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Somerset Green councillor slams Sir Keir Starmer over Hinkley Point C comments

Why should UK environmental protection be sacrificed for the profit of the French nationalised electricity industry?”

Sir Keir Starmer is trying to make it harder to oppose major infrastructure projects

By Daniel Mumby, Local Democracy Reporter,  Somerset Live 28th Jan 2025, https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/somerset-green-councillor-slams-sir-9900421
The leader of the Green Party on Somerset Council has attacked the prime minister following his recent comments on Hinkley Point C. EDF Energy has courted controversy over plans to create new saltmarshes in the Severn estuary to offset the environmental impact of Somerset‘s new nuclear power station.

In an article for Mail Online, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer lambasted efforts to block major infrastructure projects, singling out opposition to the acoustic fish deterrent which EDF had originally proposed for Hinkley Point C. These comments have drawn the ire of Councillor Martin Dimery, who warned Mr Starmer that his stance would lose him support across the south west.

Mr Starmer’s comments came as the government announced reforms to the judicial review system, restricting the grounds on which such reviews could be lodged to “stop blockers getting in the way” of infrastructure projects. He said in his article: “There are countless examples of nimbys and zealots gumming up the legal system often for their own ideological blind spots to stop the government building the infrastructure the country needs……………………………………

In an open letter to Mr Starmer, he said: “I wish I was joking when I point out that the sonar device due to be installed at Hinkley Point C was agreed from the outset to avoid the mass carnage of fish being sucked into the reactor’s mechanism, thus destroying huge quantities of the Bristol Channel’s fish stock. Fish remnants can also cause blockage and mechanical failure in nuclear power plants.

“Last year, EDF applied to Somerset Council to scrap the sonar device in an attempt to cut construction costs. As chairman of the climate and place scrutiny committee, I refused to sign off this appalling attempt to disregard the natural environment and the region’s fishing industry for the sake of EDF’s profits. Why should UK environmental protection be sacrificed for the profit of the French nationalised electricity industry?”

Reports recently resurfaced in the national press that Mr Starmer stated “I hate tree-huggers” at a shadow cabinet meeting in July 2023, at which current net zero secretary Ed Miliband MP unveiled new energy policies to combat climate change.

Mr Starmer denied using this phrase, telling BBC correspondent Laura Kuennsberg that his comments about green energy had been taken out of context.

Mr Dimery added, in direct reference to these claims: “‘Tree hugger’ I may be, prime minister, but if you’re so appalled at the prospect of individuals standing for the environment and against disreputable business practice, then you may find you lose a great deal of support from elected councillors of all political persuasions.”

January 31, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Closer than ever: It is now 89 seconds to midnight

Science and Security Board
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Editor, John Mecklin, January 28, 2025

In 2024, humanity edged ever closer to catastrophe. Trends that have deeply concerned the Science and Security Board continued, and despite unmistakable signs of danger, national leaders and their societies have failed to do what is needed to change course. Consequently, we now move the Doomsday Clock from 90 seconds to 89 seconds to midnight—the closest it has ever been to catastrophe. Our fervent hope is that leaders will recognize the world’s existential predicament and take bold action to reduce the threats posed by nuclear weapons, climate change, and the potential misuse of biological science and a variety of emerging technologies.

In setting the Clock one second closer to midnight, we send a stark signal: Because the world is already perilously close to the precipice, a move of even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster.

In regard to nuclear risk, the war in Ukraine, now in its third year, looms over the world; the conflict could become nuclear at any moment because of a rash decision or through accident or miscalculation. Conflict in the Middle East threatens to spiral out of control into a wider war without warning. The countries that possess nuclear weapons are increasing the size and role of their arsenals, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons that can destroy civilization. The nuclear arms control process is collapsing, and high-level contacts among nuclear powers are totally inadequate given the danger at hand. Alarmingly, it is no longer unusual for countries without nuclear weapons to consider developing arsenals of their own—actions that would undermine longstanding nonproliferation efforts and increase the ways in which nuclear war could start.

The impacts of climate change increased in the last year as myriad indicators, including sea-level rise and global surface temperature, surpassed previous records. The global greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change continued to rise. Extreme weather and other climate change-influenced events—floods, tropical cyclones, heat waves, drought, and wildfires—affected every continent. The long-term prognosis for the world’s attempts to deal with climate change remains poor, as most governments fail to enact the financing and policy initiatives necessary to halt global warming. Growth in solar and wind energy has been impressive but remains insufficient to stabilize the climate. Judging from recent electoral campaigns, climate change is viewed as a low priority in the United States and many other countries…………………………………………………………………….. more https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/2025-statement/

January 31, 2025 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine nuclear fears increase amid warnings from IAEA

Emerging Risks 28th Jan 2025, https://www.emergingrisks.co.uk/ukraine-nuclear-fears-increase-amid-warnings-from-iaea/

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)  has said he is growing increasingly concerned that the organisation’s efforts to prevent a major nuclear incident in war-torn Ukraine in under increasing threat.

It comes as Rafael Mariano Grossi (above) revealed the agency’s team based at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) has heard frequent explosions from outside the site over the past week.

