who ordered it be reorganized; licence applications must henceforth be processed in 18 months or less.
Mr. Clements said that as recently as a few years ago, re-applying for licences for V.C. Summer would have been arduous. But “the way things are going in this country, it may be just a pretty simple process with the NRC,” he conceded.
But if all of this seemingly puts wind in Brookfield’s sails, Mr. Trump’s relations with partners and allies are famously tumultuous. For Brookfield, the price of dissatisfying him are incalculable, but potentially steep.
By some accounts, the Trump administration has already become restless. Citing nine unnamed industry and government sources, Canary Media (an American non-profit news organization covering energy, particularly renewables) reported in March that the administration had begun talks with representatives for two Westinghouse rivals: GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy and Korea Electric Power Corp. The report asserted that the U.S. Department of Energy felt Westinghouse and Brookfield are moving too slowly.
History suggests nuclear projects require much patience.
Chris Gadomski, lead nuclear energy analyst with BloombergNEF, said that while government policy can help get nuclear plants built, it’s not enough: Utilities, which are typically cautious, must spend large sums and assume great risks.
“I’ve talked to operators of large U.S. fleets about starting 10 large reactors by the end of Trump’s second term. And the response was just laughter – it’s never going to happen.”
Mr. Elliott, the Columbia-based lawyer, said Brookfield was virtually unknown in South Carolina, but completing V.C. Summer could elevate it to heroic status.
“Based on my history with this project, I’ll believe it when I see it.”
The AI Mythos: If We Can Destroy the World, Imagine What We Can Do for Your Hedge Fund
Jim Naureckas, May 8, 2026, https://fair.org/home/the-ai-mythos-if-we-can-destroy-the-world-imagine-what-we-can-do-for-your-hedge-fund/
You ever wonder why people who make AI talk about how AI might destroy humanity—but still keep making AI? Brian Phillips of the Ringer (5/6/26) has a plausible explanation.
Writing about Anthropic’s announcement that it wasn’t going to release a new product, Claude Mythos, to the public because it was too dangerous, Phillips notes:
The AI industry has been driven from the beginning by wildly overwrought claims, many of them pertaining to the destructive potential of its products. Too dangerous to release to the public is a move the industry has pulled before
It may seem like a strange tactic for companies to scaremonger about their own products. When Ford rolls out a new pickup truck, the CEO generally doesn’t go around giving keynote addresses about how much more lethal it will make American highways. But the AI industry is selling a narrative—a mythos, if you will—as much as it’s selling a product, and that narrative is one of revolutionary, transformational power. “Our product can make your life a bit easier, although there are still a lot of kinks to iron out” is not a trillion-dollar sales pitch; “we’ve invented something so powerful that it has the potential to destroy humanity” is.
In this read, apocalyptic narratives about AI are largely if not entirely designed to justify more investment in a technology that has already sucked up so much money that analysts wonder if it will ever show a profit:
Think about the way the industry talks about itself. AI isn’t just another tech gizmo. It’s bigger than the internet. It’s bigger than the smartphone. It’s going to reshape human society. It’s going to put millions out of work. It’s going to eliminate money. It’s going to surpass human intelligence. It’s going to replace humans altogether. It’s going to kill all humans. It’s going to be profitable beyond your wildest dreams, at least at some point, although definitely not today.
This serves, says Philips,
products thus far have been largely underwhelming. If the integration of AI into Google Search had been rolled out quietly and evaluated on its merits, it would have gone down as one of the most disastrous tech launches of all time. Your only job is to give me accurate information; you did a decent job of it yesterday, and today you’re telling me to put glue on pizza? But when the same rollout comes slathered in hype—when I’ve been conditioned to experience it as part of a narrative about civilizationally transformative technological innovation—I’m less likely to judge it on its merits, because even its shortcomings can be reframed as marks of the disruptive nature of progress.
