The $17bn nuclear start-up without any revenue
A nuclear technology company backed by Sam Altman is riding a wave of investor enthusiasm
Publicly-listed Oklo sits at the intersection of two hot areas for Wall Street: artificial intelligence and energy companies. This year alone, Oklo’s share price has jumped more than 400 per cent. But the business hasn’t generated any revenue. It hasn’t built a nuclear reactor, and it hasn’t secured any binding contracts with customers. The FT’s US energy editor Jamie Smyth explains the enthusiasm for Oklo, its links to the Trump administration and whether it can live up to the hype. company backed by Sam Altman is riding a wave of investor enthusiasm.
Clips from New York Stock Exchange, The White House, a16z – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – For further reading: Inside Oklo: the $20bn nuclear start-up without any revenue US and investors gambling on unproven nuclear technology, warn experts Donald Trump’s assault on US nuclear watchdog raises safety concerns
Subscribers only –https://www.ft.com/content/d87cb0ac-b599-46b9-8a4d-9a8b55541ab2
TRANSCRIPT – Michela Tindera speaks to Jamie Smyth
Nov 5 2025 Audio transcript of podcast.
“……………………………. Jamie Smyth
Oklo’s valuation soared to more than $25bn in just 18 months, and this really caught my eye. I’ve been tracking quite a lot of these smaller nuclear companies over the last 18 months, but nothing had reacted like this.
They want to power the artificial intelligence revolution using nuclear energy, but a new type of nuclear energy, which hasn’t been in use to date in the commercial nuclear world.
Michela Tindera But here’s the thing. This high-flying start-up Oklo, it doesn’t have revenues, licenses to operate, nor does it have any contracts with customers. So what’s going on with this company? That is what Jamie and our colleagues have been digging int
Jamie Smyth Oklo has become a symbol of the AI boom and the ongoing nuclear renaissance because of the astonishing rise in the value of its shares and its close relationship with the Trump administration. How the company fares could have a big influence in whether nuclear energy powers this AI revolution.
Michela Tindera
I am Michela Tindera from The Financial Times. Today on Behind The Money, is Oklo’s promise justified, or is it just riding the wave of AI hype?
Jamie Smythe…………………………………………………………..
So Oklo started in 2013 by a couple called Jacob and Caroline DeWitte……………. back in 2013, they met Sam Altman of OpenAI fame …………………….he decides to invest in Oklo………………….He later agrees to chair the company and steer its stock market listing. Now that happens in May 2024 through a Spac or a special purpose acquisition company deal.
…………………Oklo’s share price initially. In fact, it fell on the first day of the listing. But after Donald Trump’s election, and particularly with his inauguration, he really ratcheted up the focus on energy dominance and also gave this strong support for nuclear power.
…………………….And then in May 2025, you get Oklo’s chief executive Jacob DeWitte visiting the White House and speaking in the Oval Office………….
You have Trump sitting in the Oval Office, launching several executive orders on nuclear energy pledging to quadruple capacity by 2050, and he’s invited Jacob and a couple of other CEOs of nuclear companies. You’ve got the chief executive of Constellation Energy standing there beside him, the chief executive of General Matter, an enrichment company, standing there.
……………The room is really packed full of celebrities and there’s Jacob DeWitte in amongst them all.
Jacob DeWitte audio clip………………… The physics are on our side and these things help unleash this innovation to actually realise that. So it’s never been more exciting.
Donald Trump audio clip
Very exciting indeed. Go ahead, please.
Jamie Smyth This platform to speak from the Oval Office next to Trump, I think was a huge endorsement of the company for investors. You really start to see the stock price jump from there, and then it really goes through the roof. It’s made the DeWittes paper billionaires. They own just under 18 per cent of the company, though they’ve made a large chunk of real money too by selling some of their stock. In the past six months, they’ve made about $250mn in share sales according to some Bloomberg data analysed by the FT.
……………………………….Well, I think Oklo really sits at the intersection of these two stock market booms in artificial intelligence and energy companies. The AI revolutions being driven by Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon and other big tech giants, and this realisation that data centres, which are driving the AI technology, they’re gonna require huge amounts of electricity. So that’s why you’re seeing shares in energy companies, utilities like Constellation Energy, gas turbine makers such as GE Vernova and Siemens and other nuclear start-ups, all their shares are soaring.
………………………………. the Trump factor. The administration is spending big on nuclear.
Michela Tindera
Like Jamie mentioned earlier, the Trump administration has pledged to quadruple US nuclear capacity by 2050
Jamie Smyth It has very ambitious plans to build out 10 large-scale reactors and support this new technology that Oklo is developing. And specifically, Oklo has benefited from this. They have been offered a place on a fast-tracking programme for their nuclear reactor. They’ve also been offered a place on a fuel programme as well. And they are being given a very specialised, scarce form of fuel, which they require to run their type of reactor. So I think investors are responding to this and they’re getting very excited.
