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Trump Is Very Confused About Nuclear Weapons.

The president says he wants to resume nuclear testing but doesn’t seem to know why.

By Tom Nichols, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/10/trump-nuclear/684758/

Just before heading to his meetings with the leader of China, the president of the United States issued some comments about nuclear weapons, or “nuclear,” as he tends to call them. He wants to resume nuclear-bomb tests, something no nuclear state except North Korea has done since the last century. But his reasoning is a bit confused: In the space of one short announcement, he managed to get a lot wrong, which is worrisome, because he’s the only person in America who has the authority to order the use of nuclear arms.

On Wednesday evening, the president placed this post on his Truth Social site:

The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice! Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years. Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately. On Wednesday evening, the president placed this post on his Truth Social site:

The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice! Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years. Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately. On Wednesday evening, the president placed this post on his Truth Social site:

The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice! Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years. Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

Almost none of this is right. Russia has the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear bombs, largely because the Russians are still holding on to a lot of smaller tactical weapons designed for use on a battlefield. Trump is correct that China is much further back; the People’s Republic probably has something like 600 warheads, meaning that it would have to produce almost 1,000 bombs a year to reach parity with the U.S. or Russia by the end of the decade. (Possible? Maybe, but Beijing has only added about 100 warheads in the past two years.) Also, the United States did not create some shiny new arsenal during Trump’s first term. It is true that America is about to spend a gigantic amount of money—roughly $1 trillion—to modernize its strategic nuclear arsenal, but that plan has been in the works since the Obama administration.

So what, exactly, is Trump talking about? Parsing the president’s posts is never easy, but Trump is probably nettled about Russia’s claim to have tested a long-range, nuclear-powered cruise missile, the Burevestnik.

Trump shouldn’t worry too much: The Burevestnik is a truly stupid idea. Cruise missiles are stealthy and difficult to counter, because they can fly low and hug terrain—but they are basically just unpiloted small aircraft using regular fuel, and so they have a far more limited range than ballistic missiles. The Russians, however, now claim that they have a cruise missile powered by a nuclear reactor that can fly halfway around the world. Russian President Vladimir Putin first announced this project back in 2018, and the Burevestnik has all the hallmarks of Soviet-era boasting about a great technical achievement that doesn’t provide a lot of strategic advantage. (In the old days, the Soviets had a compulsion to claim that the Soviet Union had the biggest and best of everything, leading to the Cold War–era joke that the Kremlin bragged about making the world’s biggest microchips.)

In any case, resuming nuclear testing is a terrible idea, not only because it would undermine America’s long-standing commitment to restraining a global arms race, but because detonating warheads to see if they actually work hasn’t been necessary in a very long time. Nuclear tests don’t make much sense for U.S. national security, but they’re a great way to raise international tensions. During the Cold War, the superpowers sometimes engaged in nuclear tests as a way of signaling nerve and resolve. Unfortunately, these tests served mostly to put both East and West on edge, pollute parts of the United States and the former Soviet Union, and make a lot of people sick.

Trump may be stuck in this sort of Cold War mentality, trying to show his toughness by resuming testing, especially because he seems to take it personally when Russia engages in occasional nuclear swaggering. But Trump is not alone on this issue. Some nuclear hawks will claim that the U.S. deterrent lacks credibility because none of its bombs have been detonated in decades, as if other nations are emboldened by the possibility that America is fielding weapons that won’t work. In fact, America and other nuclear states have ways of testing every component of their arsenal—and every nuclear-armed nation knows it. Nuclear stability rests on many policies, but no one is contemplating an attack on the United States based on some mad assumption that the response will be a rain of duds.

Of course, another possibility is that Trump’s announcement means nothing. Before Trump, statements by the president were policy. But Trump says a lot of things, and he reverses course regularly; often, what look like important pronouncements turn out to be random thoughts that have escaped the weak gravity of Trump’s attention span. In any case, resuming nuclear testing isn’t easy: Such tests require a lot of preparation and infrastructure, unless Trump’s goal is merely to explode some weapons and call it a “test.”

For now, this announcement about nuclear testing seems to be yet another example of Trump reflexively taking Russian bait. Resuming nuclear testing looks weak and petulant, not strong and confident. No American president should ever let the Kremlin get under his skin—especially not where nuclear weapons are concerned.