And this is why it makes sense for Anthropic to talk about how their latest creation could destroy the internet: If it’s that powerful, maybe it’s worth giving its creators $1 trillion (which is what it’s hoping to raise in an IPO), in hopes that you’ll own a piece of that power:
The tendency of AI companies to talk about the dangers of their products may make people hate the industry (and people really hate the industry). But it also keeps people from saying, “This is kind of neat, I guess? But it’s super buggy and not all that useful.” The Mythos announcement can be understood in that light: It might make people leery of Anthropic, but it makes Mythos seem like a huge deal, which is ultimately what Anthropic wants.
Note that in the nerd culture that dominates Silicon Valley, the first association with the word “mythos” is the Cthulhu Mythos, a series of horror stories about an alien monster that will one day destroy humanity. That’s very on brand.
The billion-dollar boondoggle: how Vogtle became the US’s monument to nuclear folly
by Paul Hockenos, 29 Apr 2026, https://energytransition.org/2026/04/the-billion-dollar-boondoggle-how-vogtle-became-the-uss-monument-to-nuclear-folly/#more-30303
In the quiet scrubland of Waynesboro, Georgia, two enormous concrete domes rise from the landscape. Vogtle Units 3 and 4, the first new nuclear reactors built in the US in more than 30 years, were once touted as the rebirth of US American nuclear ambition. Instead, they have become a monument to mismanagement and cost overruns – conclusive evidence that nuclear power is a nonstarter. Paul Hockenos reports.
The story of Vogtle is a cautionary tale illustrating that nuclear power cannot be delivered cheaply, quickly and reliably in democratic societies with up-to-scratch regulatory systems. Time and again, from South Korea’s reactors at Shin Kori and Shin Wolsong to Finland’s Olkiluoto-3 and France’s Flamanville EPR, on-the-ground experience has proven otherwise. Vogtle belongs squarely in that lineage, but with a uniquely US American twist: the financial burden has been shifted almost entirely onto the backs of ordinary consumers.
A promise of renaissance
The Georgia Public Service Commission approved the project in 2009: two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, at a cost of USD 14 billion in total, online by 2016 and 2017. Clean, reliable emissions-free baseload power – an answer to climate change that didn’t depend on fickle solar output or fossil gas.
But by the time the reactors finally limped into commercial service – Unit 3 in July 2023 and Unit 4 in April 2024 – the price tag had swollen to more than USD 36.8 billion, cementing Vogtle’s place as the most expensive power plant ever built in human history. Not even the notorious cost spirals of European nuclear megaprojects come close: Finland’s Olkiluoto-3 ballooned to €11 billion, meaning that Vogtle surpassed that threefold.
This is not simply a cost overrun but rather a systemic indictment of the nuclear construction model: slow, labour intensive, technologically rigid and utterly incompatible with modern energy economics.
Ratepayers foot the bill
The primary victims of this financial misadventure are Georgia Power’s 2.7 million customers, many of whom were compelled to subsidize the reactors long before they produced a single kilowatt-hour of electricity. Thanks to a legislative instrument called Construction Work in Progress, households were effectively forced to act as involuntary venture capitalists, paying roughly USD 1,000 per household in advance charges.
Georgia Power collected USD 17 billion in profits during the construction period, while shareholder losses were capped at around USD 3 billion. Ratepayers, meanwhile, will carry billions in future costs for decades. This is why they pay the highest power bills in the US.
Now that the reactors are online, the financial pressure has only intensified. Residential electricity rates have jumped roughly 24 per cent, with new hikes expected. Analysts estimate that electricity from the new units is five times more expensive than equivalent capacity from solar plus battery storage – an astonishing figure in a region with some of the best solar potential in the US.
A cascade of failures
To understand how Vogtle spiralled into a USD-22-billion cost-overrun fiasco, one must examine the full sequence of missteps – a textbook example of how nuclear megaprojects fail globally.
One of the most consequential errors occurred before construction even began. Westinghouse launched the project without a completed reactor design, a mistake so fundamental it borders on negligence. This error echoed Europe’s nuclear struggles at Olkiluoto and Flamanville, where partially completed designs led to cascading construction problems. In 2017, Westinghouse – burdened by the Vogtle AP1000 debacle – filed for bankruptcy.