……………………………Bank of America have actually said that this support from the Trump administration is one element that gives the company an edge over its rivals. Democrats, however, have alleged that it really creates an appearance of impropriety, and they have asked a series of questions of the administration about its relationship with Oklo.
………………Oklo wants to build a new type of nuclear reactor, something called a small modular reactor or an SMR…………And what’s interesting about Oklo’s SMR is that it wants to use liquid sodium as a coolant rather than the standard of water.
……………………………Oklo would say their reactor could be safer than a water-cooled reactor in terms of a Chernobyl-style accident. It’s just not gonna happen. But there are downsides to sodium-cooled reactors. You know, the big question with these sodium-cooled reactors are, we’ve had four or five of them actually already built in the United States over the last 40 years on a test basis, but none of them have actually managed to become commercially viable, so they didn’t take off. ……………………………………….
Michela Tindera So Oklo’s plan here sounds pretty ambitious. First, they wanna build a new kind of nuclear reactor that hasn’t been sold commercially in the US before. And second, they also have this untested business model. They wanna sell the nuclear power themselves instead of offloading that to a utility company.
………………..Jamie Smyth
Oklo have a very ambitious goal of commercially beginning to sell power through their SMRs by 2027……………..
They haven’t yet built their nuclear reactor. They haven’t got a licence for their nuclear reactor. They haven’t got any revenue and they haven’t got a legally binding contract with a customer.
Michela Tindera Not any customers at all?
Jamie Smyth They don’t have legally binding par purchase agreements with customers. What they’ve got is they’ve got MOUs or memorandums of understandings. So companies have come to them and said, we’d like to talk about and draw out an outline of an agreement, but there’s no legally binding agreement yet in place. So until it can do that, I think there’ll always be a question mark over the sustainability of the company.
Michela Tindera A lot of what Oklo is pursuing is untested, the technology, but also the business model of both building the reactors and selling the power they generate. And as its market valuation source, analysts are increasingly pointing out that the company’s valuation is stretched.
The business has attracted the attention of short sellers. That’s people who bet on a stock’s price going down. Oklo’s short sellers have borrowed roughly 13 per cent of the stock. They believe that the DeWittes have underestimated the amount of time and money that’s required to commercialise their technology. One area they’ve particularly struggled with is licensing.
Jamie Smyth One of the issues to do with Oklo is, it’s one of the few companies that has had a licence application rejected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the United States. That is quite a big thing.
……………………..Jamie Smyth………….And then in 2022, the NRC didn’t award the licence. So that really raises the question mark about whether Oklo was able to secure one of these licences. Oklo has strongly criticised the NRC decision to not award them a licence. They even alleged the NRC staff engaged in inappropriate behaviour for a regulator.
………………Michela Tindera In the years since, Oklo has successfully lobbied the government to streamline the NRC licensing process. Jamie Smyth So the Trump administration has set up a separate pathway for SMR developers to build test reactors on federal land under the oversight of the Department of Energy, which is run by energy secretary Wright. And beyond that, the Trump administration has piled extraordinary pressure on the NRC to approve reactors within short timeframes, much shorter than previously.
Michela Tindera But as Oklo moves forward, it’s a space that everyone will be watching closely.
Jamie Smyth I suppose one of the risks with Oklo is, if they try to move too fast, they try to race ahead with their technology and they hit a wall, then it could impact the rest of the industry. And this nuclear renaissance that we’re beginning to see could be hurt by that. Safety is of key importance in the nuclear industry. If something goes wrong, you have seen it in the past, then the whole industry suffers.
Michela Tindera So to recap, this is a company with no customers and no contracts, and . . .
Jamie Smyth At the minute the company has generated zero revenue, yet it is currently one of the highest-valued pre-revenue companies listed in the US. And that makes people nervous.
……………………………..Jamie Smyth So the thing about Oklo is, because it’s based in Silicon Valley, it takes a very Big Tech approach to how it’s gonna operate, which is very different than other nuclear companies have worked in the past. You know, move fast and break things is the motto in Silicon Valley.
……………………………………………………………………………Jamie Smyth I think what investors probably want to see is they need to see delivery now. They need to see progress on a licence with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Oklo says they’re working towards that, but they also need to see some contracts which are going to bring in some revenue, and most importantly of all, they need to see that these reactors are going to work and that they’re going to work on a commercial basis. ………………….. https://www.ft.com/content/3e84e4d4-bf72-44f7-8fdd-0bdf36c806f6
Nuclear Tests and Their Legacy of Harms in Asia-Pacific
Far from being mere experiments, the detonations of nuclear weapons during such tests are best understood as a global catastrophe
Nuclear “tests” are best conceptualized as environmental disasters with consequences that are still felt today, particularly in Oceania and Central Asia.
