The Next Nuclear Renaissance?
Will a new wave of nuclear power projects deliver the safe and economical electricity that proponents have long predicted?
CATO Institute, Fall 2025, By Steve Thomas
Over the past decade, there has been a growing interest in building new nuclear power stations, particularly among policymakers. This comes some two decades after a previously forecast “nuclear renaissance” petered out, having produced few orders, all of which went badly wrong.
This article reviews the previous renaissance: What was promised, what was delivered, and why it failed. It then considers the current claims of a new renaissance led by Small Modular Reactors, forthcoming “Generation IV” designs, new large reactors, and extending the lifetime of existing nuclear plants. Despite the need for clean generation, the growing demand for electricity to power new technologies and global development, and claims of nuclear generation breakthroughs that are either here or soon will be, this new renaissance appears destined for the same failure as the previous ones.
The Last Renaissance
Around the start of this century, there was a great deal of publicity about a new generation of reactors: so-called Generation III+ designs. These would evolve from the existing dominant “Gen III” designs—Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs) and Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs), collectively known as Light Water Reactors (LWRs)—rather than be radical new designs. There was no clear definition of the characteristics that would qualify a design as Gen III+ rather than just Gen III LWRs. However, Gen III+ was said to incorporate safety advances that would mitigate the risks of incidents like the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island (a Gen II design) and the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown (a Soviet design that used Gen I/II technology). Three Gen III+ designs received the most publicity: the Westinghouse AP1000 (Advanced Passive), the Areva EPR (European Pressurized Water Reactor), and the General Electric ESBWR (Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor).
The narrative was that Gen III designs had become too complex and difficult to build because designers were retrofitting safety features to avoid another Three Mile Island. Gen III+ supposedly went back to the drawing board, rationalizing existing systems and incorporating new safety features, thereby supposedly yielding a cheaper and easier-to-build design. A particular feature of these designs was the use of “passive safety” systems. In an accident situation, these did not require an engineered safety system to be activated by human operators and were not dependent on external sources of power; instead, the reactor would avoid a serious accident by employing natural processes such as convection cooling. These had an intuitive appeal, and a common assumption was that because they were not mechanical systems, they would be cheaper, and because they involved natural processes, they would never fail. Neither assumption is correct.
Another major safety feature resulting from the Chernobyl disaster was a system that, if the core was melting down, prevented the molten core from burning into the surrounding ground and contaminating it. A common approach was a “core-catcher” (already used in a few early reactors) that would be placed underneath the reactor. An alternative, often used for smaller reactors, was a system to flood the core with so much water that it would halt the meltdown.
After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, designers attempted to further increase safety by strengthening the reactor shell so it could withstand an aircraft or missile impact. The core-melt and aircraft protection features inevitably tended to increase the size and complexity of the Gen III+ designs.
Nuclear advocates also claimed that the large cost and time overruns of previous plants were caused in part by the high proportion of work carried out on site. To combat this and the additional complexity noted above, designers vowed to rely more on factory-made modules that could be delivered by truck, reducing sitework mostly to “bolting together” the pieces. In practice, there was significant variability between the Gen III+ designs, with the AP1000 and ESBWR relying much more on passive safety and modular construction than the EPR.
What sold these designs to policymakers were some extraordinary claims about construction costs and times. It was claimed that their cost (excluding finance charges; so-called “overnight cost”) would be around $1,500–$2,000 per kilowatt (kW), meaning a large, 1,000-megawatt (MW) reactor would cost $1.5–$2 billion. Construction time would be no more than 48 months. While there were few existing nuclear projects then to compare the new designs with, these projected costs and times were far below the levels then being achieved with existing designs.
These claims convinced the US government, under President George W. Bush, and the UK government, under Prime Minister Tony Blair, to launch large reactor construction programs. As those countries were two of the pioneering users of nuclear power, this appeared to be a strategically important victory for the nuclear industry.
US / In 2002, President Bush announced his Nuclear 2010 program, so-called because it was expected the first reactor under the program would come online in 2010. It was assumed the new nuclear designs would be competitive with other forms of generation,………………………………………..
In states with regulated electricity markets, utilities were concerned that regulators might not allow them to recover their costs from consumers if there were time and cost overruns. Most of the other projects were abandoned on these grounds, leaving only two to enter the construction stage: a two-reactor project to join an existing reactor at the V.C. Summer plant in South Carolina, and a two-reactor project to join two existing reactors at the A.W. Vogtle project in Georgia. All four new reactors would be Westinghouse AP1000s.
In those two states, regulators gave clear signals that the utilities would be allowed to recover all their costs. The state governments broke with regulatory practice by passing legislation allowing the utilities to raise rates and start recovering their costs from the date of the investment decision, not the date when the reactors entered service…………………………………………….
Consumers started paying for the reactors in 2009–2010, even though construction didn’t start until 2013. By 2015, both projects were in bad shape, way over time and budget. Westinghouse, then owned by Toshiba of Japan, was required to offer fixed-price terms to complete the projects. Those prices soon proved far too low, and in March 2017 Westinghouse filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The whole of Toshiba was reportedly at risk as a result. In August 2017, the V.C. Summer project was abandoned. The A.W. Vogtle project continued, and the first reactor was completed in July 2023 with the second unit following in April 2024, six or seven years behind schedule and at more than double the forecasted cost. There are now no proposals for additional large reactor projects in the United States.
UK / In 2003, a UK Energy White Paper (DTI 2003) concluded there was no case for nuclear power because renewables and energy efficiency measures were cheaper. According to the report, “the current economics of nuclear power make it an unattractive option for new generating capacity and there are also important issues for nuclear waste to be resolved.” Only three years later and despite the lack of evidence that nuclear had become cheaper or that renewables and energy efficiency had become more expensive, Blair reversed the government’s position, claiming nuclear power was “back on the agenda with a vengeance.”
As with the US program, the assumption was that the new designs would be competitive. A key promise that made the program politically acceptable was there would be no public subsidies. Politicians—even those who were favorable to nuclear—were aware that previous UK nuclear projects had gone badly and the costs of this had fallen on taxpayers and electricity consumers. The energy minister told a Parliamentary Select Committee:
There will be no subsidies, direct or indirect. We are not in the business of subsidizing nuclear energy. No cheques will be written; there will be no sweetheart deals.
This promise of no subsidies remained government policy until 2015, despite it being clear long before then that new nuclear projects were only going forward in anticipation of large public subsidies……………………………………………………………
Three consortia were created, each led by some of the largest European utilities………………………………………………….. As early as 2007, the consortium led by EDF established a leading presence, with the CEO of EDF Energy, Vincent de Rivaz, notoriously claiming that Christmas turkeys in the UK would be cooked using power from the Hinkley Point C EPR in 2017. In 2010, the UK energy secretary still claimed Hinkley would begin generating no later than 2018.
The Final Investment Decision (FID) for Hinkley was not taken until October 2016, when it was expected the two reactors would be completed by October 2025 at an overnight cost of £18 billion (in 2015 pounds sterling, equivalent to $35 billion in today’s dollars). ……………………………………………..In January 2024, EDF issued a new cost and time update—its fifth—with completion now expected to be as late as 2032 at a cost of £35 billion (in 2015 pounds sterling, equivalent to $68.7 billion in today’s dollars). As a result, EDF wrote off €12.9 billion ($14 billion) of its investment in Hinkley Point C in 2023. By 2018, EDF recognized the error it made in accepting the risk of fixing the power price, and it abandoned plans for an EPR station at Sizewell using the Hinkley C financial model. In July 2025, an FID was taken on the Sizewell C project using a different financial model and completion is not expected before 2040.
The effect of the 2011 Fukushima, Japan, nuclear plant disaster, where a tsunami resulted in meltdowns in three reactors, combined with the effect of competition in wholesale and retail markets in electricity meant that European utilities could not justify to their shareholders the building of new reactors. The Horizon and Nugen consortia were sold to reactor vendors Westinghouse and Hitachi–GE, respectively. Those firms did not have the financial strength to take significant ownership stakes in the reactors, but they saw this as an opportunity to sell their reactors on the assumption that investors could later be found. Westinghouse (then planning three AP1000s for the Moorside site) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2017. Hitachi–GE abandoned its two projects (four ABWRs, two each at Wylfa and Oldbury) in 2019 when it became clear that, despite the UK government offering to take a 30 percent stake in the reactors and to provide all the finance, other investors were not forthcoming.