That collapse forced Vogtle’s owners to take over the direct management of the project, a role for which they were ill-prepared. What followed was a sprawling mess of renegotiated contracts and design revisions. Independent monitors documented that Georgia Power repeatedly provided ‘materially inaccurate cost estimates’, undermining any possibility of regulatory oversight. Nevertheless, the Public Service Commission allowed construction to continue and rejected its own staff’s recommendations to cancel the project – decisions that are costing Georgians billions.
Then came the workforce crisis. Because the US had not built a nuclear reactor in decades, the skilled labour pipeline had atrophied. Vogtle thus became a crash-course training ground for thousands of inexperienced workers. Attrition among electricians reached 50 per cent. Component failure rates hit 80 per cent at times, necessitating extensive and costly do-overs.
The result is damning: a project lost in its own complexity, burdened by the weight of an entire industry that had forgotten how to build what it claimed to champion.
What Georgia could have had instead
What makes Vogtle’s story especially tragic is not merely what Georgians must now pay, but what they could have had. The nearly USD 37 billion could have financed a diversified portfolio of renewable energy: solar farms, battery storage and energy efficiency upgrades that would have delivered more capacity at lower cost and in far less time.
Renewable energy has evolved into something antithetical to nuclear power: decentralized, modular and increasingly affordable systems that can be scaled rapidly without the all-or-nothing risks of nuclear megaprojects. Just about everywhere in the world, solar and wind are being installed in record volumes precisely because they are nimble, predictable and financially transparent. Nuclear, by contrast, requires vast upfront capital, long construction timelines and political intervention to remain viable.
Georgia, with its abundant sunshine and growing distributed-energy ecosystem, could have led the US South into a new era of affordable clean power. Instead, its utility regulators locked the state into a nuclear future that its customers regret.
The lessons of Vogtle
Vogtle Units 3 and 4 were marketed as a blueprint for America’s nuclear future. In reality, they have demonstrated that the economics of traditional nuclear construction in the US are fundamentally broken. Not broken at the margins, but broken at the core – structurally, financially and technologically.
This project, like so many others, depended not on engineering brilliance but on regulatory leniency, optimistic accounting and public subsidy. Its failures are not the product of unfortunate circumstance, but of a model that no longer fits the realities of modern energy infrastructure.
The legacy of Vogtle is thus a warning to policymakers, regulators and utility executives: nuclear power, in its large-scale conventional form, cannot compete in the contemporary energy economy – not on cost, not on time and not without burdening the very people it claims to serve.
For ratepayers, Vogtle is a generational misfortune. For the nuclear industry, it is another nail in the coffin of the ‘renaissance’ that never arrives. And for everyone concerned about climate change, it is a reminder that the clean energy transition cannot afford fantasies, wishful thinking or vanity megaprojects.
One would think the lessons of Vogtle incontrovertible. But in May 2024, the Biden administration’s energy secretary Jennifer Granholm attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the recently connected units. Her conclusions were very different: she predicted that 198 more such large-scale reactors will join the Vogtle units, which she considered a success story.
What Georgia has built is not a triumph of American ingenuity but rather a fraud that should speak the final word on nuclear power in the US.
Trump calls US seizure of Iranian ships ‘profitable’ amid Hormuz tensions
U.S. President Donald Trump described the U.S. Navy’s seizure of Iranian-linked vessels in the Strait of Hormuz as “a very profitable business,” saying Washington had taken control of cargo and oil as part of its maritime blockade.
“We took over the cargo. Took over the oil, a very profitable business,” Trump said during an event in Florida. “We’re sort of like pirates, but we’re not playing games.”
Defending the move, Trump accused Iran of using the Strait of Hormuz as a strategic pressure tool, saying the United States responded by imposing its own restrictions.
On diplomacy, Trump cast doubt on the prospects of a nuclear agreement with Tehran, saying “maybe we’re better off not making a deal,” while acknowledging the current situation cannot continue indefinitely.