By Maxime Polleri, November 05, 2025, https://thediplomat.com/2025/11/nuclear-tests-and-their-legacy-of-harms-in-asia-pacific/
Recently, U.S. President Donald Trump made headlines when he told the Pentagon to resume testing of U.S. nuclear weapons, citing his concerns that countries like China or Russia had supposedly conducted secret underground nuclear weapons tests and that the United States was falling behind. While the president’s post created much controversy around the nature of such tests, the U.S. energy secretary later explained that Trump’s planned tests would not include any actual nuclear explosions, but would encompass “system tests” to verify the state of American nuclear arsenals.
While the fact that the United States does not plan to detonate nuclear weapons is reassuring, the country, as well as China and Russia, have a long history of experimenting with real nuclear weapons to measure the performance of their devastating arsenals. Throughout the 20th century, nuclear testing has taken different forms, such as aboveground nuclear weapon tests, underwater tests, and underground tests. The 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty prohibited atmospheric, outer space and underwater tests, while some nation states later declared moratoria on underground tests.
Nowadays, nuclear “tests” are done via computers or laboratory scale experiments and do not include actual explosions. However, understanding former nuclear experiments as “tests” is highly misleading, since each atomic and thermonuclear explosion throughout the 20th century released a tremendous quantity of long-lasting radioactive pollutants. Nuclear “tests” are best conceptualized as environmental disasters with long-lasting consequences that are still felt nowadays, particularly in Oceania, as well as Central Asia.
n the early 1950s, the United States began to test numerous nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site, releasing large quantities of radioactive fallout that afflicted its own population. People exposed to such fallout became known as “downwinders” and faced a plethora of health problems. Aware of the danger of bombing themselves, many nation states began to “export” nuclear testing to colonial areas, where vulnerable local populations faced the burden of contamination. Testing nuclear weapons in such locations was often a strategic choice, since many of the indigenous local population were already invisible from the public scrutiny or did not have the means to speak back to the dominant power that controlled their territories.
For instance, in March 1954, the U.S. tested a thermonuclear weapon, Castle Bravo, in the Bikini Atoll of the Marshall Islands, an archipelago in Micronesia that was turned into U.S. military bases after World War II. The nuclear fallout heavily impacted residents of the atolls, who were later forced to evacuate their beloved home. In fact, the scope of the fallout was so powerful that a Japanese fishing boat, the Daigo Fukuryū Maru, was contaminated by the test, resulting in cases of acute radiation syndrome for the fishing crew and the death of its radioman.
Much like the United States, France also conducted atmospheric and underwater tests in French Polynesia, resulting in the contamination of many atolls, like Moruroa. Nuclear tests in the Asia-Pacific region created a tremendous legacy of harms, which included the destruction of coral reefs and the death of marine ecosystems, but also forced displacements, contamination of the food chain, destruction of the social fabric, and health issues.
A similar pattern of exporting nuclear tests to vulnerable populations was also apparent in Central and East Asia. For instance, the Soviets repeatedly tested their nuclear weapons in the Semipalatinsk Test Site, a region that was historically dominated by ethnic Kazakhs. Nowadays, as anthropologist Magdalena Stawkowski highlights, Kazakhstan has inherited the remnants of one of the world’s most contaminated landscapes, dealing with contested health issues, precarious economy and marginalization.
Moreover, the People’s Republic of China has historically tested its nuclear weapons in the region of Lop Nur, leading Uyghurs, a Muslim minority ethnic group of northwestern China, to voice concerns about the long-term impact of residual radiation. In many of these instances, issues of national security – such as the health and well-being of local populations – were sacrificed for issues of international security.
Ironically, in each of these cases, humans tested nuclear weapons to prepare for a war that never came – globally contaminating ourselves in the process.
Far from being mere experiments, the detonations of nuclear weapons during such tests are best understood as a global catastrophe. And while a moratorium on nuclear testing ought to be applauded, many people are still grappling with the legacy of past nuclear tests.
The recent movie “A House of Dynamite” has brought up fresh fears of a nuclear war, as well as numerous discussions surrounding nuclear deterrence theories and mutually assured destruction. Instead of focusing our time, energy, and resources on hypothetical strikes that happen in science fiction or game theory, we should delve deeper into the poisoned heritages of the real explosions that occurred in the 20th century and prompt efforts to revitalize communities that are still suffering from its harm.
IAEA chief condemns Trump’s nuclear test plan.
5 Nov, 2025, https://www.rt.com/news/627359-iaea-grossi-us-nuclear/
The US president’s decision undermines international security, Rafael Grossi has said.
US President Donald Trump’s decision to resume nuclear weapon testing is indicative of a deepening global crisis and weakens the international system of security and peace, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, has said.
Speaking to France’s LCI TV channel on Tuesday, Grossi described Trump’s announcement as a “manifestation of profound unease, tension, and increasing fragmentation,” adding that it undermines both global peace and the non-proliferation regime.