November 1, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Trump cuts Westinghouse reactors deal

one thing should be clear, significant financial risks are still there. Only four Westinghouse AP1000 units were ever financed in the US and remain a testament to nuclear power high risk, recurring and gross failure to financially control runaway cost-of-completion and time-to-completion estimates.  

October 30, 2025, https://beyondnuclear.org/trump-cuts-westinghouse-reactors-deal/

On October 28, 2025, the Trump White House announced its commitment to stake at least $80 billion of US federal dollars to initiate yet another very risky run at new construction of Westinghouse Electric Company’s  AP1000 nuclear stations. This is the follow-up to his May 23, 2025 executive orders to “unleash” more atomic power in the nation. Only this time, the Trump deal entitles the federal government, the designated buyer of the new reactors, to a 20% equity stake thereafter in Westinghouse’s returns in excess of $17.5 billion. Trump’s financing deal was cut with Westinghouse’s newest parent companies Brookfield Asset Management and Cameco, after the March 29, 2021 Westinghouse bankruptcy as of “the largest historic builder of nuclear power plants in the world.” At the time of the bankruptcy, Westinghouse was a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan’s Toshiba Corporation. Toshiba itself only narrowly escaped the financial meltdown.

On his latest visit to Asia, President Trump signed a nuclear deal with Japan newest, most hawkish and first woman Prime Minister, Saneae Takaichi, also announced on October 28th with an agreement to invest  hundreds of billions of dollars in US critical infrastructure including in Trump’s pledge to domestically build new Westinghouse AP1000 reactor units and small modular reactors in the United States conditional on the involvement of Japanese contractors.

The Trump deal doesn’t specify just how much US taxpayer money will be spent on the new Westinghouse units Trump wants to build.

But one thing should be clear, significant financial risks are still there. Only four Westinghouse AP1000 units were ever financed in the US and remain a testament to nuclear power high risk, recurring and gross failure to financially control runaway cost-of-completion and time-to-completion estimates.  Those new AP-1000 project orders were the only four units that managed to muster financing in South Carolina (V.C. Summer Units 2 & 3) and Georgia (Vogtle Units 3 & 4) of 34 US units announced in the 2007 launch with much ballyhoo of a so-called “nuclear renaissance.”  The two projects’ financing was only made possible by the two state regulators indenturing their electricity ratepayers to Construction Work In Progress (CWIP) charges through their respective Public Utility Commissions levying a series of customer rate hikes in advance of electricity usage to guarantee construction financing.  Otherwise, without public ratepayer on the hook for the advanced financing, a total of 30 other proposed new “advanced” reactor units (including 8 additional AP1000 units) were cancelled and withdrawn nationwide without a shovel in the ground.

South Carolina’s V.C. Summer AP1000 construction project was abandoned in 2017 with $10 billion in sunk costs and shrouded in FBI arrests, federal criminal convictions and guilty pleas by two high ranking SCANA utility executives, CEO Kevin Marsh, and Vice President Stephen Byrne, pleaded guilty to defraud South Carolina state regulators and its ratepayers after being charged with the crime by the U.S. Attorney’s office. Additionally, two Westinghouse Electric executives, Carl Churchman, a Vice President, pled guilty to making related false statements to the FBI investigators and sentenced to serve house detention and Jeffrey A. Benjamin, Senior Vice President for new plants and major products, who plead guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud and serving one year and a day in federal prison.

Georgia’s Vogtle AP1000 two-unit project was eventually completed seven years behind the schedule to start operations in 2023 and 2024 with their original estimated combined cost of construction ballooning from $14 billion to an estimated $36.8 billion.  Due to the expansion, massive rate hikes and prolonged delay, the Vogtle nuclear power station is now the largest and most expensive generator of electricity by atomic power in the United States.

In other related news, on Friday, October 24, 2025, South Carolina’s Santee Cooper Board of Directors unanimously voted to authorized the state-owned utility to sign a letter of intent to ask Brookfield Assets Management, previously mentioned as one of Westinghouse’s parent companies, to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to take over the completion of the previously abandoned and only partially built nuclear reactors.