The remarks come amid ongoing tensions following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, which triggered actions by Tehran and disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
A ceasefire was brokered on April 8 through mediation by Pakistan, followed by talks in Islamabad on April 11-12 that ended without agreement. Trump later extended the truce without setting a new deadline.
Since April 13, the United States has enforced a naval blockade targeting Iranian maritime traffic in the waterway.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it has introduced new operational measures along its Gulf coastline and the Strait of Hormuz under directives from Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
According to Press TV, the IRGC Navy said it would exercise control over nearly 2,000 kilometers of Iran’s coastline, describing the move as aimed at strengthening national security and economic resilience.
Reports also indicate that Washington is seeking to form an international coalition to restore maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.
Comment: Two wrongs do not make a right…especially if they are both from the same source.
The US Tech Giant Where Employees Wear Israeli Defense Force Uniforms To Work
Nate Bear, Apr 28, 2026, https://www.donotpanic.news/p/exclusive-the-us-tech-giant-where
The American tech giant behind the most popular tax filing software in the US allows employees to wear their IDF uniforms to work and also permits them to take months off the job to fight Israel’s wars.
Last month, Tom Yacobi, a data analyst at financial tech giant Intuit, whose products include the widely-used tax return program TurboTax, showed up to an all-hands company Zoom call in his full IDF uniform.
Yacobi works in TurboTax’s trust and safety team which handles the most sensitive personally identifiable information of TurboTax customers and users.
The whistleblower who provided me with this screenshot told me that since the beginning of the Gaza genocide, Israeli employees of California-based Intuit have, like Yacobi, been allowed to take as long as three or four months off work, often with minimal notice, to serve as reservists in the IDF.
“Intuit has shown no consideration for how these disruptions affect workflows and operations for employees in the US who have had to put processes on hold and postpone meetings to cater to Israeli employees’ army schedules,” PM (not their real initials) told me. “And of course, there has been no concern for the emotional and mental health impact on US employees who have been put in the awkward position of joining Zoom calls with active soldiers implicated in genocide and war crimes.”
Showing up to work in a military uniform, let alone the uniform of a military which has committed genocide and war crimes, and whose former head is an ICC-indicted war criminal, is not only unprofessional and unethical, but clearly an unabashed display of arrogance and impunity.
PM said one senior manager took three consecutive months off work from October to December 2023 to participate in the genocide of Gaza. PM says Israeli employees continue to take two-week stints off work for IDF reserve duty.
PM has never raised the issue with HR or management for fear of the consequences at such an openly pro-Israel and pro-genocide company.
“What discouraged me the most was the shocking depravity of hearing directly from chief information security officer, Atticus Tysen, that the company had selected the Israel office as a ‘strategic growth site’ during the peak of the Gaza genocide, in December 2023. This was announced at the same time as the company was down-sizing certain American and Canadian offices.”
According to PM, Intuit employees are regularly required to think about Israeli feelings. PM says that on numerous occasions since October 2023, Intuit management have posted on the company-wide Slack messaging app “about the need to show our Israeli colleagues extra kindness and grace because of their distressful circumstances.” Needless to say, Intuit management have never posted similar messages concerning the distress of those who may have been affected by the Israeli genocide of Gaza or Israel’s mass murder of civilians in Lebanon and Iran.
PM adds that “many” of Intuit’s Israeli employees have moved to the US on an L-1 visa in the last few years, with the process for approval much easier than for an H-1B visa. An L-1 visa allows multinationals to transfer employees from their overseas offices to their US offices, and is a straightforward pathway to permanent US residency.
Zionists serve in key leadership positions at Intuit.
Marianna Tessel, an executive vice-president and general manager, is an Israeli-American who served as a captain at Mamram, the computing centre and IT backbone of the Israeli military. In 2023 Tessel posted on LinkedIn about her visit to Intuit’s Israel-based R&D centre which is staffed almost exclusively by former Israeli intelligence officers.