Last week, Trump ordered the US Department of War to begin preparations for nuclear testing, claiming that the US is “the only country that doesn’t test” and accusing Russia and China of conducting “secret” nuclear explosions. Both Moscow and Beijing have refuted the allegations.
Grossi questioned the veracity of Trump’s claims, emphasizing that any nuclear detonations by other nations would be detected by the international monitoring system established under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. The IAEA chief noted that the organization responsible for overseeing compliance “can immediately record such phenomena.”
Grossi called for the restoration of the United Nations’ role in maintaining global peace and safeguarding the nuclear non-proliferation system amid rising tensions.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has so far refrained from commenting on Trump’s statements, explaining that Moscow is still waiting for “clarifications from the American side.” He stressed that neither Russia nor China had resumed nuclear testing and both remain committed to their obligations under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.
Trump’s announcement came after Russia conducted a series of tests, including the launch of its new Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile and the Poseidon underwater drone. However, neither of these trials involved actual nuclear detonations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow would consider resuming the testing of nuclear weapons only if other nuclear powers officially abandon the moratorium.
‘Nothing revolutionary’ about Russia’s nuclear-powered missile: Experts
Putin has touted cruise missile Burevestnik and torpedo Poseidon as game-changing weapons as the war in Ukraine rages on.
Aljazeera, By Mansur Mirovalev, 5 Nov 2025
Kyiv, Ukraine – The collective West is scared of Moscow’s new, nuclear-powered cruise missile because it can reach anywhere on Earth, bypassing the most sophisticated air and missile defence systems, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has claimed.
“They’re afraid of what we’ll show to them next,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the RIA Novosti news agency on Sunday.
Days earlier, she said Moscow was “forced” to develop and test the cruise missile, which is named the Burevestnik, meaning storm petrel – a type of seabird, in response to NATO’s hostility towards Russia.
“The development can be characterised as forced and takes place to maintain strategic balance,” she was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying. Russia “has to respond to NATO’s increasingly destabilising actions in the field of missile defence”.
With much pomp, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday handed state awards to Burevestnik’s developers.
Also awarded were the designers of Poseidon, an underwater nuclear-powered torpedo which Putin has also claimed has been successfully tested.
Russia says Poseidon can carry nuclear weapons that cause radioactive tsunamis, wiping out huge coastal areas. The “super torpedo” can move at the speed of 200km/h (120mph) and zigzag its way to avoid interception, it says.
“In terms of flight range, the Burevestnik … has surpassed all known missile systems in the world,” Putin said in his speech at the Kremlin. “Same as any other nuclear power, Russia is developing its nuclear potential, its strategic potential … What we are talking about now is the work announced a long time ago.”
But military and nuclear experts are sceptical about the efficiency and lethality of the new weapons.
It is not unusual for Russia to flaunt its arsenal as its onslaught in Ukraine continues. Analysts say rather than scaring its critics, Moscow’s announcements are merely a scare tactic to dissuade Western powers from supporting Kyiv.
“There’s nothing revolutionary about,” the Burevestnik, said Pavel Podvig, director of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project at the the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research.
“It can fly long and far, and there’s some novelty about it, but there’s nothing to back [Putin’s claim] that it can absolutely change everything,” Podvig told Al Jazeera. “One can’t say that it is invincible and can triumph over everything.”
The Burevestnik’s test is part of Moscow’s media stratagem of intimidating the West when the real situation on the front lines in Ukraine is desperate, according to a former Russian diplomat.
The missile is “not a technical breakthrough but a product of propaganda and desperation”, Boris Bondarev, who quit his Russian Foreign Ministry job to protest against the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, wrote in an opinion piece published by the Moscow Times.
Few details about ‘unique’ missile
The problem is that officials have so far unveiled very little about the Burevestnik, which NATO has dubbed the SSC-X-9 Skyfall – a missile that has a nuclear reactor allegedly capable of keeping it in the air indefinitely………………………………………………………………………… https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/5/nothing-revolutionary-about-russias-nuclear-powered-missile-experts
THE CORRUPTION OF COP30: DODGY CLIMATE DOSSIERS
Here we go again: the annual end-of-year COP fandango is upon us. This
particular Conference of the Parties (signatories to the original Framework
Convention on Climate Change back in 1992) happens to be in Brazil —
generally deemed to be a more sympathetic host country than its two
petrostate predecessors Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates.
That may
be true (although rates of deforestation in the Amazon are on the up
again), but COP30 will be just as resounding a failure (as in making not a
ha’p’orth of difference) as the 29 other COPs that have gone before it.
There are many reasons for this: geopolitical, financial, technological and
so on. But I want to look at one aspect that rarely gets mentioned: almost
every single delegate at COP30 will be focused on dodgy data – on things
like the targets set by governments through their revised Nationally
Determined Contributions, or on average temperature increases projected
through to the end of the century (1.5°C and all that jazz), or on endless
attention-grabbing voluntary initiatives about this, that or the other
technology or nature-based ‘solutions’.