Santee Cooper’s CEO Jimmy Stanton was quoted by The State news service to pledge that, “There are no additional financial risks for our customers at all”. The Letter of Intent is meant to be the first step in a new permitting for the completion of construction project and then obtaining a federal license for full power operations.  The original Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) combined construction and operating license that Santee Cooper and SCE&G held is no longer valid following their 2017 abandonment of construction. The new licensee, assuming that to be Brookfield Assets or its qualified proxy, will need to go back to the US NRC and the state to reacquire the necessary  permits to restart what is now called “the greatest construction failure in state history.” Santee Cooper has said it does not plan to hold the federal construction permit. Customers of Dominion Energy, the VC Summer Unit 1 new operator, are already on the hook to pay roughly 5% of their monthly bills for the original expansion project.

November 1, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Members of Congress object to plutonium giveaway

October 26, 2025, https://beyondnuclear.org/senators-object-to-plutonium-giveaway/

On December 31, the Trump White House will start revealing which lucky startup companies will receive free plutonium needed for their new reactor fuel. Trump will give away between 20-25 tons, according to reports, going against US energy policy that has long avoided the transfer of nuclear weapons-usable materials into the commercial sector. One likely recipient is Oklo, on whose board Trump’s present energy secretary, Chris Wright, once sat, raising serious conflict of interest issues.

Several Members of Congress have already written to Trump expressing their concerns. In the  letter sent by Senator Ed Markey and Reps. Don Beyer and John Garamendi,  all Democrats, they pointed out that dishing out plutonium “to private industry for commercial energy use,”  crossed a line that “goes against long-standing, bipartisan US nuclear security policy. It raises serious weapons proliferation concerns, makes little economic sense, and may adversely affect the nation’s defense posture.”  They also pointed out that the amount of plutonium Trump is preparing to move into the commercial sector “is enough for at least 2,000 nuclear bombs.”

And they also took care to remind Trump that “commercial nuclear energy does not require separated plutonium, and today there is no global demand for plutonium to make civilian nuclear reactor fuel. Nuclear power reactors instead rely on uranium fuel, which is safer and cheaper to process.”

October 31, 2025 Posted by | - plutonium, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Bechtel boss urges US government to share risk of nuclear build-out 

 The construction group that rescued the last big US nuclear energy project
from bankruptcy has called on Washington to share the risk of cost overruns to deliver Donald Trump’s “American nuclear renaissance”.

Bechtel president Craig Albert told the Financial Times industry could deliver on the president’s executive orders to start work on developing 10
large-scale nuclear reactors by 2030. But government and the private sector would need to work together to overcome financing hurdles linked to risks of cost overruns and delays.

“The advice we’ve been giving the government is . .there is overrun risk, and no one company can take it all because they’d be betting their company,” he said in an interview.

“The government has provided very good tax incentives that improve the
rate of return, but that doesn’t address overrun risk, that just improves
the rate of return. So, I do think the government will have a role to
play.”

 FT 28th Oct 2025. https://www.ft.com/content/74d1f5f0-a255-4e63-8ffa-86a9cdf663df

October 30, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Bannon Says Trump Will Run for an Illegal 3rd Term Because ‘He’s a Vehicle of Divine Providence’

Journalist Mehdi Hasan said Trump and his allies “plan to overturn the Constitution and democracy. They’re not hiding it. They’re bragging about it.”

Stephen Prager, Oct 24, 2025, https://www.commondreams.org/news/bannon-trump-third-term-plan

In a frightening interview, one of President Donald Trump’s top allies said there is a “plan” for the president to remain in power after 2028, despite constitutional limits.

Speaking to a pair of interviewers at The Economist, Steve Bannon—Trump’s former chief strategist and one of the most influential voices in the MAGA movement—described a third Trump term as a divinely ordained fait accompli that people must simply accept.

“Well, he’s gonna get a third term, so Trump ‘28,” Bannon said. “Trump is gonna be president in 2028, and people ought to just get accommodated with that.”

Asked about the 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution, which plainly forbids a president from serving more than two terms in office, Bannon proclaimed that “there are many different alternatives” to get around it.

“At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is,” he said. “But there’s a plan. And President Trump will be president in ’28.”

Bannon continued: “We have to finish what we started… I know this will drive you guys crazy, but [Trump] is a vehicle of divine providence. He’s an instrument. He’s very imperfect. He’s not churchy. But he is an instrument of divine will.”