Lessons learned / Thus ended the last nuclear renaissance. Its failure does not determine the outcome of the present attempt, but there are some important lessons that will shape the outcome this time:
- While governments have always had to play a facilitating role in nuclear power projects, such as providing facilities to deal with the radioactive waste, they were centrally involved in the 2000 renaissance. This trend has continued, and governments are now offering to provide finance, take ownership stakes, offer publicly funded subsidies, and impose power purchase agreements that will insulate the reactors from competitive wholesale electricity markets.
- Forecasts of construction costs and times made by the nuclear industry must be treated with extreme skepticism. The claim that the new designs would be so cheap they would be able to compete with the cheapest generation option then available—natural gas generation—proved so wide of the mark that other claimed characteristics, such as supplying base-load power and offering low-carbon generation, are now given as the prime justifications for the substantial extra cost of nuclear power over its alternatives.
- The technical characteristics claimed to give advantages to the Gen III+ designs (such as factory-manufactured modules and passive safety) have not been effective in controlling construction times and costs.
- The large reactor designs now on offer are the same ones that were offered previously. No fundamentally new designs have started development this century. It is hard to see why these designs that have failed by large margins to meet expectations will now be so much less problematic……………………………………………… https://www.cato.org/regulation/fall-2025/next-nuclear-renaissance#small-modular-reactors
A Torturous Sanitation Disaster Is Unfolding in Gaza’s Displacement Camps
Every morning we wake to disease, dust, and the unbearable stench of open sewage.
By Sara Awad , Truthout, October 25, 2025
Ceasefire is a relief. After two years of surviving war, we can finally breathe — but that doesn’t mean our suffering is over. For many of us, it’s only just begun. The tents, and the people still living in them, stand as a heavy reminder that our struggles are far from over. After two years of immense destruction by the Israeli military, most families in Gaza are now living in tents — nylons and fabric that don’t protect them either from summer or winter.
In tent life, there is an unlivable war — a war that doesn’t begin with bombs, but with the absence of everything that makes life human. It is a war whose weapons are the denial of clean water, the lack of hygiene, the absence of toilets, dignity, and safety. I am not writing this as a distant witness. No — I am writing this from within it. From the ground. From inside the tent. These are not stories I’ve heard; these are the sensations I experience.
One month living in a tent was enough for me to understand the immense sanitation disaster and horrific conditions that make displaced people feel suffocated by everything around them. This kind of news doesn’t make headlines, and you might not have heard about it. But it is a silent kind of violence — one that kills us every day.
I am here to tell you how my people — including my family — are facing the devastating consequences of the sanitation crisis in these tents.
Thousands of makeshift tents at displacement camps all across Gaza are full of families seeking refuge.
A lack of sufficient toilets, access to clean water, and the presence of open sewage are catastrophic consequences faced by displaced Palestinians — conditions that have persisted since the early months of Gaza’s displacement crisis.
After spending over a month in Gaza City under Israeli occupation, 39-year-old Asma Mohammad and her family fled to the central Gaza Strip, seeking refuge in Al-Nuseirat Camp to escape the ongoing Israeli offensive. Speaking to me via WhatsApp, she described the daily struggle to access basic sanitation. “I have to walk nearly half an hour just to reach the bathroom,” Asma said. “I stopped drinking coffee or tea so I wouldn’t have to walk so far to use a filthy toilet that’s shared by hundreds of people.”
This is something that touches our dignity. I know what she meant because I am experiencing the same thing. Here where I am in az-Zawayda, in central Gaza, men spend a whole week building a bathroom — a toilet. It takes so long because there is no sewage system anywhere anymore. Israel has destroyed the vast majority of sewage facilities in every part of Gaza……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://truthout.org/articles/a-torturous-sanitation-disaster-is-unfolding-in-gazas-displacement-camps/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=ec58022e30-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_10_25_06_42&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-ec58022e30-650192793
America’s $80bn nuclear reactor fleet exposes Sizewell C costs.
The plants are expected to be bankrolled by Japanese investors as part of the $550bn investment pledged by Tokyo under the new US-Japan trade deal.
The United States has announced an $80 billion plan to build a fleet of nuclear power plants for less than two thirds of the cost per gigawatt of
Britain’s Sizewell C project. About eight of Westinghouse’s one
gigawatt AP1000 reactors are to be built across America, under a
partnership between the US government and the reactor-maker’s owners,
Brookfield and Cameco, to accelerate nuclear power deployment. The plants are expected to be bankrolled by Japanese investors as part of the $550 billion investment pledged by Tokyo under the new US-Japan trade deal.
The cost of about $10 billion (£7.5 billion) per gigawatt of new capacity is
significantly cheaper than the UK government’s recently approved plans
for the Sizewell C plant in Suffolk. Sizewell is due to generate 3.2
gigawatts of electricity — enough to power six million homes — at a
cost of £38 billion, or £11.9 billion per gigawatt. The contrast will do
nothing to alleviate concerns about the high costs of Britain’s nuclear
programme, although the US plans are still at a much earlier stage.
Critics have blamed factors including the UK’s choice of EDF’s “EPR”
reactor and safety red tape for inflating nuclear construction costs in
Britain. The costs of the 3.2GW Hinkley Point plant in Somerset, already
under construction, are estimated to have risen to as much as £48 billion.
Times 28th Oct 2025,
https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/americas-80bn-nuclear-reactor-fleet-exposes-sizewell-c-costs-qxcqfdv5z
International Court of Justice Delivers Opinion on Israel’s Obligations
Voltaire Network | 25 October 2025, https://www.voltairenet.org/article223043.html
At the request of the UN General Assembly, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the internal court of the United Nations, issued an advisory opinion on 22 October on the “Obligations of Israel with regard to the presence and activities of the United Nations, other international organizations and third States in and in connection with the Occupied Palestinian Territory”
he Court is of the opinion that the State of Israel, as the occupying power, must fulfil its obligations under international humanitarian law. These obligations include:
ensuring that the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory has access to the essentials of daily life, including water, food, clothing, sleeping materials, shelter and fuel, as well as medical items and services;
accepting and facilitating to the fullest extent possible relief actions for the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory as long as they are inadequately supplied, as has been observed in the Gaza Strip, including relief actions by the United Nations and its entities, in particular the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and by international organizations and third States, and not to prevent such actions;
respecting and protecting all emergency and medical personnel, as well as their premises;
respecting the prohibition of forcible transfer and deportation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
respecting the right of protected persons in the Occupied Palestinian Territory who are detained by the State of Israel to receive visits
respecting the prohibition of the use of starvation as a method of warfare against civilians. Furthermore, the Court is of the opinion that, as the occupying power, the State of Israel has an obligation under international human rights law to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including through the presence and activities of the United Nations, other international organizations and third States in and in connection with the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
It is of the view that the State of Israel has an obligation to cooperate in good faith with the United Nations by giving it full assistance in any action undertaken by it in accordance with United Nations’ Charter, including through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, in and in connection with the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
It is of the view that the State of Israel has an obligation under Article 105 of the United Nations Charter to ensure full respect for the privileges and immunities accorded to the United Nations, including its structures and organs, and its officials, in and in connection with the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
It is of the view that the State of Israel has an obligation under article II of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations to ensure full respect for the inviolability of the premises of the United Nations, including those of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and the exemption of the property and assets of the United Nations from all forms of coercion.
Finally, it is of the view that the State of Israel has an obligation, under articles V, VI and VII of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, to ensure full respect for the privileges and immunities accorded to United Nations officials and experts on mission for the United Nations, in and in connection with the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
‘Change course now’: humanity has missed 1.5C climate target, says UN head
‘Devastating consequences’ now inevitable but emissions
cuts still vital, says António Guterres in sole interview before Cop30.
Humanity has failed to limit global heating to 1.5C and must change course
immediately, the secretary general of the UN has warned. In his only
interview before next month’s Cop30 climate summit, António Guterres
acknowledged it is now “inevitable” that humanity will overshoot the
target in the Paris climate agreement, with “devastating consequences”
for the world. He urged the leaders who will gather in the Brazilian
rainforest city of Belém to realise that the longer they delay cutting
emissions, the greater the danger of passing catastrophic “tipping
points” in the Amazon, the Arctic and the oceans.