Jonathon Porritt 6th Nov 2025, https://jonathonporritt.com/cop30-corruption-dodgy-climate-data/
Bpifrance helps UK nuclear reactor to financial close.
6 November 2025 By Jacob Atkins
French export credit agency Bpifrance is covering a £5bn loan from 13
commercial banks to help finance the construction of the Sizewell C nuclear
power station in England. The facility, structured as a green loan, sits
alongside a £36.5bn term loan from the UK’s National Wealth Fund, which
was announced earlier this year, as well as a £500mn working capital
facility. Bpifrance has secured refinancing from French public development
bank Sfil, according to a November 4 statement. BNP Paribas acted as joint
debt advisor to Sizewell C, with HSBC as French authorities and green loan
co-ordinator, and Santander as documentation co-ordinator on the Bpifrance
facility. The other lenders on the Bpifrance loan are ABN Amro, BBVA,
Crédit Agricole, CaixaBank, Citibank, Crédit Industriel et Commercial
(CIC), Lloyds Bank, Natwest, Natixis and Société Générale.
Global Trade Review 6th Nov 2025, https://www.gtreview.com/news/europe/bpifrance-helps-uk-nuclear-reactor-to-financial-close/
Trump’s Threat to Resume Nuclear Testing
In 1963 John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev signed the ban on atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, which was extended to a moratorium in 1992 and secured as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. The Treaty has been signed by 187 states. On October 31st, United Nations member states voted on a resolution in support of the Treaty and the global nuclear test moratorium. The United States was the only “no” vote.
Donald Trump is now threatening to resume nuclear testing because “he believes others are doing it.” They aren’t. The threat came after Vladimir Putin announced that the Kremlin https://www.reuters.com/world/china/putin-says-russia-tested-poseidon-nuclear-capable-super-torpedo-2025-10-29/
Tied to this is the situation at Los Alamos National Laboratory, or LANL, the heart of the new trillion-dollar modernization program that will rebuild every nuclear warhead in the planned stockpile with new military capabilities and produce new-design nuclear weapons as well. LANL will fabricate plutonium pits, or triggers, for these nuclear warheads, along with the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
A Nuclear Watch New Mexico press release stated: “The underlying point is that new-design plutonium pits for new-design nuclear weapons may create inexorable pressures for resumed nuclear weapons testing by the United States. This would be sure to set off a chain reaction of testing by other nuclear weapons powers [ ]. The final result is a dramatically accelerating nuclear arms race, arguably more dangerous than the first arms race given multiple nuclear actors, new hypersonic and cyber weapons, and the rise of artificial intelligence.” https://nukewatch.org/press-release-item/trump-orders-nuclear-weapons-testing-for-new-nuclear-arms-race-new-plutonium-pit-bomb-cores-at-los-alamos-lab-could-make-it-real/
Scottish National Party reject UK Government’s ‘nonsense’ national security threat smear
THE SNP have rejected the UK Government’s “nonsense” accusations
that they are a threat to national security. Three Cabinet ministers have
levelled the accusation against the party three times since the beginning
of the week.
Speaking in the Commons on Monday, Defence Secretary John
Healey said: “The continuation of the Scottish nationalist Government in
Scotland is a threat to our security and to future prosperity and jobs in
that country.”
Asked about those claims at a meeting of the Scottish
Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander
replied: “I find myself, as usual, in agreement with the Defence
Secretary.” He pointed to the SNP’s opposition to nuclear weapons and
to its historic ban on public money being spent on weapons manufacture.
North East Green MSP Maggie Chapman said: “Trident is a moral abomination that swallows huge sums of money that we could spend instead on improving people’s lives, on tackling poverty, on funding our public services.
The Scottish Government should not be offering even more funding for
multibillion pound weapons giants who have armed and supported Israel’s
genocide against Gaza. These are not extreme statements. They are views
held by large numbers of people, including me. The military industrial
complex does not ensure our security: it lays the foundations for future
conflict and misery.”
The National 5th Nov 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/news/25599877.snp-reject-uk-governments-nonsense-national-security-threat-smear/
Hinkley Point B to begin 95-year decommissioning plan
Clara BullockSomerset, 5 Nov 25, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c986pvg41y2o
A former nuclear power station will begin its 95-year decommissioning process after regulators granted formal consent.
EDF’s Hinkley Point B, which lies on the Somerset coast near Stogursey, has been given the green light to be demolished by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR).
In August 2022, Hinkley Point B reached the end of its operating life after nearly 46 years of generating electricity.
Dan Hasted, ONR director of regulation, said: “We will continue to proportionately regulate the Hinkley Point B site throughout the decommissioning phase to safeguard workers and the public.”
The nuclear site will transfer from EDF to the Nuclear Restoration Services next year, which will oversee the site’s dismantling.