In 2023 the Jerusalem Post reported that Intuit’s Israeli employees were going to lead on integrating generative AI into TurboTax software. Tessel said Intuit’s Israel office creates “some of our fintech software, and much of the AI.”
David Hahn, another executive vice-president and general manager at Intuit, is a friend and confidante of Jewish-Zionist venture capitalist Keith Rabois, who he met when both worked at LinkedIn. Rabois is married to Jacob Helberg, an undersecretary of state in the Trump administration and an influential, if little-known Zionist voice in the US government. Rabois is often referred to, alongside Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, as a member of the ‘Paypal Mafia’ for his role in launching Paypal.
Nuclear Fusion’s Funding Rush Comes With a Catch
By Leonard Hyman & William Tilles – Apr 27, 2026, https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Nuclear-Fusions-Funding-Rush-Comes-With-a-Catch.html
- Fusion firms are turning to SPACs for funding, using faster, less restrictive public-market routes to raise the massive capital needed for commercialization.
- SPACs offer speed but come with heavy downsides, including significant equity dilution, weak investor protections, and high risk—often likened to “junk” equity.
- Investments remain highly speculative, as fusion companies are still pre-revenue R&D ventures with uncertain technological outcomes despite growing momentum.
As nuclear fusion technologies move towards commercialization, the industry will need hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars of new capital, either from public or private sources, in order to grow. Two nuclear fusion companies have chosen to access the public capital markets via special purpose acquisition corporations. (SPACs).which are often referred to as “blank check companies” because investors give money to a sponsor, typically an investment bank, to find a good business to invest in, without knowing in advance where the money will go.
Before going into specifics, we should explain how a SPAC works. It is an equity vehicle that affords the issuer both advantages and disadvantages over a conventional equity offering via an initial public offering (IPO). There are two principal advantages to SPACs from an issuer’s perspective. They can be offered more quickly than an IPO, and they also do not require pesky financial details like earnings forecasts and cash flow projections. SPACs are a financing vehicle for companies with big ideas, lots of potential, but zero revenues. There are two major downsides to this financial structure, though. First, the sponsor takes a big chunk of the equity as its fee, so there’s a lot of equity dilution right at the outset, like 30%+ dilution. The sponsors typically also receive warrants, which, when exercised, further increase the stock float and exacerbate dilution. And then there’s the phantom equity problem. SPAC investors can demand their money back from the sponsor, typically $10 per share if no investment has been made. However, the outstanding shares are not retired, and this also exacerbates a stock dilution problem.
As if to prove our point, one of the first nuclear fusion companies to form a SPAC, TAE Enterprises, formerly Tri Alpha Energy, did so in a 50-50 merger with the President’s Trump Media and Technology Group, the owner of Truth Social. The CEO of TAE, and Truth Social’s CEO, former congressman Devin Nunes, were to be co-heads of this new venture. Mr. Nunes has been fired. Nevertheless, TAE is a real technological competitor in the nuclear fusion race. Its newest reactor, called Copernicus, uniquely uses hydrogen-boron fuel (versus deuterium-tritium in more conventional systems). The advantage is a great diminution in radioactive waste, but the extreme temperatures needed, 1-5 billion degrees Celsius, pose ignition challenges. TAE previously raised over a billion dollars from Google, Chevron, and others and, like everyone else, expects to have a commercial reactor operating in the early 2030s. TAE’s field-reversed configuration of magnetic confinement loosely resembles a tokamak, but with a much simpler, cheaper architecture.
A second company, General Fusion, announced plans to go public via a SPAC shortly after TAE. Its sponsor, more conventionally, is a Dallas-based investment bank, and its SPAC is called the Spring Valley Acquisition Corporation III (that’s Roman numeral three). Deal number one, by the way, was the SMR company NuScale. That deal is expected to close some time around mid-year, and the company plans to be NASDAQ-listed under the stock ticker GFUZ. General Fusion describes its magnetized target fusion (MTF) technology as a more practical fusion alternative to both tokamak and laser-driven systems. The value of this transaction was expected to be about $1 billion at closing.