He added The team reported hearing multiple instances of such military activity in recent days, at varying distances from the ZNPP. There was no damage reported to the plant itself. Although the sound of nearby military action has been a common occurrence ever since the IAEA established a continued presence at the ZNPP in September 2022, it has happened virtually daily in recent weeks.

“For almost three years now, we have been doing everything we can to help prevent a nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant and elsewhere in Ukraine,” Grossi explained. “An accident has not occurred, but the situation is not improving. It is still precarious. I remain seriously concerned about nuclear safety and security in Ukraine, including at the Zaporizhzhya site. Our work is far from over.”


He continued as part of the ongoing work to monitor developments relevant for nuclear safety and security, the IAEA team has continued to conduct walkdowns across the site – including but not limited to the main and emergency control rooms of four reactor units and one turbine hall – and observed and discussed various safety-related maintenance activities with the plant.

The IAEA team was also informed that the ZNPP is procuring three new mobile diesel generators, similar to those received late last year. They are in addition to the site’s 20 fixed emergency diesel generators that are designed to provide on-site power if there is a total loss of off-site power.

Separately, the ZNPP said that four diesel steam generators were put into operation for ten days to provide the steam needed to process liquid radioactive waste. These generators were commissioned a year ago.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, the IAEA said  air raid alarms were heard on several occasions at Ukraine’s three operating nuclear power plants (NPPs) – Khmelnytskyy, Rivne and South Ukraine – as well as at the Chornobyl site. At the Khmelnytskyy NPP, the IAEA team members have taken shelter at their residence three times in recent days due to such alerts.

At the Khmelnytskyy and South Ukraine NPPs and the Chornobyl site, the IAEA teams were informed of instances of drones being detected at distances ranging from 2 to 30 km from the sites.

Despite such military activities, Ukraine’s nine operating nuclear power reactors have been operating at full capacity this week, safely generating much-needed electricity during the cold winter months.

Separately, the Agency continued with deliveries under its comprehensive programme of nuclear safety and security assistance to Ukraine. Last week, the Chornobyl site received equipment to enhance its nuclear security system. The delivery, the 104th organised by the IAEA since the start of the armed conflict, was supported with funds from the United Kingdom.

January 30, 2025 Posted by | incidents, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Nuke Mars, Elon? Not with your Outer Space Treaty

27th January 2025,
https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/nuke-mars-elon-not-with-your-outer-space-treaty/

The CEO of Tesla Motors and space entrepreneur Elon Musk may not be celebrating today’s 58th anniversary of the Outer Space Treaty because it stands between him and his ambition to ‘Nuke Mars’.

In September 2015, the eccentric billionaire first spoke on US chat show The Late Show with Stephen Colbert of ‘nuking Mars’. In later interviews later that year, Mr Musk described exploding nuclear weapons over the Martian poles every few seconds to create two pulsing ‘suns’ that would warm up the surface as a prelude to his plan to initiate human colonization of the Red Planet.

Mr Musk appeared to marginalise the ethics, excusing the exercise as the explosions would take place “above the planet, not on the planet” – the atomic bomb explosions in Japan were also airbursts – and, of the challenge of establishing fusion weapons in orbit above the surface and then sequentially exploding them, he said: “Yeah absolutely no problem.”

Clearly at that time Mr Musk was unaware, or dismissive, of the Outer Space Treaty – or Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies – which first opened for signature on 27 January 1967 and became effective on the 10 October of that year. 115 states parties have signed the treaty, including all space-faring nations.

Intended to annul fears that, in the missile age, space could become yet another contested battleground and a further location in which to station weapons of mass destruction, the treaty contains several key provisions, specifically the prohibition of nuclear weapons in space, limiting the use of the moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes, and banning military bases, testing weapons or conducting military manoeuvres on such bodies.

Clearly then deploying and using nuclear weapons in space is prohibited under international law, and Mr Musk being an Earth-bound US citizen is subject to the laws and obligations applicable to the United States.

Whether the treaty would prevent Mr Musk establishing a ‘colony’ is debatable, even if in name only. The treaty provides for space and any celestial body to be freely explored and used by all nations, but on whether he could claim hegemony the treaty is moot for it only precludes nations from claiming sovereignty over space and celestial bodies, not individuals.

Clearly at the time the idea of a powerful individual in the future becoming sole ruler of an entire planet was regarded as inconceivable, which seems a little bizarre when many of the legislators would have been brought up on a cinematic diet of Flash Gordon with the Emperor Ming and Dan Dare with the Mekon.

Unsurprisingly in 2015, Mr Musk’s pronouncements led to him being branded a ‘Bond villain’ in certain quarters, but he was clearly comfortable with it as he took to wearing a tee shirt specifying his ambition. Now with his recent ‘elevation’ to become President Trump’s special advisor on government efficiency and, seemingly, space, his ambition may be one step closer to becoming reality for in President Trump, he has found an ally reported to have also advocated for using nuclear weapons to overcome geographical challenges.

In August 2019, the news website Axios wrote that Trump had asked his top national security officials to “consider using nuclear bombs to weaken or destroy hurricanes.” Axios alleged that in a briefing on hurricanes, the 45th President postulated: “[Hurricanes] start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane, and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?” It was reported that attendees were astonished, but the President later claimed it to be ‘Fake News.’