Under the proposals, Hinkley Point B, which opened in 1976, could be decommissioned in three phases.
The first phase, which will last until 2038, includes the dismantling of all buildings and plant materials except for the site’s safestore structure. This facility will be used to store and manage the residential nuclear waste from the power station.
The second phase will see “a period of relative inactivity” of up to 70 years from 2039, to allow for the radioactive materials within the safestore to safely decay.
The final phase will see the former reactor and debris vaults being dismantled and removed.
Meanwhile, a new nuclear power station, Hinkley Point C, is being constructed near Hinkley B.
The iodine-129 paradox in nuclear waste management strategies
Nature, Analysis 05 November 2025, Haruko M. Wainwright, Kate Whiteaker, Hansell Gonzalez-Raymat, Miles E. Denham, Ian L. Pegg, Daniel I. Kaplan, Nikolla P. Qafoku, David Wilson, Shelly Wilson & Carol A. Eddy-Dilek Nature Sustainability (2025) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-025-01629-2
Abstract
Nuclear energy has an important role in the low-carbon energy transition, but the safety of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) management remains a public concern. Here we investigate the interplay between waste management strategies and their environmental impacts with a particular focus on a highly mobile and persistent radionuclide, iodine-129 (I-129), which is the dominant risk contributor from SNF disposal and at existing groundwater contamination sites.
The results show that the current recycling practice releases more than 90% of I-129 in SNF into the present-day biosphere using an isotropic dilution strategy, whereas the direct disposal of SNF in geological repositories is likely to delay and reduce the release by 8 orders of magnitude. In addition, our data synthesis of surface water concentrations near four nuclear facilities shows that the release-dilution strategy results in lower concentrations than regulatory standards, while insufficient waste isolation in the past has resulted in locally high concentrations within one site.
Our analysis suggests that it is essential to consider effluents more explicitly as a part of the waste, that as society moves from dilution to isolation of waste, the potential risks of waste isolation to local regions should be carefully evaluated, and that excessive burdens of proof could hinder or discourage waste isolation. Comprehensive waste management strategies—considering not just volume but also mobility, isolation technologies and ultimate fates—are needed for persistent contaminants. This study offers valuable insights for optimizing the management of SNF and other persistent contaminants.
Canadian government happily splashing tax-payers’ money on wasteful things nuclear
Gordon Edwards, 6 Nov 2025
A comment on https://www.msn.com/en-ph/technology/general/the-smr-boom-will-soon-go-bust/ar-AA1PJi1U
This is your ultraconservative radical, Gordon, sounding a note of caution.
The fact that our utilities are publicly owned means that ordinary economic rules need not apply.
The military brings in little or no revenue but the government still funds it.
Gentilly-2 in Quebec was a loser always, and I told reporters to ask Hydro Quebec to give just one good economic reason why the G-2 reactor should not be shut down. No economic reason was forthcoming but the government of Quebec said “we want to maintain a minimal level of expertise in the nuclear field.”
So do not expect SMRs in Canada to be cancelled just because they are uneconomic.
Who cares? It’s not THEIR money they are spending, it’s OURS.
Israel Is Still Starving Gaza, And Other Notes
Caitlin Johnstone, Nov 06, 2025
In an article titled “Not enough tents, food reaching Gaza as winter comes, aid agencies say,” Reuters reports that “Far too little aid is reaching Gaza nearly four weeks after a ceasefire” due to Israeli restrictions preventing aid trucks from getting to their destinations, and that according to an OSHA report last week “a tenth of children screened in Gaza were still acutely malnourished.”
A report from the UK’s Channel 4 News shows warehouses full of food that aid groups say isn’t being allowed into Gaza nearly as rapidly as needed.
In an article titled “‘Under the Guise of Bureaucracy’ — Israel Blocks Humanitarian Groups From Delivering Essential Aid Despite Calm in Gaza,” Israeli outlet Haaretz reports that “Israel has implemented a new procedure requiring all humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza and the West Bank to reapply for official approval, with many denied, despite the relative calm in Gaza following the cease-fire.”
They’re using bureaucratic red tape and arbitrary restrictions to put as much inertia on the effort to rush aid into Gaza as possible. As Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah put it, Israel has “successfully rebranded its genocide as a ‘ceasefire.’”
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Still can’t wrap my head around the fact that internationally renowned activist Greta Thunberg said she was tortured and sexually humiliated by Israeli soldiers when she was abducted for trying to bring aid to starving civilians, and the world just shrugged and moved on.
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It’s so silly when US empire apologists cite “the Monroe Doctrine” to defend US warmongering in Latin America, as though “the entire western hemisphere is our property” is a perfectly legitimate policy to have.
The Monroe Doctrine was just American imperialists telling Europe, “You see all these brown people over here south of our border? These are our brown people. You can do whatever you want to those brown people over there in Africa and Asia, but these brown people over here belong to us. Only we get to dominate and exploit them.”