Guardian 28th Oct 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/28/change-course-now-humanity-has-missed-15c-climate-target-says-un-head
Three workers at nuclear fuel reprocessing plant possibly exposed to internal radiation
AOMORI – https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/10/29/japan/society/nuclear-plant-internal-exposure/
Three workers may have suffered internal radiation exposure while working in a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, Japan Nuclear Fuel has said.
The men in their 20s to 40s are employees of a partner company sent to work in a controlled area of the plant, according to an announcement by Japan Nuclear Fuel on Monday.
Radiation was detected inside the nasal cavity of one of the three, who is in his 40s, prompting the company to check whether all three had been internally exposed.
None of them has reported any change in their health condition so far, Japan Nuclear Fuel said.
According to the company, the three were working to replace filters that remove radioactive materials from gas emitted from a tank, in a building used for denitration of uranium-plutonium mixed solution, when radiation levels rose at around 11:10 a.m. Friday.
After they left the area, as instructed, contamination was found on the outer surface of the filters of their protective masks.
When contamination is detected, workers are typically instructed to cover air intake filters with tape to prevent further contamination and replace the filter while holding their breath.
However, two of the three breathed without filters for up to three minutes, according to Japan Nuclear Fuel. It is not clear when that occurred.
The company is still investigating why the two men breathed without filters. It is also analyzing urine and stool samples from the three workers to determine whether internal radiation exposure occurred, and investigating the cause of the increase in radiation levels.
Are Our Priorities Wrong? Defence Spending vs Real Needs
the greatest threat to Australia’s security is subservience to U.S. militarism.
Politics for the people, 30 Oct 25
Introduction: A Nation Out of Balance
The latest Ipsos Issues Monitor shows that cost of living, housing, crime, and healthcare matter most to Australians. Yet fewer than 8 per cent name defence as a concern. Despite this, defence spending in Australia now stands at about A$59 billion for 2025-26, a record amount.
While households struggle with rent hikes, soaring groceries, and lengthy hospital waits, government priorities tell a different story. If our leaders can mobilise billions for submarines and foreign military bases, why not for homes, hospitals, and community safety?
The government’s growing defence spending shows how far priorities have shifted from citizens’ needs.
The Problem: Spending That Ignores Public Needs
1. Australians Struggle While Defence Budgets Soar
According to SBS’s “If the Budget Were $100”, defence receives $6.60, health $15.90, and welfare $37.00. The government insists on “fiscal responsibility” when it comes to families, but not when signing billion-dollar arms contracts.
This surge in defence spending contrasts sharply with the lack of targeted cost-of-living support.
The mismatch is stark: Australians cite the cost of living in Australia as their top issue, yet policies focus on militarisation. A nation cannot claim security when its citizens cannot afford food, rent, or electricity.
Internal link: Inflation in Australia: How It’s Reshaping Everyday Life
2. Housing and Healthcare Left Behind
The 2025-26 Budget allocates A$9.3 billion to social housing and homelessness, barely a sixth of defence spending. Hospitals receive about A$33.9 billion in Commonwealth funding, far short of what’s needed to end long emergency queues and staff shortages.
Using public money productively, Australia could expand housing supply and modernise hospitals without “finding” tax revenue. As a sovereign currency issuer, the Commonwealth can fund whatever domestic resources are available.
Internal link: Social Justice in Australia: Its Meaning and Path to Equality
The Impact: What Australians Are Experiencing
3. Everyday Australians Feel Forgotten
Workers juggle multiple jobs. Families spend over 30 per cent of their income on rent. Hospitals cancel surgeries due to staff burnout. Meanwhile, record military budgets create jobs, but not the kind that house or heal people.
This deepens inequality and fuels public frustration. Cost of living in Australia headlines dominate the news, yet solutions are still tokenistic while weapons programs thrive.
Internal link: Why It Feels So Hard to Get Ahead in Australia Today
4. Who Benefits from the Defence Boom – and Who Are We Really Defending Against?
Arms corporations and political donors benefit most. AUKUS contracts flow to foreign firms. U.S. forces rotate through Darwin, and Pine Gap stays a key U.S. intelligence hub.
So, who is Australia defending against? Officially, the government cites a “deteriorating Indo-Pacific environment.” Australia faces no imminent invasion. The real risk lies in our alliance obligations. Much of this defence spending directly supports U.S. strategic goals, not Australian security.
When Washington pursues containment of China, Australia follows, even if it damages trade and peace. This dependence undermines sovereignty and raises the uncomfortable truth: the greatest threat to Australia’s security is subservience to U.S. militarism.
Economic insecurity, environmental decline, and eroded independence are the dangers we should fear. As a nation with dollar sovereignty, Australia can defend its people through prosperity, not through weapons for U.S. wars.
The Solution: What Must Be Done
5. Use Dollar Sovereignty for People, Not War
Australia issues its own currency. It cannot “run out” of money but can run out of political will. By embracing Modern Monetary Theory principles, the government could fund full employment, universal healthcare, and green infrastructure before military expansion.
Internal link: Investing in Peace: Rethinking Australia’s Defence Strategy
6. Re-prioritise the Budget for National Wellbeing
Australia can realign its priorities by:
- Expanding public housing nationwide.
- Investing heavily in healthcare staffing and preventive care.
- Addressing crime through community programs, not incarceration.
- Keeping defence strictly for territorial protection, not for U.S. wars.
Redirecting even 10 per cent of Australia’s defence spending toward housing and health would transform lives and strengthen genuine security.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Why does Australia spend so much on defence?
Defence growth is politically tied to the U.S. alliance and AUKUS, not citizen demand. - Who are we really defending against?
Australia’s rising defence spending is driven more by alliance politics than genuine threats. No nation threatens Australia. The real danger is being drawn into conflicts created by foreign powers. - Can public money fund housing and health without cuts elsewhere?
Yes, as the currency issuer, Australia can fund both. The constraint is resources, not revenue. - What would happen if 10 per cent of defence spending were redirected?
Billions would build thousands of homes, hire nurses and teachers, and ease cost-of-living pressure.
Final Thoughts: Time to Fund What Matters…………………………………………………… https://socialjusticeaustralia.com.au/defence-spending-vs-real-needs/
Generation IV Nuclear Reactor Designs
The Next Nuclear Renaissance?
The CATO Institute, Fall 2025 • Regulation………………………………………………………..Around the time of the previous nuclear renaissance, there was talk of the designs that would succeed Gen III+, so-called Gen IV designs. Gen III+ designs were seen as transitional technologies filling the gap until their long-term successors were developed. The Gen IV International Forum (GIF), an international intergovernmental organization funded by the governments of nearly all the nuclear-using countries, was set up in 2001 to promote development of these designs.
The GIF has stated, “The objectives set for Generation IV designs encompass enhanced fuel efficiency, minimized waste generation, economic competitiveness, and adherence to rigorous safety and proliferation resistance measures.” It identified six designs as the most promising, and these remain its focus. Some are designs that have been pursued since the 1950s and built as prototypes and demonstration plants but never offered as commercial designs. Among these are sodium-cooled fast reactors and high temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs). Some, such as the lead-cooled fast reactor and the molten salt reactor, have been talked about for 50 or more years but never actually built. Others, such as the supercritical-water-cooled reactor and the gas-cooled fast reactor, do not appear to be under serious commercial development. When GIF was created, it expected some of the designs to be commercially available by 2025, but it now does not expect this to happen before 2050.
When the Gen IV initiative began, there was no expectation they would be small or modular. Gen IV designs are now sometimes known as Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs) in an apparent attempt to profit from the positive press that LWR SMRs are receiving. However, they are very different from LWRs, with different designs and safety requirements, so the claims made for LWR SMRs compared to the large LWR designs are not relevant to AMRs.
There is particular interest in HTGRs because of the hope that they can operate at high temperatures (above 800°C /1,500°F). This would allow a plant to also produce hydrogen more efficiently than conventional electrolysis, providing the plant an additional revenue stream. However, existing HTGRs have only operated at 750°C /1,380°F, much higher than the 375°C /700°F of PWRs but not ideal for producing hydrogen. Increasing the temperature to the levels GIF anticipated originally, 950°C–1,000°C/1,750°F–1,850°F, would require new, expensive materials and would raise significant safety issues. The British government is concentrating its efforts on HTGRs, but it has said, “It is not currently aware of any viable fully commercial proposals for HTGRs that could be deployed in time to make an impact on Net Zero by 2050.” Nevertheless, the UK is still subsidizing development of HTGRs.