Who knows? But with an office holder restored to the White House with little regard for international institutions and with a reputation for making outrageous utterances, counselled by an advisor with a proclaimed desire to conquer space and nuke and colonise planets, the Nuclear Free Local Authorities would not be surprised if US diplomats are instructed to seek amendments to the treaty to enable Mr Musk’s ambitions to made legal, even if, for now, they remain impractical.

January 30, 2025 Posted by | space travel | Leave a comment

Russia claims nuclear plant targeted during massive Ukrainian drone attack

Russia and Ukraine continue to swap daily barrages, with the prospects of ceasefire talks appearing slim.

Aljazeera, 29 Jan 2025

A nuclear power plant was among targets during a massive Ukrainian drone attack, Russian officials have said.

Moscow said on Wednesday that the country’s energy infrastructure had come under attack by at least 100 drones overnight. Ukraine also reported strikes. The continuing barrages were accompanied by barbs from the two countries’ presidents, suggesting little prospect of peace talks.

The Russian Ministry of Defence said on Telegram that 104 drones were involved in raids across western Russia, many targeting power and oil facilities.

Local officials claimed that air defence systems had destroyed one drone that had attempted to strike the nuclear power plant in the western region of Smolensk.

“According to preliminary information, one of the drones was shot down during an attempt to attack a nuclear power facility,” Governor Vasily Anokhin said on the Telegram messaging app. “There were no casualties or damage.”

The Smolensk Nuclear Power Plant, the largest power generating plant in Russia’s northwest, was working normally on Wednesday morning, RIA state news agency reported, citing the plant’s press service.

Russia’s air defences reportedly destroyed drones over nine regions, including 11 over Smolensk, which sits on the border with Belarus. Nearly half were hit over Kursk, where Ukrainian troops have occupied several villages for months following an incursion.

Ukraine and Russia have been swapping drone and missile strikes on an almost daily basis, with energy infrastructure a particular target amid winter.

Warnings that the fighting could spark a nuclear disaster have been sounded since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022. However, most of the concern has focused on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia plant, which sits on the frontlines in the east of the country…………………………………………………………………….https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/29/russia-claims-nuclear-plant-targeted-during-massive-ukrainian-drone-attack

January 30, 2025 Posted by | incidents, Russia, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Trump orders ‘Iron Dome for America’ in sweeping missile defense push

The order’s most contentious element directs the Department of Defense to pursue space-based interceptors — weapons positioned in orbit to destroy incoming missiles. While proponents argue these could provide global coverage and early intercept capabilities, critics warn they could trigger an arms race and undermine existing treaties. 

The order sets a bold agenda to address emerging threats, including hypersonic missiles, through advanced technological solutions, including space-based interceptors.

by Sandra Erwin, January 28, 2025,  https://spacenews.com/trump-orders-iron-dome-for-america-in-sweeping-missile-defense-push/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Iron%20Dome%20for%20America&utm_campaign=FIRST%20UP%202025-01-28

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Jan. 27 that calls for the development of a sweeping new missile defense system for the United States, including controversial space-based interceptors.

The Pentagon must submit within 60 days a proposed architecture for the system, including plans to accelerate the Missile Defense Agency’s ongoing Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor program and develop a “custody layer” within the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture — a planned constellation of military satellites currently being acquired by the U.S. Space Force’s Space Development Agency. 

The executive order also emphasizes securing the defense industrial base, requiring “next-generation security features” for the supply chain as the U.S. races to build advanced interceptors and tracking systems.

The “Iron Dome for America” order, which invokes Israel’s successful rocket defense system, directs the Pentagon to accelerate development of defenses against hypersonic weapons and other advanced aerial threats that Trump’s order describes as “the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.”

While drawing inspiration from Israel’s Iron Dome system, the U.S. initiative would need to be dramatically different in scale and capability to defend the continent-spanning American territory against sophisticated intercontinental ballistic missiles, rather than the short-range rockets that threaten Israel.

The U.S. has collaborated with Israel on missile defense technology since the 1980s, including support for the Iron Dome system, which has intercepted thousands of incoming rockets since its 2011 deployment. Unlike Israel’s system, which defends a territory roughly the size of New Jersey, a U.S. continental defense system would need to protect an area nearly 500 times larger against more sophisticated threats such as Chinese hypersonic glide vehicles.

Unlike traditional ground- or sea-based systems, the envisioned architecture leans on space-based solutions, which have long been controversial.

The order’s most contentious element directs the Department of Defense to pursue space-based interceptors — weapons positioned in orbit to destroy incoming missiles. While proponents argue these could provide global coverage and early intercept capabilities, critics warn they could trigger an arms race and undermine existing treaties. 

January 30, 2025 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

DeepSeek Launch Should Prompt AI Security Reviews Across the Nuclear Industry

Power, Jan 29, 2025, by Trey Lauderdale

The new artificial intelligence (AI) model from China called DeepSeek created a stock market meltdown on Monday, with the Nasdaq composite dropping 3% and the S&P 500 falling 1.5%. Beyond hammering the share prices of the world’s most valuable companies, DeepSeek has potential implications on vast swaths of America’s innovation industries—including energy.