That’s all it has ever been, and people cite it to justify warmongering toward Venezuela or wherever as though saying “yeah well that’s the Monroe Doctrine” is a complete argument in and of itself. It’s bat shit insane nonsense and it should be rejected in its entirety.
US regime change interventionism is reliably disastrous wherever it happens. It always causes immense suffering and instability, it’s always justified by lies, and it never accomplishes what its proponents claim it will accomplish. No amount of bleating the words “Monroe Doctrine” will ever change that.
The US empire backs genocidal Gulf state monarchies like the UAE and Saudi Arabia because if those states were democratically governed their people would prioritize their own interests over the agendas of the west. They wouldn’t permit US military bases on their territory, and they never would have tolerated Israel and its abuses in the region. Fossil fuel policy would be set without regard for western interests. The entire region could long ago have united into a superpower bloc which rivaled or outmuscled the western power structure using its critical resources and trade routes.
That’s why you see the US and its allies preaching about the values of Freedom and Democracy to the public while privately telling these tyrannical monarchies they can do whatever they want and receive the backing of the imperial machine. Not until their pet tyrant fails to sufficiently kowtow to the interests of the empire does the west suddenly get interested in advancing Freedom and Democracy in their nation.
This is one of the major dynamics at play in Sudan. The United Arab Emirates has been backing the genocidal atrocities of the RSF and the US empire is placing no pressure on them to stop, because that’s part of the deal. As long as the UAE plays along with the agendas of the empire, the empire will tolerate or actively facilitate its abuses……………………………………………………………….. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-is-still-starving-gaza-and?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=178143727&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
US Army wants to deploy small nuclear power plants
The Janus Program aims to put commercial reactors into military service by 2028
by Craig Bettenhausen, Chemical and Engineering News, October 31, 2025
A plan by the US Army to deploy small modular nuclear reactors could help the military replace fossil fuels shipped along precarious supply lines with electricity and synthetic fuels generated on-site. Project Janus, which Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright jointly announced on Oct. 14, aims to put a small modular reactor (SMR) in operation by the end of 2028.
The shutdown of the federal government is delaying the rollout, army officials say, but a draft request for proposals should be out in a matter of weeks.
Though the program aims to put the first military SMR at a base in the US, the bigger vision is mobile microreactors that can provide power in far-flung locations. “The biggest military use case is contested logistics,” says Staff Sheehan, CEO of a nuclear chemistry start-up that is in stealth mode. “How do you power small, tactical, forward-operating bases, or even larger bases of thousands of servicemembers, that historically required a diesel generator and hydrocarbon fuels?”……………………………………………………….
The 2028 installation target was set in May by President Donald J. Trump in an executive order, which calls for the first reactor to be in operation by September that year. The same order also directs the US energy and defense secretaries to use “all available legal authorities” to smooth the regulatory road for advanced nuclear reactors and nuclear-fuel-recycling facilities built at sites controlled by those agencies. It also designates a wide range of activities, including those serving artificial intelligence hardware, as defense-critical electrical infrastructure.
That designation is important because many military reactors don’t require approvals from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the independent federal agency that issues permits and regulations for civilian nuclear power. Many nuclear power advocates accuse the NRC of driving up the cost of nuclear power through overregulation, whereas critics hold the agency up as a critical public safeguard……………………. https://cen.acs.org/energy/nuclear-power/US-Army-deploy-small-nuclear/103/web/2025/10#:~:text=Project%20Janus,%20which%20Secretary%20of,by%20the%20end%20of%202028.
Trump, Putin, and Nuclear Arms Diplomacy
Gordon Hahn, Nov 06, 2025
As I wrote a while back, it is one thing for a political leader to loosely play with language that circles around making a nuclear threat, as Russian Security Council Deputy Head and former Russian President Dmitrii Medvedev has done again recently in a public social net spat with US President Donald Trump. But it is quite another to play global chess with the repositioning of nuclear forces to actually threaten another nuclear power of superior nuclear weapons strength (https://gordonhahn.com/2025/08/05/trumps-suicidal-nuclear-brinksmanship/).
. This is even more so when said nuclear power is technologically advanced and intent on defending ist homeland. Such a country is Russia – a major world power and the leading power in western and central Eurasia – the World Island, as Halford MacKinder wrote more than a century ago. Russian President Vladimir Putin, after proposing a nuclear compromise Trump in typical American fashion chose to ignore has rolled out a counterthreat. In sum, we are seeing the Bidenization of Trump’s Russia policy, oriented towards escalation in the mistaken belief that Moscow can be cowed into submission to US hopes of preserving its dissipating global hegemony. Let’s review the record.