Lastly, we want to mention Zap Energy which is developing the so-called “sheared flow stabilized Z-pinch fusion technology” and is often cited as next in line to go public in some form. Zap has raised over $300 million dollars from Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Chevron, Mizuho, Soros Foundation, and others. Zap’s website describes the company as “building a seriously cheap, compact, scalable fusion energy technology with potentially the shortest path to commercially viable fusion and (using) orders of magnitude less capital than traditional approaches.” Zap’s website also teases the competitors with a large headline stating, “No Magnets Needed.
People often ask us whether SPACs are an appropriate investment vehicle for typical retail investors. The short answer is no. The long answer is also no, by the way. And that’s for a simple reason. These SPACs are not businesses in the conventional sense of the term. They are late stage research and development projects looking to establish a technological proof of design or a working prototype. They will consume vast amounts of capital for research with no associated revenues for years. And who knows which of these competing technologies will ultimately prevail in the energy marketplace and which will be discarded as ultimately impractical. In a way, the SPAC financial format, as we suggested earlier, is like a non-investment grade rating, but for equities, which should serve as a warning for potential investors. It’s a high cost, high risk financial structure, but perhaps one not inappropriate to the business of trying to capture the sun in a magnetic bottle as some have labeled the pursuit of nuclear fusion.
EU economic sanctions ramp up NATO war plan on Russia
Two-thirds of the EU loan – some €60 bn – is reportedly allocated for military aid. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said that the first tranche worth €45 bn will be transferred to Ukraine within weeks and that it would be used to increase the production of aerial combat drones
Strategic Culture Foundation, 24 April 2026, https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/04/24/eu-economic-sanctions-ramp-up-nato-war-plan-on-russia/
The European Union announced its 20th round of economic sanctions against Russia this week. The bloc of 27 nations began imposing sanctions on Moscow when the conflict in Ukraine erupted in February 2022. Every six months, the EU has been extending these economic measures, which Brussels claims is support for Ukraine to “deter Russian aggression.”
The 20th round of sanctions unveiled this week attempts to go much further in inflicting damage on the Russian economy. It was flagged as the biggeset package yet and a “multi-layered targeting of key sectors” of the Russian economy, primarily its energy industry.
It is tempting to dismiss the EU sanctions policy as feeble and a form of insanity. The bloc keeps repeating an action expecting a different result each time, when the record shows that the action of sanctions is having little detrimental impact on Russia. If anything, it is the EU that has suffered an economic downturn as it unilaterally cut itself off from Russian oil and gas, the traditional source of affordable energy feedstock for European industries. Russia’s economy has not crashed as was anticipated when the sanctions were first imposed more than four years ago. In fact, the Russian Federation has maintained a robust economic performance as it finds alternative markets in Asia for its oil and gas products. The soaring price for a barrel of crude due to the reckless U.S.-Israeli aggression on Iran has given Russia a further boost.
However, it would be a mistake to simply brush off the EU sanctions as futile and self-defeating.
There is a more blatant and sinister aspect to the new round of sanctions. Brussels is nakedly showing its war agenda. The new measures aim to restrict all sectors of Russian energy production, including “exploration, extraction, refining and transportation.” The EU is endeavoring to tighten restrictions on “third countries” to prevent Russia from circumventing existing embargoes on shipping, port access and trade. Whether these new measures achieve their objective of “crippling the Russian economy” is debatable. But it is the belligerent intention – stated now with more determination – that is significant. The EU is brazenly laying out a plan to strangle Russia in conjunction with upping the military threat.
It is the accompanying developments that are ominous and which give full meaning to the economic measures.
This week the EU hailed that its €90 billion ($105 bn) loan to Ukraine had finally been approved. That financial aid was blocked by Hungary since December. But with the recent election loss for Viktor Orbán’s government, Budapest’s veto has been lifted under the new prime minister, Péter Magyar. EU leaders were ecstatic that the financial transfer to Ukraine can now go ahead.