While U.S. technology companies must quickly respond to the challenges posed by the new DeepSeek model, and the AI innovations to come, other businesses—like the energy companies currently exploring uses for AI in their operations—have a different responsibility. Utilities, independent power producers, and energy companies of all stripes, must take a more measured approach and use this as a teachable moment for their employees to understand the safety and security risks inherent in AI tools. They have to underscore that employees should treat new AI tools no differently from other technologies that enter the enterprise, and use the safety and security standards that inform every decision on technology adoption.

Artificial intelligence has the incredible potential to make energy facilities—and particularly nuclear energy facilities—easier to develop, operate, orchestrate, and maintain. But only if these applications can adhere to the strictest standards of data security, privacy, and operational integrity. Nowhere is this more important than among the nation’s nuclear fleet operators……………………………………………………………………………. more https://www.powermag.com/deepseek-launch-should-prompt-ai-security-reviews-across-the-nuclear-industry/

January 30, 2025 Posted by | safety | Leave a comment

Anti-Nuclear War Activists Roll Out Counter Version of Doomsday Clock: The Peace Clock

CounterPunch News Service, January 29, 2025,  https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/01/29/anti-nuclear-war-activists-roll-out-counter-version-of-doomsday-clock-the-peace-clock/

Multiple Cities – On January 27, antiwar and anti-nuclear weapons organizations will launch The Peace Clock, a new alternative to the Doomsday Clock. The launch of this new tracking system is set to coincide with the 2025 Doomsday Clock time announcement — a metaphorical warning from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists about how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making.

The Peace Clock campaign was developed after witnessing years of the Doomsday Clock’s dire warnings fall on deaf ears. Recognizing that people are not motivated to make changes when they feel hopelessness and despair, the Peace Clock aims to make clear that by implementing antiwar proposals and climate justice initiatives, we can significantly reverse course.

By providing an outline of evolving steps toward real, long-lasting peace, the Peace Clock hopes to change the conversation from doom to hope. It will track proposals that are guaranteed to bring us a respite from the growing terror, proposals, and policies that can slow down or even reverse the race towards midnight and the end of the world.

“We are at a turning point in history. It is time to change the conversation with bold new proposals. Proposals that are guaranteed to bring us a respite from the growing terror. Proposals that will bring a shift in planetary consciousness allowing us to respond cooperatively to the impending cataclysmic climate disaster down the road” explained Peace Clock organizer Alice Slater. Slater serves on the Board of World BEYOND War and is a UN NGO Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

While the goal of the Doomsday Clock is to show how each year, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, war, bio-threats, and the continued climate crisis advance us closer to the world’s end, the Peace Clock is designed to keep track of actions and opportunities that can turn back time from the complete destruction of people and planet.

For more information about the campaign, please visit https://www.codepink.org/peaceclock

January 30, 2025 Posted by | opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Nuclear icebreaker sustained hull damage after collision in the Kara Sea 

A video published by the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Mash shows how the 50 Let Pobedy sails straight into the cargo vessel Yamal Krechet. 

Thomas Nilsen, 28 January 2025 ,  https://www.thebarentsobserver.com/news/nuclear-icebreaker-sustained-hull-damage-after-collision-in-the-kara-seanbsp/423819

The dramatic collision happened at 03.51 am on the night to January 26 but did not become known to the public before the press service of Rosatomflot confirmed the facts to several Russian media in the evening of January 28.

Murmansk-based Arctic Observer said in its Telegram channel that the collision happened as the powerful icebreaker was assisting a cargo ship sailing through the ice-covered waters.  

According to Rosatomflot, the nuclear powered icebreaker continues to operate in normal mode along the Northern Sea Route, despite the damage to the hull. 

Rosatomflot says in the press statement that “seaworthiness has not been lost” and “there were no casualties.” 

The state owned operator of Russia’s icebreaker fleet underlines that the two onboard reactors were not harmed in the collision. The information has not been confirmed by independent sources. 

Rosatomflot does not provide any information about what caused the navigation mistake leading to the huge icebreaker smashing into the smaller cargo ship. 

The 50 Let Pobedy is the newest of the older Arktika-class nuclear-powered icebreakers. Construction of the vessel started in the late Soviet era (1989), but she was not commissioned before 2007. 

The icebreaker has Murmansk as homeport, but can operate independently for months at a time during the icy navigation season along the Northern Sea Route.

The cargo vessel Yamal Krechet was according to MarineTraffic.com on her way from Arkhangelsk towards Sabetta, the port where Novatek’s Yamal LNG production facilitates are located.  

There are no public reports about the possible damages to the cargo vessel. Several tens of containers can be seen on deck of the Yamal Krechet at the time of the collision, but it is not known immediately known what content the cargo includes. 