Overall, there are high-profile promoters of these Gen IV designs. For example, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates is investing in sodium-cooled fast reactors through his nuclear innovation firm Terrapower. However, given the 50+ year history of these efforts, it is hard to see why these new companies would succeed now. Few of the more prominent Gen IV designs are being developed by firms with any history of supplying nuclear reactors. At most, Gen IV designs are a long-term hope.
Large Reactors
If we exclude Russia and China (see below), three large reactor designs are currently available, at least in theory: the Westinghouse AP1000, Framatome (formerly known as Areva NP) EPR, and the South Korean KHNPC APR1400. These were all also available at the time of the previous nuclear renaissance, along with the GE–Hitachi ESBWR, but it won no orders and appears to no longer be marketed.
The only work in recent decades on a new design for a large reactor is for a modified version of the EPR, the EPR2. Despite this work starting in 2010, it had not entered detailed design phase as of the start of 2025, and the first reactor using this design is not expected online before about 2038. A new version, Monark, of the Canadian heavy water reactor CANDU has been publicized, but it seems to be at an early stage of development and the only interest in it appears to be from Canada.
The lack of new designs may reflect in part the very high cost of developing a nuclear reactor coupled with the uncertainty whether such research and development will lead to sufficient (if any) sales to recover those costs. For example, in 2023 NuScale stated that work developing its SMR design had cost $1.8 billion. In 2014, Westinghouse estimated it would have to sell 30–50 SMRs to get a return on its R&D investment. The GE–Hitachi ESBWR was carried through to detailed design and successfully completed the US NRC’s design evaluation, but commercial sales failed to materialize, and the vendor appears to no longer offer it. Another factor may be that vendors have exhausted their ideas for improving the economics of large reactors. During the previous renaissance, concepts such as passive safety, modularization, and use of production-line-made components were unable to solve the financial problems associated with large reactor designs (Thomas 2019).
Despite these setbacks, there is growing interest in Europe in large reactors, not just in the well-established markets of France and the UK, but also in countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Below is a more careful look at these units.
Westinghouse AP1000 / The AP1000 (Advanced Passive) 1,100MW PWR won eight orders, four for the United States (two for the Summer plant in South Carolina and two for Vogtle in Georgia) and four for China. The Summer orders were abandoned after four years’ construction, but the others have been completed. The most recent orders were placed in 2010, and all six completed reactors were late and over budget. The Vogtle project took 11 years and cost more than double the forecasted cost. Similarly, the four reactors in China each took about 10 years to complete.
The AP1000 has been chosen by Poland for its first nuclear orders, with construction supposed to begin in 2028 and first power slated for 2036. The design was excluded from the bidding process in the Czech Republic because it “did not meet the necessary conditions.” Westinghouse is competing to win orders in Sweden and the Netherlands, neither of which has made a design choice.
Framatome EPR / The French EPR design is in a sort of limbo at the moment. In 2010, Areva NP acknowledged that the EPR design needed significant modification because of construction problems faced at Olkiluoto 3 (Finland) and Flamanville 3 (France). A modified design has been under development since then, and for the last decade Framatome has claimed it will be ready to order in two or three years. The new EPR2 design has long been expected to be used for follow-on orders from Flamanville 3, leaving only the UK as a customer for the original EPR design, for Hinkley Point C (under construction since 2018) and Sizewell C (ordered this year). In 2021, the French government required EDF to build six EPR2s, one every 18 months, with the first one expected to begin construction in 2026 and be operational in 2035. This timeline cannot be met, and the earliest first power is likely is 2038. Given the record of EPR projects, export customers likely want to see an EPR2 built and in operation before they order one. That would mean the EPR2 design is not an option for new export orders before 2040.
Despite the obvious uncertainties and risks, EDF/Framatome offered a scaled-down version of the EPR2, the EPR1200, to the Czech Republic and Poland. In both cases, Framatome’s bids were unsuccessful. Ordering an EPR1200 ahead of completion of the first EPR2 would have been an extraordinary gamble given that the reactor is an untested, scaled-down version of an untested design.
KHNPC APR 1400 / Korean Hydro and Nuclear Power Company (KHNPC) is a subsidiary of the state-owned monopoly electric utility KEPCO. The design is derived from the American engineering firm Combustion Engineering’s System 80+ design that completed a full safety review by the US NRC in 1997 but has received no orders. Combustion Engineering was absorbed into Westinghouse, and KHNPC purchased a technology license for the design.
In South Korea, six reactors of this design have been completed, the first in 2016, with two under construction as of July 2025. All except one of the completed reactors took more than 10 years to build, and the two under construction are far behind schedule. South Korea’s only reactor export has been four units, all using this design and built in the United Arab Emirates. All four took nine years to build.
KHNPC has acknowledged the design that has been built in South Korea and the UAE lacks features that would be essential for it to be licensed in Europe. Besides, under a recent change to its licensing agreement with Westinghouse, KHNPC is prohibited from marketing the unit in EU countries other than the Czech Republic, and also prohibited in Britain, Ukraine, Japan, and North America. Nevertheless, KHNPC appears confident that a scaled-down version of the APR1400, the APR1000, will be ordered by the Czech Republic. As with the EPR1200, ordering this untested design would be a gamble.
Prospects for large reactors / While the large reactor options look dated and their record is poor, in Europe they appear to have better prospects for orders in the next few years than SMRs. All will depend on a national government risking large amounts of public money to make these projects happen. France and the UK seem determined to follow this path, but other countries, which do not have as much financial strength, may waver when they find the scale of the financial commitment needed……………………………. https://www.cato.org/regulation/fall-2025/next-nuclear-renaissance#
“Mr President, take our critical minerals”: Albanese in the White House
In an attempt to seize a share of a market currently dominated by China, Albanese has willingly placed Australia’s rare earths and critical minerals at the disposal of US strategic interests. The framework document focusing on mining and processing of such minerals is drafted with the hollow language of counterfeit equality.
the next annexation of Australian control over its own affairs by the US
28 October 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/mr-president-take-our-critical-minerals-albanese-in-the-white-house/
The October 20 performance saw few transgressions and many feats of compliance. As a guest in the White House, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was in no mood to be combative, and US President Donald Trump was accommodating. There was, however, an odd nervous glanceshot at the host at various points.
The latest turn of events from the perspective of those believing in Australian sovereignty, pitifully withered as it is, remains dark. In an attempt to seize a share of a market currently dominated by China, Albanese has willingly placed Australia’s rare earths and critical minerals at the disposal of US strategic interests. The framework document focusing on mining and processing of such minerals is drafted with the hollow language of counterfeit equality. The objective “is to assist both countries in achieving resilience and security of minerals and rare earths supply chains, including mining, separation and processing.” The necessity of securing such supply is explicitly noted for reasons of war or, as the document notes, “necessary to support manufacturing of defense and advanced technologies” for both countries.
The US and Australia will draw on the money bags of the private sector to supplement government initiatives (guarantees, loans, equity and so forth), an incentive that will cause much salivating joy in the mining industry. Within 6 months “measures to provide at least $1 billion in financing to projects located in each of the United States and Australia expected to generate end product for delivery to buyers in the United States and Australia.”
The inequality of the agreement does not bother such analysts as Bryce Wakefield, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. He mysteriously thinks that Albanese did not “succumb to the routine sycophancy we’ve come to expect from other leaders”, something of a “win”. With the skill of a cabalist, he identified the benefits in the critical minerals framework which he thinks will be “the backbone for joint investment in at least six Australian projects.” The agreement would “counter China’s dominance over rare earths and supply chains.”
Much of what was agreed between Trump and Albanese was barely covered by the sleepwalking press corps, despite the details of a White House factsheet. There were more extorting deals extracted from Canberra, with agreements to purchase US$1.2 billion in Anduril unmanned underwater vehicles and US$2.6 billion worth of Apache helicopters. Of particular significance was the agreement to push Australia’s superannuation funds to increase investments in the US to US$1.44 trillion by 2035, which would increase the pool by US$1 trillion. “This unprecedented investment will create tens of thousands of new, high paying jobs for America.