Two-thirds of the EU loan – some €60 bn – is reportedly allocated for military aid. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said that the first tranche worth €45 bn will be transferred to Ukraine within weeks and that it would be used to increase the production of aerial combat drones. “Drones from Ukraine for Ukraine,” she said by way of trying to give the impression that the EU is not a party to the war.
An EU leaders’ two-day summit held in Cyprus on April 24-25 was reported with celebratory mood. Von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa, along with the EU’s Foreign Affairs Commissioner, Kaja Kallas, were cock-a-hoop at the “breakthrough” of releasing the largest single financial package to Ukraine so far in combination with the new economic sanctions aimed at drilling down on Russia’s economic core. Attending the summit in Cyprus was Ukraine’s nominal president, Vladimir Zelensky, who reportedly joined the EU leaders for dinner to discuss new developments.
It gets even more sinister. The Kiev regime has been stepping up deep air strikes on Russian energy and other industrial infrastructure. There is no doubt the regime is being assisted with NATO expertise in finding such wide-ranging targets in Russia’s vast territory. This week, for example, a drone strike hit an industrial facility in Novokuybyshevsk in the central Samara region, nearly 900 kilometers southeast of Moscow and nearly 2,000 kms from the warzone in Donbass.
Clearly, the EU’s economic strikes are designed to reinforce the damage that NATO is trying to inflict with drones and missiles on Russia’s industrial base. These are not separate initiatives but an integral war strategy.
In announcing the latest round of sanctions Kaja Kallas could hardly contain her Russophobic glee. “Today we have broken the deadlock. On top of the €90-billion loan for Ukraine, we have adopted the 20th sanctions package,” she said.
Deceptively, the sanctions were billed as “increasing pressure on Russia to stop its brutal war of aggression and engage in meaningful negotiations towards a just and last peace.”
That’s a cynical con – a con that is betrayed by the EU’s own stated objective of “crippling” the Russian economy. How can one have a “just and lasting peace” by crippling a country?
The real purpose of the funds that EU citizens will have to pay through decades of indebtedness is to escalate NATO’s war in Ukraine against Russia. The economic sanctions are war measures aimed at maximising the impact of military attacks.
Other developments this week raise the stakes to even more sinister levels.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk discussed joint nuclear weapons “scenarios” in a bilateral summit in Gdansk. The French leader wants to share his country’s nuclear weapons capabilities with other European countries. It is reported that French and Polish warplanes will begin joint exercises on flying nuclear weapons in the Baltic region. This is evidently meant as a threat to Russia. It amounts to Paris and Warsaw carrying out training exerises for nuclear strikes on Russia.
In yet another provocative development, it is reported that Britain is leading a NATO Joint Expeditionary Force to formulate a naval plan to blockade the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad located between Poland and Lithuania. Kaliningrad provides Russia with vital port access to the Baltic Sea.
The European NATO leaders are concerned that U.S. President Donald Trump has lost interest in the “Ukraine project” against Russia owing to his reckless war with Iran. That is why they are ramping up the war effort against Russia while telling barefaced lies about wanting to achieve “lasting peace.”
So far, the EU’s economic sanctions against Russia have been an abject failure. But the failure of economic measures is no longer the point. It is what they reveal about an intensifying NATO war plan against Russia.
Moscow has repeatedly called for a negotiated end to the conflict while the EU and NATO accuse Russian leader Vladimir Putin of “not wanting peace.”
People can make their own minds up about who the aggressors are. NATO is at war with Russia and is not interested in negotiations. Criminally, the NATO aggressors are creating a boiling frog situation for Russia. The European russophobic leaders seem to want war at any cost.