January 30, 2025 Posted by | incidents, Russia | Leave a comment

Climate change made LA fires worse, scientists say

 Climate change was a major factor behind the hot, dry weather that gave
rise to the devastating LA fires, a scientific study has confirmed. It made
those weather conditions about 35% more likely, according to World Weather
Attribution – globally recognised for their studies linking extreme weather
to climate change. The authors noted that the LA wildfire season is getting
longer while the rains that normally put out the blazes have reduced. The
scientists highlight that these wildfires are highly complex with multiple
factors playing a role, but they are confident that a warming climate is
making LA more prone to intense fire events.

 BBC 28th Jan 2025,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd9qy4knd8wo

January 30, 2025 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

Power stocks plunge as energy needs called into question because of new China AI lab

Mon, Jan 27 2025, Spencer Kimball, CNBC

  • Constellation Energy, Vistra Corp., Talen Energy and GE Vernova tumbled as China’s DeepSeek AI lab debuted, scaring investors with a lower-cost business model.
  • Constellation, Vistra and GE Vernova were leading the S&P 500 this year as investors speculated on AI’s power needs.
  • Now, the arrival of DeepSeek is raising questions about how much power will actually be needed.

Power companies that are most exposed to the tech sector’s data center boom plunged Monday, as the debut of China’s DeepSeek open-source AI laboratory led investors to question how much energy artificial intelligence applications will actually consume.

Vistra closed nearly 30% lower, erasing its gains for 2025. Constellation Energy, Talen Energy and GE Vernova tumbled more than 20%, with the latter two stocks also giving up this year’s gains.

Before Monday’s selloff, Constellation, Vistra and GE Vernova had surged to top of the S&P 500 as investors speculated that AI data centers will boost demand for enormous amounts of electricity………………

DeepSeek released an AI model on Christmas Day that Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang described in an interview with CNBC last week as “earth shattering.” Scale AI provides training data for AI applications.

DeepSeek followed up last week with the release of a reasoning model named DeepSeek-R1 that competes with OpenAI’s o1 model. DeepSeek has since risen to the top of mobile app stores. Wang said DeepSeek has essentially caught up with OpenAI.

“Their model is actually the top performing, or roughly on par with the best American models,” Wang told CNBC’s Andrew Sorkin in a Jan. 23 interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has described DeepSeek as “super-compute efficient.” Bank of America analysts said in a Monday note that DeepSeek is “challenging the notion of U.S. leadership in AI and raising doubts about the high expectations for cloud capex, chip growth and power requirements.”

The tech companies have anticipated needing so much electricity to supply data centers that they have increasingly looked to nuclear power as a source of reliable, carbon-free energy.

Constellation, for example, has signed a power agreement with Microsoft to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Talen is powering an Amazon data center with electricity from the nearby Susquehanna nuclear plant…………………………  

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/27/power-stocks-plunge-as-ai-energy-needs-questioned-due-to-new-china-model.html

January 30, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, ENERGY | Leave a comment

Pentagon Warns China Developing Love, The Greatest Weapon Of All

https://theonion.com/pentagon-warns-china-developing-love-the-greatest-weapon-of-all/ January 27, 2025

ARLINGTON, VA—In a high-level alert that revealed a geo-political rival of the United States could soon become the first nation capable of wielding the most powerful force in the universe, the Pentagon warned Friday that China was actively developing love, the greatest weapon of all.

The alert, issued to the American public and top U.S. allies, stated that China had made significant advances in love, a transcendent source of strength that ultimately triumphs over any defenses an enemy might try to erect against it. Weapons experts confirmed that if it were unleashed, the all-consuming feeling could strike the hearts of billions throughout Asia and the Pacific, even reaching the West Coast of the United States.

“Our assessments indicate love is stronger than any technology possessed by the U.S. military,” said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, pledging to work with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and other regional partners to stop China from harnessing the invincible cosmic force that always emerges victorious. “Intelligence estimates suggest the program is in its final stages, so we must act quickly or love will overwhelm us and we will feel compelled to surrender to it.”

“If China succeeds, it will have the power to remake the global order by spreading universal love and understanding to every corner of the world,” Austin added.

Nations have vied for years to develop love, knowing it would provide their arsenals with a weapon that could overcome anyone or anything it encountered. According to sources within the Pentagon who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Defense Department’s own 10-year, $750 billion effort has failed to produce an abundance of love, bringing it no closer than it was a decade ago to equipping the military with a profound sense of devotion to one’s fellow human beings.

China is believed to have put similar resources into its far more successful program, with surveillance reports indicating that by 2030 the nation will have obtained an emotion that can create a profound sense of oneness with the universe. Previously, U.S. military analysts had questioned whether China possessed the emotional vulnerability necessary to develop love, believing it was still several decades away from acquiring a feeling so expansive it knows no bounds and flows outward into every aspect of existence.

In 2019, the U.N. issued sanctions after it found evidence of China’s intent to open itself up to love’s embrace, but inspectors reportedly underestimated just how quickly the smallest seed of tenderness could flourish into a garden of eternal love. Today, international observers expressed concerns that if the weapon were used, the world would see a fallout of hundreds or even thousands of years in which love would endure all things. 

“It is clearly a show of strength by China to love like its heart has never been broken,” said Daniel Feng, an expert on Sino-American relations at Georgetown University, noting that China’s ultimate goal was to assert its right as a sovereign nation to love freely and unselfishly by letting go of fears and expectations. “Quite frankly, no one can escape the power of love, and China knows it. By putting their hearts on the line, they are signaling that at any given moment they could shower the United States with a love so fierce it would leave their international rival unrecognizable afterward.”