Back in Australia, attention was focused on other things. The mock affair known as the opposition party tried to make something of the personal ribbing given by Trump to Australia’s ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd. Small minds are distracted by small matters, and instead of taking issue with the appalling cost of AUKUS with its chimerical submarines, or the voluntary relinquishment of various sectors of the Australian economy to US control, Sussan Ley of the Liberal Party was adamant that Rudd be sacked. This was occasioned by an encounter where Trump had turned to the Australian PM to ask if “an ambassador” had said anything “bad about me”. Trump’s follow up remarks: “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.” The finger was duly pointed at Rudd by Albanese. “You said bad?” inquired Trump. Rudd, never one to manage the brief response, spoke of being critical of the president in his pre-ambassadorial phase but that was all in the past. “I don’t like you either,” shot Trump in reply. “And I probably never will.”
This was enough to exercise Ley, who claimed to be “surprised that the president didn’t know who the Australian ambassador was.” This showed her thin sheet grasp of White House realities. Freedom Land’s previous presidents have struggled with names, geography and memory, the list starting with such luminaries as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Not knowing the name of an ambassador from an imperial outpost is hardly a shock.
The Australian papers and broadcasters, however, drooled and saw seismic history in the presence of casual utterance. Sky News host Sharri Markson was reliably idiotic: “The big news of course is President Trump’s meeting with Albanese today and the major news story to come out of it is Trump putting Rudd firmly in his place.” Often sensible in her assessments, the political columnist Annabel Crabb showed she had lost her mind, imbibing the Trump jungle juice and relaying it to her unfortunate readers. “From his humble early days as a child reading Hansard in the regional Sunshine State pocket of Eumundi, Kevin Rudd has been preparing for this martyrdom.”
Having been politically martyred by the Labor Party at the hands of his own deputy Julia Gillard in June 2010, who challenged him for being a mentally unstable, micromanaging misfit driving down poll ratings, this was amateurish. But a wretchedly bad story should not be meddled with. At the very least, Crabb blandly offered a smidgen of humour, suggesting that Albanese, having gone into the meeting “with the perennially open chequebook for American submarines, plus an option over our continent’s considerable rare-earths reserves” was bound to come with some human sacrifice hovering “in the ether.”
In this grand abdication of responsibility by the press and bought think tankers, little in terms of detail was discussed about the next annexation of Australian control over its own affairs by the US. It was all babble about the views of Trump and whether, in the words of Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Rudd “did an extremely good job, not only in getting the meeting, but doing the work on the critical minerals deal and AUKUS.” For the experts moored in antipodean isolation, Rudd had either been bad by being disliked for past remarks on the US chief magistrate, or good in being a representative of servile facilitation. To give him his due, Wakefield was correct to note how commentators in Australia “continue to personalise the alliance” equating it to “an episode of The Apprentice.”
It’s Not a Ballroom. It’s a Bunker.
The billionaires have gone bunkers. …..every action indicates that they’re not just preparing for collapse, they’re betting on it, they’re driving it. They want it to happen. We’re already crossing tipping points, like the loss of the coral reefs. Things we predicted for the 2040s are happening now.
Trump serves as the figurehead of a deeply paranoid technocratic network who sees the world collapsing, because they collapsed it. They plan to wage wars from their cyberbunkers, at home and abroad.
And there’s a reason.
Jessica Wildfire, Sentinel Intelligence, October 27 2025
The Trump administration has torn down the East Wing to build a new ballroom. Despite all the noise, everyone seems to be overlooking a simple fact.
As a piece in The Hill mentions in passing, the east wing hides a bunker. Roosevelt built the bunker during WWII, after Pearl Harbor, and he used the east wing specifically to cover it up. The bunker has served as an emergency operations center ever since. They don’t care what sits on top of it. That’s an afterthought.
Traditionally, the First Lady uses it.
Tiny corners of the internet are whispering that the demolition has nothing to do with a ballroom. It has everything to do with upgrading the bunker. Since they’re hardening the bunker, they might as well build Trump the ballroom of his dreams, the perfect place to run crypto schemes and host corrupt dictators.
Trump’s niece Mary, a vocal critic, has confirmed that the regime is simply using the ballroom as a cover for new bunker plans. Sources have also informed CBS News that the bunker upgrades will definitely happen during the ballroom’s construction. You can read about all of that here.
So, there you go.
If you don’t believe in conspiracies: When Roosevelt’s administration was building the first bunker, they also lied to the public about it. They said they were renovating the east wing to put in a museum. They knew they were fibbing.
The president technically has more than one bunker. There’s the first one built by Roosevelt’s administration, and a second one under the north lawn, and potentially a whole network of subterranean tunnels and command centers throughout D.C., stretching all the way into the Virginia mountains. They run hundreds of feet deep. The second one, under the White House Lawn, contains its own air supply.
It also has a food and water cache.
The media frequently primes the public to salivate over plush bunkers while dismissing the motivations for them as “paranoia.” Meanwhile, actuaries have warned world leaders that current estimates of the climate crisis are deeply misleading. In reality, 3C of global warming will drop the global GDP by 50 percent and kill billions. As a report by The Guardian summarizes: “At 3C or more of heating by 2050, there could be more than 4 billion deaths, significant sociopolitical fragmentation worldwide, failure of states (with resulting rapid, enduring, and significant loss of capital), and extinction events.” That’s right, 3C of warming equals 4 billion deaths. Climate research increasingly points at 3-4C of warming as the new likely scenario. In practical terms, we’ve already crossed the 1.5C threshold, a decade earlier than expected.
We’ll likely breach 2C by the end of the decade, and by then things will look bad enough that life will look and feel like collapse. It won’t be theoretical or hypothetical anymore. It’s going to be a lived experience for many of us.
That’s why they’re building bunkers.
It’s not exactly surprising that someone like Trump would want an upgraded bunker where he plans to spend more time hanging out as the world falls apart. Everyone from Sam Altman to Mark Zuckerberg are doing it. Zuckerberg has reportedly spent $300 million on his bunker, which just happens to match the amount Trump has raised to pay for his bunker, ahem, I mean, his ballroom.
They’re not just making the Spartan bomb shelters of yore.
They’re installing premium sanctuaries. Their demands have spawned an entire industry that builds luxury bunkers. These bunker companies are building their clients everything from underground sports car garages and swimming pools to movie theaters and virtual golf courses. They’re building fabrication workshops. They’re building arsenals. They’re building drone hatches. As one bunker builder puts it, “The scale and complexity of these environments have expanded dramatically, evolving far beyond survivalist shelters into fully integrated, high-comfort retreats.”
Will Trump’s bunker have a virtual golf course?
I wouldn’t doubt it.
The press casts doubt on the Trump regime’s timeline, saying there’s almost no chance they’ll actually finish before he leaves office. Of course, they’re basing that on what’s “normal.” Nothing normal is happening under this administration. As we’ve seen, when the super rich put their minds to it, they can accomplish almost anything with a swiftness that leaves everyone’s jaws on the floor.
For example:
Elon Musk’s AI company partnered with Nvidia to build the Colossus supercomputer near Memphis. It took them about four months, after estimates said it would take years. Experts consider it a superhuman feat. Now look at the speed they’re attacking the “ballroom” with. They’ve already completely torn down the old east wing. They’re not wasting any time on this thing, are they?
Consider who’s paying for it.
From The Guardian:
Donors for the proposed ballroom include a slew of major tech companies, including Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Google. Defense contractors and communications companies have also pitched in, including Lockheed Martin, Palantir, T-Mobile and Comcast.
These corporations have accumulated $350 million for construction. The biggest tech companies in the world are paying hundreds of millions for… a ballroom? Defense contractors are chipping in?
No, I don’t think so…
Companies like Palantir don’t dabble in ballrooms. They’re in the business of building mass surveillance software, artificial intelligence suites, and drones. In fact, the U.S. military recently signed a $10 billion contract with Palantir for new toys. They’ve signed contracts with several big tech companies, including Google, Meta, and OpenAI. Even Amazon is quietly starting partnerships with the defense industry.