Norway says “nuclear renaissance” too expensive
April 23, 2026, https://beyondnuclear.org/norway-says-nuclear-renaissance-too-expensive/
Report illuminates new reactors can’t compete with the accelerating growth of renewable energy
The “Survey and assessment of the status of available nuclear reactor technologies and designs” published on March 16, 2026 as the final report on Norway’s energy policy was made public on April 8, 2026. It was prepared by the international team of energy consulting and architectural firms, the US-based Amentum and the Oslo, Norway-based Multiconsult Group, on government contract by the Norwegian Nuclear Commission. The Commission was established in June 2024 to evaluate the inclusion of nuclear power in the Scandianavian country’s energy policy. The consultants were tasked to review the current global status and trends of nuclear reactor technologies, including their readiness, flexibility, supply chains, and costs.
Norway has never sited, constructed or operated a commercial atomic power plant. But back in 2022, the M Vest Group Norway (M Vest Energy AS), a Norwegian oil and gas corporation, through its specialized subsidiary Norsk Kjernekraft, established partnerships with the nuclear divisions of the UK’s Rolls-Royce and the French startup Hexana and lobbied the Norwegian government to promote and advance the development of atomic power in Norway. Following the Commission’s examination of the consultants’ report, Reuters news service announced the Commission’s decision, “Norway should not work towards nuclear power generation now, commission finds.”
Interestingly enough, Norway currently gets 89.9% of the nation’s electrical power from thousands of hydroelectric facilities sited across the country with wind power running a meager and distant second (8.6%). Still, Norway is well on the way to generating 100% of its electrical power from renewable energy. Even though Norway is currently producing an electricity surplus, the nuclear industry found its way into pressuring the Norwegian government to get with a Scandinavian “nuclear renaissance” to accommodate the projected AI/data center revolution with its own fleet of light water Small Modular Reactors (SMR) and Advanced Modular Reactors (AMR). While the report’s commissioned focus is on Norway, it shines a bright light on the much ballyhooed but still not-ready-for-prime-time nuclear power technologies now pushed worldwide.
Norway’s report confirms that the new promises of nuclear power provide little more than a “spike in promotional materials and many bold claims around technology, cost and schedule over the past 3-4 years, combined with hype associated with the energy demands created by Artificial Intelligence.”
The Norway survey astutely finds, “Given the nuclear sector’s claims that modularisation will deliver factory-build quality and increase the speed of construction, thereby reducing finance costs, it is not surprising that these technology families are attractive, but the arguments are not yet proven.”
Despite the absence of any final construction cost figures given a handful of western SMR or AMR construction projects have only just started, the Norwegian analyses expect first-of-a-kind SMR designs to be significantly more expensive than the few completed large gigawatt nuclear reactor on a per-kilowatt basis. That said, the first-of-a-kind Vogtle units 3 and 4 finished in Georgia were first estimated at a cost of completion for $14 billion were finally finished and commissioned at an estimated $35 billion.
The Norway-commissioned analyses also predict higher fixed operation and maintenance costs on a per-kilowatt basis for SMRs compared to large Generation 3 reactors at Georgia’s Vogtle 3 and 4 units. Additionally, the Commission report predicts that yearly nuclear fuel costs for SMRs could be as much as 82% higher than those for large gigawatt reactors due to “lower plant density and shorter burnup cycles.”
Other predicted first-of-a-kind SMRs costs that will be “Probably Higher” than the large gigawatt reactors will include: Nuclear Waste (post ten years operation); Long Term Nuclear Waste Disposal; Spent Fuel (post ten years operation), and; Decommissioning.
The report’s combined findings on all these uncontrolled costs appear to be the most impactful analyses that dissuaded Norway from opening Pandora’s nuclear energy box at this time.
We all should all be dissuaded, given the demonstration that renewable energy is significantly more affordable, faster and more reliable to deploy from a broad range of resources (photovoltaic solar cells, on and offshore wind, hydro and tidal power, etc). We can now couple that with economically deliverable utility-grade energy storage over a widening range of systems. Why are we being given the bums’ rush into a nuclear future with its unpredictably high financial risks, unreliable and increasing significant construction cost overruns, recurring project cancellations and abandonment with sunk costs, uninsurable severe nuclear accident risks, and ultimately the unresolved biological isolation of nuclear waste that offers only environmental liability without a watt of benefit to future generations?
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of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
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