 “So what should the Pentagon do now?” he continued. “With new theories suggesting it has the potential to be far, far stronger than love, America’s best strategy may be developing the technology to harness the power of mild annoyance.”

January 30, 2025 Posted by | culture and arts | Leave a comment

EDF signals ageing British nuclear fleet can run into ‘the 2030s’.

 EDF has signalled that Britain’s fleet of ageing
nuclear power plants can keep running into the next decade amid a scramble
to hit Ed Miliband’s [?]clean power targets. The company on Monday said it
aimed to “maximise output” from the remaining gas-cooled nuclear
reactors to “2030+”, providing this can be agreed with regulators.

It is the strongest sign yet that EDF, which is owned by the French state,
believes the plants can go even further beyond their planned lifespans
after extensions were most recently announced in December. Further
extensions would deliver a boost to Mr Miliband, the Energy Secretary, as
he seeks to make the electricity grid at least 95pc reliant on “clean”
sources of power – including wind, solar, batteries and nuclear – in
just five years.

Two of EDF’s oldest nuclear power stations, Heysham 1 in
Lancashire and Hartlepool in Teesside, have had their shutdowns postponed
from spring 2026 to 2027, while the other two, Heysham 2 and Torness in
East Lothian, were extended from 2028 to 2030. But in a newly-published
fleet update, EDF says there is a potential opportunity for all four plants
to remain online until at least 2030.

 Telegraph 27th Jan 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/01/27/edf-signals-ageing-british-nuclear-fleet-can-run-into-2030s/

January 30, 2025 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

The Evolution of the Militarized Data Broker

As the front of modern warfare slowly evolved from direct military action into weaponized financial speculation, the market for data became just as valuable as the defense budget itself.

Facebook, not unlike Palantir, was one of the vehicles used to privatize controversial U.S. military surveillance projects

While often mythologized as having been created to champion human freedom, the internet and many of its most popular companies were directly birthed out of the national security apparatus of the United States.

UNLIMITED HANGOUT, by Mark Goodwin, January 16, 2025

Today, the world’s economy no longer runs on oil, but data. Shortly after the advent of the microprocessor came the internet, unleashing an onslaught of data running on the coils of fiber optic cables beneath the oceans and satellites above the skies. While often posited as a liberator of humanity against the oppressors of nation-states that allows previously impossible interconnectivity and social organization between geographically separated cultures to circumnavigate the monopoly on violence of world governments, ironically, the internet itself was birthed out of the largest military empire of the modern world – the United States.

The ARPANET

Specifically, the internet began as ARPANET, a project of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), which in 1972 became known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), currently housed within the Department of Defense. ARPA was created by President Eisenhower in 1958 within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) in direct response to the U.S.’ greatest military rival, the USSR, successfully launching Sputnik, the first artificial satellite in Earth’s orbit with data broadcasting technology. While historically considered the birth of the Space Race, in reality, the formation of ARPA began the now-decades-long militarization of data brokers, quickly leading to world-changing developments in global positioning systems (GPS), the personal computer, networks of computational information processing (“time-sharing”), primordial artificial intelligence, and weaponized autonomous drone technology.

In October 1962, the recently-formed ARPA appointed J.C.R. Licklider, a former MIT professor and vice president of Bolt Beranek and Newman (known as BBN, currently owned by defense contractor Raytheon), to head their Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO). At BBN, Licklider developed the earliest known ideas for a global computer network, publishing a series of memos in August 1962 that birthed his “Intergalactic Computer Network” concept. Six months after his appointment to ARPA, Licklider would distribute a memo to his IPTO colleagues – addressed to “Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer Network”– describing a “time-sharing network of computers” – building off a similar exploration of communal, distributed computation by John Forbes Nash, Jr. in his 1954 paper “Parallel Control” commissioned by defense contractor RAND – which would build the foundational concepts for ARPANET, the first implementation of today’s Internet.

Prior to the technological innovations explored by Licklider and his ARPA colleagues, data communication – at this time, mainly voice via telephone lines – were based on circuit switching, in which each telephone call would be manually connected by a switch operator to establish a dedicated, end-to-end analog electrical connection between the two parties. The RAND Corporation’s Paul Baran, and later ARPA itself, would begin to work on methods to allow formidable data communication in the event of a partial disconnection, such as from a nuclear event or other act of war, leading to a distributed network of unmanned nodes that would compartmentalize the desired information into smaller blocks of data – today referred to as packets – before routing them separately, only to be rejoined once received at the desired destination.

While certainly unbeknownst to the technologists at the time, this achievement of both distributed routing and global information settlement via data packets created an entirely new commodity – digital data.

A Brief History of Weaponized Financial Intelligence

Long before the USSR spooked the United States into formalizing ARPA due to fears of militarized satellite applications post-Sputnik launch, data brokers have played a significant role in warfare and specifically the markets surrounding military conflict……………………………………………….