As we recently noted here, Silicon Valley has taken a hard military turn over the last year. The Trump administration has even created a “technical innovation unit” that’s recruiting CEOs and project managers from the same major tech companies that are funding the east wing construction. Tech investment in military tech has spiked 33 percent. They’re clearly preparing for all kinds of wars, especially urban ones.
Of course, Mary Trump makes the big mistake of dismissing the bunker as yet another sign of a fragile ego, and not a dark omen.
It’s a dark omen.
You don’t spend hundreds of millions on a structure with a bunker underneath it simply because you’re a paranoid loon with a big ego. Big military tech companies certainly don’t foot the bill for it. Don’t get me wrong, Trump is definitely a paranoid loon with a big ego. So is Peter Thiel and Russell Vought. But these aren’t the paranoid loons of ten years ago. They’re the paranoid loons of the 2020s, the ones who understand the depths of the climate crisis, the ones who lived through a pandemic, the ones watching the collapse take shape and all of the civil unrest it’s inspiring.
These bunkers have become their own perverse status symbols, with super rich families trying to top each other in terms of luxury and spectacle. Some families have built bunkers with moats, with underground race tracks for their kids, inside bamboo forests, and I suspect one or two have theme parks and shopping malls. The Kardashians tried to build a bunker with an underground spa.
Trump’s bunker tells us something.
They know.
As we’ve discussed here, the super rich and their political puppets are fully aware of what’s going on with the climate crisis. Big tech companies have largely dropped their climate pledges. So have the big banks and investment firms. They’re all going full steam ahead with coal and gas, and they’re rebooting nuclear plants, too. They’re doing it to power their AI fantasies, because they desperately want to replace people with robots while starving us and unleashing a pandora’s box of diseases. They know what’s in the latest climate reports. They know “there’s no future.” They sell hope to the masses, while quietly preparing for the end of the world. The mainstream media, and the Mary Trumps of the world, write them off as paranoid.
It’s so much worse than that.
The billionaires have gone bunkers. As we document here every week, every action indicates that they’re not just preparing for collapse, they’re betting on it, they’re driving it. They want it to happen. We’re already crossing tipping points, like the loss of the coral reefs. Things we predicted for the 2040s are happening now.
What else?
Consider what’s going on in South America…………………………………….
Trump serves as the figurehead of a deeply paranoid technocratic network who sees the world collapsing, because they collapsed it. They plan to wage wars from their cyberbunkers, at home and abroad.
You may have also seen stories that Trump is contemplating a third term. Yes, we already know it’s unconstitutional. But this Trump, often called “Trump 2.0,” has even less regard for the constitution than he did in 2020.
Everything they’ve done so far indicates that they’re planning to seize control of elections by 2026, and certainly by 2028. By then, it won’t matter what’s constitutional. The Thiels and Voughts will run Trump as long as they can, until he literally keels over dead, either in office or at one of his rallies, and then they’ll replace him with Vance. By then, they’ll have a firm grip on blue cities and polling places. If Trump never gets to enjoy his ballroom bunker, I’m sure Vance will use it.
So, if you were planning to take over the government, invade major cities, preside over a deep recession, nurture new pandemics, start wars with other countries for their resources, and potentially invade Canada, all while the planet’s climate breaks down into a chaotic mix of droughts, dust storms, heat waves, and hurricanes that ultimately collapse the GDP by 50 percent and kill billions of people….
Wouldn’t you want a cool new bunker?
What we should be talking about after watching Bigelow’s ‘A House of Dynamite’ nuclear thriller.
It’s hard to avoid wondering how the change in leadership and the loss of expertise within the government would affect decision-making today.
Damage limitation in nuclear war is fundamentally a mirage.
By Mark Goodman | October 25, 2025,
Mark Goodman is a former senior scientist at the US State Department who specialized in nuclear policy—nuclear energy, nuclear nonproliferation,…
Kathryn Bigelow’s new film, A House of Dynamite, presents a compelling, Rashomon-style dissection of a moment of crisis from three different perspectives. Other nuclear wonks have praised the film for exposing the dangers of nuclear weapons. While the film is a work of cinematic art in its own right, Bigelow’s main objective is to make the audience reflect on those dangers and discuss how to deal with them.
Surprise attack, realistic response. The film gets many important facts right. Chiefly, it illustrates the dilemmas and paradoxes of nuclear deterrence. Deterrence is supposed to prevent war, but it depends on making the threat of nuclear war credible enough that it deters actions that could lead to war. In normal times, when tensions are low, deterrence can contribute to stability; in times of crisis, it can prompt decision makers to act with greater caution. But crises can also create a “use it or lose it” pressure to launch nuclear weapons while it’s still possible. The decision time can be painfully short—19 minutes in this movie. As one character puts it in the film, the choice is between suicide—launching a retaliatory strike knowing the response will be devastating—and surrender. This is why President Barack Obama’s Nuclear Posture Review in 2010 put a premium on giving the president more time to decide.
The movie also shows the machinery of government as it faces a crisis. It presents the drama first at the operational level: soldiers and watch officers going from routine to “What the heck?” in the blink of an eye. A single long-range missile is heading to Chicago from northeast Asia—probably from North Korea, but it could be Russia or China. The second iteration brings in a sprawling array of experts and policy advisors as they seek to understand what is happening, the choices, and the consequences.
The third iteration shows decision makers—the defense secretary and the president—suddenly facing an urgent dilemma with no good choices. In the movie, the scenario jumps to “DEFCON 2,” which is the second-highest state of military readiness for which armed forces are on high alert and could deploy and engage in combat within six hours. And when the interception fails, the scenario moves to “DEFCON 1,” the maximum readiness posture when an attack is imminent or already underway. I’ve never been that close to a crisis—DECON 2 was ordered only once during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and DEFCON 1 is without precedent—but the human and institutional dynamics at each level seemed plausible. It’s hard to avoid wondering how the change in leadership and the loss of expertise within the government would affect decision-making today.
But for all it gets right, the film also muddles some key points……………..
Illusion of ‘damage limitation.’ The film brings to mind current debates over whether the United States needs more nuclear weapons to simultaneously deter Russia and China, particularly as China’s stockpile is growing by roughly a hundred warheads a year. The conventional wisdom seems to be that the United States does, based on arcane calculations of what deterrence requires, which in turn are based on policy assumptions about what nuclear weapons are for.
It turns out that what drives the numbers is not what one might think of as the primary role of nuclear weapons—to deter a nuclear attack against the United States. Rather, the numbers are based on the secondary role of trying to limit damage to the United States if deterrence fails. Damage limitation makes sense in principle, but in practice is virtually impossible, and trying to limit damage can do more harm than good. According to the logic of damage limitation, the United States would launch a preemptive attack to destroy the other side’s nuclear weapons and limit their ability to destroy the United States. This notion of preemption is what creates the use-it-or-lose-it pressure, and that pressure gets worse when the United States designs its nuclear forces to emphasize the ability to strike first over the ability to ride out the attack and then retaliate.
Damage limitation in nuclear war is fundamentally a mirage.
If even a small number of nuclear weapons survive a first strike, they could still wreak massive devastation. A nuclear power cannot escape its own vulnerability. There’s a saying that the first casualty of war is the war plan, and nuclear war is no exception. Any use of nuclear weapons would fundamentally change the nature of a conflict. Everything, including the scenarios and dilemmas confronting decision makers, would be transformed in unpredictable ways. Catastrophe might not be inevitable, but it would loom at every turn. It is this incalculable danger—not the calculations of the planners—that is the unavoidable essence of nuclear deterrence.
Missile defense myth. A House of Dynamite also gets the futility of missile defense right, but it does not explain why. Sure, the limited defense system failed in the film, but one could argue we could do better. Wouldn’t President Donald Trump’s proposed Golden Dome defend the United States against a nuclear attack? As counterintuitive as it sounds, the answer is no. Worse, it would be futile and dangerous.
Golden Dome is futile because it’s always going to be easier and cheaper for the attacker to overwhelm, spoof, or circumvent any missile defense system.
Take Russia’s war against Ukraine for example: Russian missiles can relatively easily hit Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, while Russian ground forces are at a standstill. The attacker’s advantage is magnified for intercontinental-range missiles, which are faster and harder to hit, and any failure to intercept a nuclear warhead would be disastrous.