Putin’s initial instinct to the new Trump administration was to signal Moscow‘s desire for nuclear arms talks, seeing the new administration as a small window of opportunity for achieving greater strategic stability for Russia through the conclusion of a new strategic nuclear arms control treaty (https://gordonhahn.com/2025/05/23/a-new-new-start-putin-sees-trump-administration-as-a-window-of-opportunity-for-strategic-arms-control/). The New START treaty, which entered into force in February 2011 and was extended for another five years in 2021, is set to expire without possibility of further extension in February 2026. Any new treaty would have contributed to the larger US-Russian rapprochement broached by the Trump administration in connection with its now collapsed efforts to broker an end to the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War. Trump’s Ukraine diplomacy was welcomed by Putin, but the result is ‘no dice’ so far, and prospects look dim.
In contrast to the Biden administration, Trump has an opportunity to restart nuclear arms talks with Moscow as part of his self-declared hope of normalising relations between Washington and Moscow……………………………………………………(Subscribers only) https://gordonhahn.substack.com/p/trump-putin-and-nuclear-arms-diplomacy?r=1qt5jg&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
The Gaza Laboratory: How War is Being Marketed and How the World is Fighting Back
6 November 2025 Andrew Klein, https://theaimn.net/the-gaza-laboratory-how-war-is-being-marketed-and-how-the-world-is-fighting-back/
A profound and disturbing transformation is underway in global conflict. The besieged Gaza Strip has become more than a humanitarian catastrophe; it has been turned into a live-fire laboratory for the future of warfare and social control. The tactics and weapons tested on its population are being packaged and sold to the world, threatening to export this model of destruction and entrench a new, terrifying international standard. Yet, as this dangerous market grows, a powerful coalition of nations, legal bodies, and civil society is rising to counter it.
The Laboratory: Battle-Testing a New Model of Control
The strategy is as brutal as it is business-minded. The intense urban combat and comprehensive siege conditions in Gaza provide a unique proving ground.
“Combat-Proven” Arms Sales: Major Israeli defense firms like Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) are explicitly marketing their drones, missile defense systems (like Iron Dome), and armoured vehicles as “battle-tested” and “battle-proven” based on their use in Gaza. This has led to record-breaking sales, as other nations seek weapons validated in real-world conditions.
Exporting the Tools of Subjugation: Beyond traditional weapons, the surveillance technologies and population control tactics refined over decades in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are now a global commodity. These systems, which enable pervasive monitoring and social management, are sold to authoritarian regimes worldwide, helping them subjugate their own populations more effectively.
The Erosion of International Law: This model operates by systematically undermining the laws designed to protect civilians. A United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry has found that Israel has committed grave war crimes and acts of genocide. This represents a direct assault on the post-WWII international legal order, setting a precedent that might makes right and that civilian lives are expendable.
The Backlash: A Global Coalition Pushes Back
This pernicious influence has not gone unchallenged. A multi-front resistance is gaining momentum, targeting the economic, legal, and diplomatic pillars of this system.
1. Economic and Arms Embargoes
Nations are beginning to sever the financial pipelines that fuel this war machine.
- Spain has cancelled hundreds of millions of dollars in arms contracts with Israeli companies.
- France shut down the exhibits of major Israeli arms firms at the prestigious Paris Airshow.
- The Norwegian pension fund, KLP, divested from the US company Caterpillar, citing its equipment’s role in the demolition of Palestinian homes.
2. Legal Accountability and Justice
The world’s highest courts are now involved, seeking to enforce accountability where diplomacy has failed.
- The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is hearing a landmark case on the charge of genocide.
- The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has sought arrest warrants for top leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
- Lawsuits in national courts, such as in France, are targeting companies for complicity in war crimes, setting a legal precedent for corporate accountability.
3. Diplomatic Isolation and Recognition
The political landscape is shifting, isolating the perpetrators, and legitimising the victims.
- Over 150 UN member states have now recognised the State of Palestine, reflecting a global consensus against occupation and apartheid.
- Joint statements from European powers have “strongly rejected” further military operations, signaling a fracture in what was once unwavering diplomatic support.
The Path Forward: How to Break the Cycle
Ending this cycle requires sustained, strategic action from the international community. We must:
Demand Corporate Accountability: Pressure companies involved in supplying arms and technology through public campaigns, divestment, and litigation. As UN experts have stated, these companies risk complicity in serious violations of international law.
Support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement: This peaceful, grassroots movement aims to exert economic and political pressure to end the occupation and uphold human rights.
Protect and Amplify the Truth: In an age of propaganda, supporting independent journalism and human rights organisations like Amnesty International and B’Tselem is crucial. They provide the evidence that fuels legal action and public awareness.
Advocate for Government Action: Citizens must demand their governments impose arms embargoes, support international justice mechanisms, and formally recognise Palestinian statehood.
The “Gaza Laboratory” represents a choice between two futures: one where warfare is a profitable, unaccountable business, and another where international law and human dignity are upheld. The global backlash is a testament to the power of collective conscience. It is the growing shield against the dark model being forged in the fires of Gaza, and it is our best hope for a more just and peaceful world.
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