As the front of modern warfare slowly evolved from direct military action into weaponized financial speculation, the market for data became just as valuable as the defense budget itself. It is for this reason that the necessity of sound data emerged as the foremost issue of national security, leading to a proliferation of advanced data brokers coming out of DARPA and the intelligence community, akin to the 21st century’s Manhattan Project.

The San Jose Project: Google, Facebook, and PayPal

Exemplified by the creation of the CIA’s venture firm, In-Q-Tel, and the proliferation of Silicon Valley-based venture firms coalescing on Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, CA, the financialization of a new crop of American data brokers was complete.  The first firm to grace Sand Hill Road was Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, better known as KPCB, which participated in funding internet pioneers Amazon, AOL, and Compaq, while also directly seeding Netscape and Google. KPCB partners have included such government stalwarts as former Vice President Al Gore, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Ted Schlein – the latter being a board member of In-Q-Tel and member of the NSA’s advisory board. KPCB also had an intimate connection with internet networking pioneer Sun Microsystems, best known for building out the majority of network switches and other infrastructure needed for a modern broadband economy.

……………………… Perhaps the world’s most famous data broker, Google, whose founders both came out of Stanford University, was seeded by former Sun Microsystems founder Andy Bechtolsheim and his partner at the Ethernet switching company Granite Systems (later acquired by Cisco), David Cheriton, with Google’s most iconic CEO, Eric Schmidt, being the former CTO of Sun Microsystems.

The emergence of Silicon Valley out of the academic circuit in Northern California was no accident, and in fact was directly influenced by an unclassified program known as the Massive Digital Data Systems (MDDS) project. The MDDS was created with direct participation from the CIA, NSA, and DARPA itself within the computer science programs at Stanford and CalTech, alongside MIT, Harvard and Carnegie Mellon……………… over a few years, more than a dozen grants of several million dollars each were distributed via the NSF (the National Science Foundation)  in order to capture the most promising efforts, ensuring that those efforts would become intellectual property controlled by the United States regulatory regime.

……………………………………………….The first unclassified briefing for scientists was titled “birds of a feather briefing” and was formalized during a 1995 conference in San Jose, CA, which was titled the “Birds of a Feather Session on the Intelligence Community Initiative in Massive Digital Data Systems.” That same year, one of the first MDDS grants was awarded to Stanford University, which was already a decade deep in working with NSF and DARPA grants. The primary objective of this grant was to “query optimization of very complex queries,” with a closely-followed second grant that aimed to build a massive digital library on the internet. These two grants funded research by then-Stanford graduate students and future Google cofounders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Two intelligence-community managers regularly met with Brin while he was still at Stanford and completing the research that would lead to the incorporation of Google, all paid for by grants provided by the NSA and CIA via MDDS.

…………………………………………………………………………………………….It was also during these formative years that the PayPal team worked closely with the intelligence community. …………………………………………………………………..In 2003, a year after PayPal was sold to eBay, Thiel approached Alex Karp, a fellow alumnus of Stanford with a new venture concept: “Why not use Igor to track terrorist networks through their financial transactions?” Thiel took funds from the PayPal sale to seed the company, and after a few years of pitching investors, the newly-formed Palantir received an estimated $2 million investment from the CIA’s venture capital firm, In-Q-Tel.

………………………………..As of 2013, Palantir’s client list included “the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the Centre for Disease Control, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, Special Operations Command, West Point and the IRS” with around “50% of its business” coming from public sector contracts…………… As The Guardian reports: “Palantir does not just provide the Pentagon with a machine for global surveillance and the data-efficient fighting of war, it runs Wall Street, too.”

Facebook, not unlike Palantir, was one of the vehicles used to privatize controversial U.S. military surveillance projects after 9/11, having also been birthed out of one of the MDDS partners, Harvard University. PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel became Facebook’s first significant investor at the behest of file-sharing pioneer Sean Parker, whose first contact with the CIA took place at age 16. ………………………… Facebook’s long-standing ties to the military and intelligence communities go far beyond its origins, including revelations about its collaboration with spy agencies as part of the Snowden leaks and its role in influence operations – some have even directly involved Google and Palantir.

The Military Origins of Facebook

Facebook’s growing role in the ever-expanding surveillance and “pre-crime” apparatus of the national security state demands new scrutiny of the company’s origins and its products as they relate to a former, controversial DARPA-run surveillance program that was essentially analogous to what is currently the world’s largest social network.

An unspoken outcome of the global proliferation of Facebook was the sly, roundabout creation of the first digital ID system – a necessity for the coming digital economy. Users would set up their profiles by feeding the social network with a plethora of personal information, with Facebook being able to use this data to generate large webs of connectivity between otherwise unknown social groups. There is even evidence that Facebook generated placeholder accounts for individuals that appeared in user data but did not have a profile of their own. Both Google and PayPal would also use similar digital identification methods to allow users to sign into other websites, creating interoperable identification systems that could permeate the internet.