And missile defense is dangerous because, if paired with a nuclear force structure designed to preempt, it can magnify the temptation to use that force to strike first. ………………………………
I spent most of my career in government trying to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and avoid nuclear war. After the Cold War, the world seemed to lose interest in nuclear weapons. Arms control and risk reduction became niche topics for a narrow group of insiders and experts. Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite is a welcome and useful reminder that the dangers of nuclear weapons not only never went away, but they have been growing in recent years. Hopefully, this renewed attention will stimulate a rethinking of the United States’ nuclear posture so that the danger of possessing and deploying nuclear weapons does not outweigh the threats they are meant to deter.https://thebulletin.org/2025/10/what-we-should-be-talking-about-after-watching-bigelows-a-house-of-dynamite-nuclear-thriller/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=What%20we%20should%20be%20talking%20about%20after%20%20%20A%20House%20of%20Dynamite&utm_campaign=20251024%20Monday%20Newsletter
Report: Israel Launched Airstrike in Gaza on Saturday After Getting US Approval.
The IDF has killed at least 93 Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire went into effect
by Dave DeCamp | October 26, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/10/26/report-israel-launched-airstrike-in-gaza-on-saturday-after-getting-us-approval/
Israel launched an airstrike in Gaza on Saturday after notifying the US and getting approval to launch the attack, the Israeli news site Ynet has reported.
The Israeli military launched the strike in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp in central Gaza, claiming it targeted a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) who was planning an attack on the IDF, a claim PIJ strongly denied.
PIJ said in a statement that the claim that its military wing, the al-Quds Brigades, was preparing an attack was “a pure false claim and fabrication through which the occupation seeks to justify its aggression and violation of the ceasefire.” PIJ, which supported the ceasefire deal, called on mediating countries to “compel” Israel to stop its attacks on Gaza.
The strike wounded four Palestinians, according to the al-Awda Hospital. “The hospital has received four injured people following the Israeli occupation’s targeting of a civilian car in the al-Ahli Club area in Nuseirat Camp in central Gaza,” the hospital said.
The Ynet report said the alleged PIJ operative who was targeted was wounded, not killed. According to Israeli sources, the strike came after Israel passed intelligence to the US, and the attack was only launched after coordination with US Central Command (CENTCOM), which included notifying CENTCOM Commander Adm Brad Cooper. CENTCOM has established a military post in southern Gaza where it is overseeing the Gaza ceasefire.
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was also briefed on the strike right after it was launched. The attack marked the first time that Israel and the US used a new mechanism to coordinate on military action in Gaza under the ceasefire deal. Hamas, a signatory to the ceasefire deal, called the Israeli strike a “clear violation” of the agreement.
In response to the report and criticism of the US-Israel relationship, Israeli officials said they were coordinating with the US but insisted Israel doesn’t need “approval” to bomb Gaza.
According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, Israel also launched a drone strike on Friday that killed two Palestinians, and there’s no sign that Israel coordinated with the US on the attack. Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that Israeli forces have killed at least 93 Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire went into effect, including four who were killed over the previous 48 hours.
US Deploying Aircraft Carrier Strike Group Near Venezuela as Regime Change Push Heats Up
by Dave DeCamp | October 26, 2025 , https://news.antiwar.com/2025/10/26/us-deploying-aircraft-carrier-strike-group-near-venezuela-as-regime-change-push-heats-up/
The US military is deploying an aircraft carrier to the waters near South America as the Trump administration continues its military buildup in the Caribbean and its push toward war with Venezuela.
Sean Parnell, a US War Department spokesman, wrote on X on Friday that the USS Gerald Ford and its strike group, which includes five destroyers, will be heading to US Southern Command’s area of responsibility to “bolster US capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere.”
The Gerald Ford has been deployed in the Mediterranean Sea, and according to a ship tracker, it is currently off the coast of Croatia in the Adriatic Sea. According to USNI News, it would take the aircraft carrier at least a week to reach SOUTHCOM’s area of responsibility from Croatia.
The deployment of the aircraft carrier and accompanying warships will mark a significant escalation of US military power in the region amid reports that the US is soon planning to bomb Venezuela with the goal of ousting President Nicolas Maduro.
The US has been stepping up the military pressure on Venezuela by flying bombers near its coast and continuing its bombing campaign against alleged drug boats in the region. A US Navy destroyer, the USS Gravely, has also arrived in Trinidad and Tobago for joint exercises near the coast of Venezuela.
Also on Friday, War Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the 10th US airstrike against a boat that he claimed was carrying drugs. The Pentagon has provided no evidence to back up its claims about what the boats it has been bombing are carrying, and has also not provided any information about the identities of the people it has been killing, who are labelled as “narco-terrorists” to justify their extrajudicial execution.
Hegseth said the latest boat strike targeted a vessel in the Caribbean and killed six “narco-terrorists,” bringing the total number of people extrajudicially executed by the US military in the region since September 2 to 43, according to numbers released by the Trump administration. “If you are a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we will treat you like we treat Al-Qaeda. Day or NIGHT, we will map your networks, track your people, hunt you down, and kill you,” the US war chief said.
President Trump and his top officials have framed the bombing campaign and push toward war with Venezuela as a response to the large number of overdose deaths in the US, but the deaths are primarily caused by Fentanyl and other opioids, which do not come from Venezuela. A US official has told Drop Site News that US intelligence has assessed that little to no of the fentanyl trafficked to the United States is being produced in Venezuela.
Trump officials have also been claiming that the boats they are targeting are attempting to carry drugs to the US, but the official speaking to Drop Site said many of the boats targeted for strikes do not even have the requisite gasoline or motor capacity to reach US waters.
Furious French fairies challenge nuclear plans.
Frogtifa is just catching on in Portland, but French protesters have used street theatre for years. This summer’s anti-nuclear actions were no exception, reports Reseau sortir du nucléaire
Editor’s note: In her forthcoming book — No To Nuclear. Why Nuclear Power Destroys Lives, Derails Climate Progress and Provokes War — to be published by Pluto Press next March, Linda Pentz Gunter describes the creative resistance of French protesters, including the anti-nuclear movement. “The French anti-nuclear movement,” she writes, “has engaged in protests that deliver considerable numbers, abundant creativity — and sometimes a lot of useful tractors as well. France also has a long theatrical tradition, and French anti-nuclear activists have invariably embraced that as well. They understand that street theater is an attention-getter. They also know it makes protesting a lot more fun.” The chapter features the “goat ZAD” mobilized by the Piscine Nucléaire Stop collective. Since then, they have “escalated,” as sortir du nucléaire describes in this article.
From July 18 to 20, 2025, in La Hague, “HARO” made its grand debut: three days of meetings and mobilization around nuclear waste and local communities. Nearly a thousand people from the Cotentin region and elsewhere responded to the call of the Piscine Nucléaire Stop collective to participate in round tables, workshops, concerts, screenings, hikes, and, of course, the big demonstration by the Fées furieuses (Furious Fairies). The event took place in a festive atmosphere of determination.
The name of the event set the tone: derived from Norman customary law, the interjection “Haro” was used to demand justice, even in the face of powerful oppressors. In the Cotentin Peninsula, it is Orano [owner of the La Hague reprocessing facility] that is attempting to impose its Aval du Futur mega-project.
The event, located on the La Hague plateau in a field lent by local farmers committed to the anti-nuclear cause, offered a breathtaking view of the Orano plant, when the fog didn’t interfere with the festivities. The typical La Hague weather did not discourage participants who had come from all over France to take part in meetings against waste, nuclear power, and the nuclear chain, with an intersectional approach………………………………………………………………………………..
The packed program then continued throughout the weekend: between round tables on feminist anti-nuclear struggles, discussions on ways of living in contaminated areas, workshops on the legacy of decolonial struggles, the manufacture of radio transceivers, etc., there was something for everyone.
As for the cooperative village [established for the events], it was as varied as the program itself: local and national associations committed to the anti-nuclear cause or installation projects such as Atomic Marney, social struggle associations such as France Palestine Solidarité (Cherbourg branch), citizen laboratories, bookstores, and collectives from other environmental struggles, such as local committees of Soulèvements de la Terre.
The most courageous, who wanted to venture outside the meeting site, sometimes in pouring rain, were able to take part in the Randos Radieuses (Radiant Walks)…………………………………………………………..
Within this cultural program, the fight against Cigéo [the French nuclear waste entity] was highlighted with the screening of a film recounting ten years of struggle: Vivre et lutter à Bure entre 2015 et 2025 (Living and Fighting in Bure between 2015 and 2025), the documentary Les Bombes atomiques (The Atomic Bombs), which recounts a feminist highlight of the struggle in Bure, and the film Après les Nuages (After the Clouds) by the collective Les Scotcheuses
The highlight of the weekend was a demonstration on Saturday afternoon against Aval du Futur and, more broadly, the ever-increasing nuclearization of the region. In keeping with its offbeat and militant approach, the Piscine Nucléaire Stop collective decided to draw on the local legend of the little fairies and their method of collective self-defense armed with heather and gorse to confront an offense: the paving over of the last remaining primary moors on the La Hague plateau and the accumulation of nuclear waste by Orano.
A thousand people gathered to march against Orano’s project. The procession left the camp in sunny weather and headed for the village of Vauville, accompanied by a police presence and a helicopter dispatched for the weekend.
In a family atmosphere, the demonstrators and little fairies danced to the sounds of the Planète Boum Boum collective, chanted slogans concocted for the occasion, and sang to the tune of a summer camp song: “In my beautiful Cotentin, there will be no MOX, no swimming pools either, and no concrete either.”
The links between the struggles in Bure and La Hague were strengthened during this event, culminating in a concert by the Bure-based band Les Free’meuses, during which the audience was moved by their latest cover of Les Demoiselles de Rochefort: “We are twin struggles… “
In various ways throughout the weekend, activists from the east and west reiterated that “we don’t want radioactive waste dumps in La Hague, Bure, or anywhere else!”
The weekend ended with an evening concert and a final HARO as a cry of convergence of struggles to support social and environmental struggles as well as the struggle of the Palestinian people.
This article was first published in French by the Reseau sortir du nucléaire, a national network of French anti-nuclear organizations.
2
What Ends the SMR Bubble?
In the up leg of any hype cycle, bad news is somehow massaged away.
The downleg of the SMR hype cycle should be epic.
By Leonard Hyman & William Tilles – Oct 22, 2025, https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/What-Ends-the-SMR-Bubble.html
- Analysts warn that small modular reactors (SMRs) are caught in a classic boom-and-bust pattern.
- Despite promises of faster, cheaper builds, early SMR projects in China, Russia, and Argentina have suffered cost overruns of 300–700%.
- With hundreds of competing SMR technologies and no standardization, the market risks fragmentation and inefficiency.
We think the concept of the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) as a solution to many of our future energy needs is in the midst of a major bubble or hype cycle. Think of the latter as an inverted “V”. In the up leg, investors feel great about prospects and profits, which are, they believe, soon on the way. In the down leg, investor disappointment sets in as earlier financial forecasts are seen as pure fiction, with reality being much worse. In a way, this is how free markets with imperfect information work. The question is: what triggers the down leg in the hype cycle for SMRs? Our answer is the year 2029.
Power supply forecasts, as our readers know, are made in three to five-year increments. We think 2029 is the forecast year in which energy planners acknowledge reality. The fleet of SMRs expected to be in service in the first half of the next decade (2030-2035) simply won’t be there. And we believe this will trigger the down leg in the hype cycle. That’s our thesis, simply stated, and we’ll discuss why in a moment.
First, it helps to understand that the SMR is a reactive technology, meaning that its designers are reacting to a real problem. New gigawatt-scale nuclear plants take too long to build, and they’re too expensive. The last big nuclear plant built in the US, Plant Vogtle, cost three times its original budget and took twice as long as expected to build. The new French reactor at Flamanville was more than 200% over budget, also with extensive delays. Not the sort of experience to trigger a nuclear Renaissance.
This situation is what the SMR industry is responding to, saying that with modular, factory-built components, we can do nuclear new-builds much faster, hopefully in three to four years. As an aside, we should point out that construction firms may be able to build faster, but they can’t be cheaper than gigawatt-scale reactors because they’re engaging in an exercise of reverse economies of scale. What does this mean?
Let’s discuss this in terms of cars, not power plants, for a moment. The soccer parent goes to the new car showroom and says they need a car that seats eight. They purchase a minivan for $40,000. The capital cost to move each passenger is $5,000 ($40,000 divided by 8). A thrifty person goes to the same dealership but insists on only spending $20,000 and drives away in a slightly used two-seater. A thrifty person saved half as much on the total capital cost. But their cost to move each passenger ($20,000 /2) was twice as high, $5,000 vs $10,000. If we substitute the term kilowatts for “cost to move each passenger,” this demonstrates the issue. Like the bigger minivan, the smaller two-seater has to have all the same components as the bigger vehicle, only tinier.
We assume a similar logic applies in building new nuclear plants. Our guess is that electricity from SMRs will be at least 30% more expensive than best-in-class (on a cost basis) gigawatt-scale reactors based on relative capital costs. But the overall units, because they’re tinier, will cost less per reactor than gigawatt-scale reactors.
But we don’t think the cost differential between SMRs and gigawatt scale reactors will make all that much difference, and won’t turn the hype cycle, at least not for a while, because early adopters of SMRs will be relatively price insensitive buyers like the military in extremely remote locales, and inside the fence industrial users like large chemical plants which require both electricity and steam, such as the Dow Chemical refinery in Baytown, Texas.
And here is where we have real concerns about SMRs. Consider the astonishing array of new competing technologies and the variety of sizes, all falling under the rubric of SMRs. A tiny SMR today is less than one megawatt, and a large one is 300 MWs. There are way too many different sizes and technologies, many extremely well-financed, for us to speculate about winners and losers at this point. But this looks like an awful lot of competitors for a finite market. However, there are certain definitive things we can say. First, all this variety ignores the advice of nuclear engineers who advocate construction of standardized designs in decent numbers in order to enjoy cost reduction benefits for the nuclear fleet as a whole. Second, it would take over 1300 SMRs (assuming each had a capacity of 100 MW) to make a 10% impact on US power-generating capacity. (Total US generating capacity was 1,326,000 MW at the end of 2024.) The likelihood of completing so many projects within a few years is low.
JP Morgan’s 2025 energy report discussed SMRs on a global basis. There are only three completed SMRs in the world, one in China and two in Russia, with a fourth under construction in Argentina. The report noted cost overruns of 300% for China’s project, 400% for Russia’s, and 700% for Argentina’s. All units promised 3-4 year build times. It all took twelve years. When perusing the articles on the finances of these facilities, one finds the following explanations: design and manufacturing immaturity, lengthy periods for verification of passive safety systems, supply chain limitations in an immature industry, cost overrun challenges in FOAK (first of a kind) units. Sound familiar?
Let’s return to our original point about hype cycles and what makes them turn. Markets are like tolerant parents in a room full of children. They may tolerate a lot, but there are certain things they won’t stand for. Right now, the market seems to be indifferent to reactor size, technology, or even economics. Which is another way of saying financing to the industry remains available on very easy terms. And as investors, we would probably continue to play this from the long side at least for the near-term.
But the one thing investors won’t tolerate is if new SMRs experience the lengthy construction delays and eye-watering cost increases that have plagued new gigawatt-scale reactors. This early evidence, albeit skimpy, of just three new facilities, is not encouraging. But we don’t think investors in the West will worry. Not yet. In the up leg of any hype cycle, bad news is somehow massaged away. So for us, 2029 is the year forecasters in the West begin to acknowledge the impact of disappointing SMR construction delays (probably similar to delays experienced in China and Russia) and that the new SMRs that energy buyers expected “in the early 2030s” won’t be there. But it gets worse. The industry will then realize that by pursuing SMRs they got the same intolerably long construction periods and all the huge cost overruns, but at far worse price points, thereby jeopardizing the entire commercial viability of SMRs. The downleg of the SMR hype cycle should be epic.
We will give the last word to noted energy expert, Vaclav Smil, who said this in response to a question about the impact of SMRs: “Call me or send me an email once you see such wonders built on schedule, on budget, and in aggregate capacities large enough to make a real difference.“ He added that he didn’t expect a call for ten or twenty years.
1 This Month
Website of the Week
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
-
Archives
- January 2026 (148)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (377)
- September 2025 (258)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
- April 2025 (305)
- March 2025 (319)
- February 2025 (234)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 