A similar evolution is occurring in the financial sector, as data broker social networks – including Facebook and Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) – are posturing themselves as the future of financial service companies. ……………………………

From Public-Private, to Private-Public

As outlined above, it is clear that the public sector’s intelligence community used the veil of the private sector to establish financial incentives and commercial applications to build out the modern data economy. A simple glance at the seven largest stocks in the American economy demonstrate this concept, with Meta (Facebook), Alphabet (Google), and Amazon – with founder Jeff Bezos being the grandson of ARPA founder Lawrence Preston Gise – leading the software side, and Microsoft, Apple, NVIDIA and Tesla leading the hardware component. While many of these companies have egregious ties to the intelligence community and the public sector during their incubation, now these private sector companies are driving the globalization and national security interests of the public sector.

The future of the American data economy is firmly situated between two pillars – artificial intelligence and blockchain technology. With the incoming Trump administration’s close advisory ties to PayPal, Tether, Facebook, Palantir, Tesla and SpaceX, it is clear that the data brokers have returned to roost at Pennsylvania Avenue. AI requires massive amounts of sound data to be of any use for the technologists, and the data provided by these private sector stalwarts is poised to feed their learning modules – surely after securing hefty government contracts. Private companies using public blockchains to issue their tokens generates not only significant opportunities for the United States to address its debt problem, but simultaneously serves as a “boon in surveillance”, as stated by a former CIA director.

Trump Embraces the “Bitcoin-Dollar”, Stablecoins to Entrench US Financial Hegemony

Trump’s recent speech on bitcoin and crypto embraced policies that will seek to mold bitcoin into an enabler of irresponsible fiscal policy and will employ programmable, surveillable stablecoins to expand and entrench dollar dominance.

Within the Trump administration’s embracing of the blockchain – itself the final iteration of the public-private commercialization of data, despite its libertarian posturing – reveals the culmination of a decades-long technocratic dialectic trojan horse. Nearly all of the foundational technology needed to push the world into this new financial system was cultivated in the shadows by the military and intelligence community of the world’s largest empire. While technology can surely offer solutions for greater efficiency and economic prosperity, the very same tools can also be used to further enslave the citizens of the world.

What once appeared as a guiding light beckoning us towards free speech and financial freedom has revealed itself to be nothing but the shine of Uncle Sam’s boot making its next step.  https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/01/investigative-reports/the-evolution-of-the-militarized-data-broker/

January 29, 2025 Posted by | technology, USA | Leave a comment

Renewables to dominate future EU energy supply despite nuclear buzz – German engineers

 

Clean Energy Wire, 24 Jan 2025, Benjamin Wehrmann, https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/renewables-dominate-future-eu-energy-supply-despite-nuclear-buzz-german-engineers

The Association of German Engineers (VDI) has cautioned that new-found enthusiasm for nuclear power, as a means to mitigate global warming, must not slow the rollout of renewables, which are set to become the dominant power source. Germany and Europe therefore must stick to a path that maximises the potential of renewable power, and keeps the supplementary role of nuclear power in check, said VDI energy expert Harald Bradke. A recent paper from the International Energy Agency (IEA) titled “The Path to a New Era for Nuclear Energy” indicated there had been a recent shift towards nuclear energy, which according to the VDI “could lead to false conclusions if taken superficially.”


The IEA’s own World Energy Outlook 2024 painted a more nuanced picture, particularly for Europe, the VDI argued. The energy agency found that the EU’s nuclear power production dropped from 854 TWh in 2010 to 616 TWh in 2023, leading the technology’s share in electricity production to fall from 29 to 23 percent. One scenario on “announced pledges” that countries made in the context of the Paris Climate Agreement used by the IEA for the EU would mean that nuclear generation grows to 860 TWh by 2050 – while its share continues to slide to about 15 percent by that year. At the same time, renewables could grow from 45 to 84 percent. Solar PV’s share in this scenario grows form 9 percent to 24 percent and wind power’s share from 18 to 46 percent between 2023 and 2050. “These figures support the assumption that renewable energy sources are going to remain the main drivers of the energy transition despite the prognosed surge in nuclear energy production,” said VDI energy expert Badke.

Germany shuttered its last three nuclear reactors in April 2023. The step that ended a process which had been in the making for more than two decades was met with criticism both domestically and internationally due to its timing during the European energy crisis and the lost potential of nuclear energy generation for emissions reduction. However, despite a nuclear renaissance championed by Europe’s nuclear power leader France, most countries in the EU have much larger and more advanced plans to boost their renewable power capacities.

Globally, the IEA’s outlook found that nuclear power production grew by a mere 0.33 percent between 2010 and 2023 to 2,765 terawatt hours (TWh), while the share of nuclear power in global electricity production shrank from 13 to 9 percent during the same period. The IEA’s announced pledges scenario forecast a doubling of the world’s nuclear generation to 6,055 TWh by 2050. However, due to the simultaneous rapid surge in electricity demand that looks set to more than double, the technology’s share would remain at only 9 percent by the middle of the century, VDI pointed out.


At the same time, forecasts show that renewables will grow at a much faster pace worldwide during this time: solar power’s global electricity production share will rise from only 5 percent in 2023 to about 40 percent by 2050, while wind power’s share is expected to rise from 8 to 26 percent. All renewable energy sources together could increase their share from 30 to 83 percent, IEA found.

January 29, 2025 Posted by | Germany, renewable | Leave a comment

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