“We need him for at least one more term,” Bannon reiterated, “and he’ll get that in ‘28.”

In recent days, Trump has increasingly signaled his intent to run for a third term, selling “Trump 2028” merchandise on his website and displaying it in the Oval Office during negotiations with Democrats over the government shutdown.

His recent demolition of the White House’s East Wing to build a luxury ballroom has also raised alarms that Trump increasingly views himself as its permanent resident rather than a temporary steward.

Bannon was adamant that Trump would not only serve a third term, but that his staying in office would be “by the will of the American people.”

This assumption is out of line with what polls would seem to predict: Trump’s support recently hit a new low in his second term, with just 37% of voters approving of his job performance in the latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, compared to 61% who disapprove.

Bannon’s comments came days after the New York Times reported that Trump’s handpicked election officials have called for him to declare a “national emergency” ahead of the 2026 midterm election, which they say would allow him to assert more control over election laws and impose new rules on state and local elections without approval from Congress.

Max Flugrath of the voting rights group Fair Fight Action, who warned earlier this week of Trump’s plans to “hijack” the next elections, said that by pushing for a third term for the president, “Bannon is basically saying, ’Let’s light the Constitution on fire.‘”

Author and activist Jim Stewartson noted that Bannon “uses the same alchemy as [House Speaker] Mike Johnson and [Defense Secretary] Pete Hegseth to rationalize destroying the Constitution: ’spiritual war.‘”

Johnson has argued that the US government “must be biblically sanctioned” and that the Founders’ idea of the separation of church and state was “a misnomer.” Hegseth, meanwhile, has endorsed a video of a far-right pastor discussing the need to repeal the 19th Amendment, which enshrined the right of women to vote.

Some pointed out that Bannon often manages to create a stir in the media by saying provocative things and claiming to have privileged knowledge about the machinations of Trump’s inner circle. It’s not the first time Bannon has raised the possibility of a third Trump term.

“A question that I’ve never seen fully resolved is to what degree Bannon is just trying to get attention as a media figure and to what degree he’s actually clued in to what’s going on in the White House,” said HeatMap News correspondent Matthew Zeitlin.

However, Bannon was in the know about Trump’s plot to overturn the 2020 election well before it happened. Days before the vote, he was recorded telling right-wing allies that “What Trump’s gonna do is just declare victory… He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just gonna say he’s a winner.”

Others said that Bannon’s prognosis about a third Trump term is gravely serious, especially given Trump’s other actions during his second term.

“I would love to be wrong, but they keep saying this in public,” said writer John DiLillo. “He’s selling Trump 2028 merch. He’s massively remodeling the White House as if it were his personal residence. I don’t really see why the idea shouldn’t be taken seriously just because it’s ’unconstitutional.‘”

Mehdi Hasan, founder of the media outlet Zeteo, meanwhile, said: “They’re literally shouting it out loud! Their plan to overturn the Constitution and democracy. They’re not hiding it. They’re bragging about it. And the media are just ignoring it, or worse, normalizing it; the biggest story perhaps in modern American history.”

October 27, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Trump’s push to uphold Gaza ceasefire is creating a political crisis in Israel.

Israel isn’t a vassal state of the U.S., JD Vance said. But when it comes to the ceasefire in Gaza and annexing the West Bank, Israeli decision-making is deeply intertwined with Washington’s current priorities.

Mondoweiss, By Qassam Muaddi  October 24, 2025 

The succession of U.S. officials arriving in Tel Aviv over the week has fueled consternation in Israeli political circles as Washington ups the pressure on Israel to stick to U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan. Israeli political circles have bristled at having to bend to the American President’s will, as opposition use the opportunity to lambast Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for turning Israel into a “vassal” of the United States.

Virtually all of Trump’s inner circle has made the rounds in Tel Aviv throughout the past week, including U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Vice President JD Vance, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

They were all there, JD Vance said, to monitor the ceasefire, rushing to add: “But not monitoring in the sense of, you know…you monitor a toddler.” But Israeli media referred to the flurry of visits as American “Bibi-sitting.” 

Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz published a caricature on Wednesday portraying Netanyahu as a child playing with toy tanks and airplanes while Witkoff tells him, “Just a little while more, and then off to bed.” Maariv published another cartoon showing Witkoff, Vance, and Kushner closely tailing Netanyahu, who says, “Honestly, I’m just going to the toilet.”

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid didn’t hold back either. At the opening of the Knesset’s winter session, Lapid slammed Netanyahu for getting Israel into “the most dangerous political crisis in its history,” and for sabotaging past ceasefire deals that could have seen the earlier release of the Israeli captives in Gaza. Lapid also said that Netanyahu had turned Israel into “a vassal state that takes orders concerning its own security.”

Things got even tenser during a press conference with Netanyahu when Vance was asked by a reporter whether Israel was becoming a “protectorate” of the U.S. …………………………………………………

The visits by Vance, Witkoff, Kushner, and Rubio came as the fragile ceasefire in Gaza was about to unravel last Sunday, October 19, following an incident in Rafah in which two Israeli soldiers were killed in an explosion. Israel accused Hamas of breaching the ceasefire and launched a series of strikes across Gaza, killing at least 40 Palestinians. Hamas denied any knowledge of the Rafah incident, with reports that the explosion was caused by an Israeli bulldozer running over an unexploded ordinance, of which the White House was reportedly aware. …………….

Political circles in Israel regarded the halt of Israel’s blitz as a sign that Netanyahu had folded under continuous U.S. pressure to make the ceasefire work. Israel’s hardline National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, regarded the decision as “shameful” and called on Netanyahu to resume its full-scale onslaught against Gaza.

Now there’s another sticking point that is continuing to fuel U.S.-Israeli tensions: annexation.

West Bank annexation is off the table. Or is it?

In the midst of this wave of criticism, Netanyahu announced his candidacy for the post of Prime Minister in the upcoming November 2026 elections. Netanyahu is currently the longest-serving Prime Minister in Israel’s history, having led a shifting arrangement of right and center-right coalitions for a total of 18 years.

In the middle of JD Vance’s visit, the Israeli Knesset voted in favor of the first reading of a bill that would annex the West Bank. The reaction from the U.S. was unprecedented. 

Before boarding his flight to Tel Aviv earleir this week, Secretary of State Rubio said that the vote was “counterproductive” and “threatening to the peace deal.” Vance went further, calling the vote “weird,” “stupid,” and an “insult,” adding that “the policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel.” 

But the hardest U.S. reaction came from Trump himself, who said in an interview with Time magazine that Israel’s annexation of the West Bank “will not happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries,” adding that “Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”

The problem is that annexing the West Bank has been Netanyahu’s most important electoral promise since 2019. He has been spearheading a years-long legislative effort to make that annexation a reality, starting with the 2018 Nation-State Law, then with the Knesset resolution to reject a Palestinian state in July 2024, and finally with last July’s Knesset resolution allowing the government to annex the West Bank.

This is particularly inconvenient for Benjamin Netanyahu, as he needs to avoid any major confrontation with Washington at the current moment……………………………………………………..

In his first term, Donald Trump also clashed with a Netanyahu-led government that had pledged to annex parts of the West Bank. Trump halted the annexation process by brokering normalization agreements with several Arab states, most crucially the United Arab Emirates. The importance of the so-called Abraham Accords, for Trump, comes from the fact that the remaining Gulf countries that have yet to normalize relations with Israel — Qatar and Saudi Arabia — are the key to securing regional U.S. economic and political dominance. This is part of the larger U.S. agenda of reasserting American hegemony and confronting the rising influence of China. A part of Trump’s roadmap to get there is by integrating Israel in the Middle East.

After its genocide in Gaza, Israel is facing international isolation, so regional integration should seemingly be an Israeli priority as well. But in this instance, integration would force Israel to at least temporarily pause its plans to assert Jewish sovereignty between the river and the sea, as the Likud’s charter put it. 

Smotrich gave voice to that supremacist dream while speaking at a tech conference on Thursday, saying that Israel would not give up annexation for the sake of normalization: “If Saudi Arabia tells us ‘normalization in exchange for a Palestinian state,’ friends — no thank you. Keep riding camels in the desert in Saudi Arabia, and we will continue to develop.”……………………………………………………….

The ongoing frenzy of political recriminations in Israeli circles is a sign that they’re gearing up for elections and trying to score points against their rivals. What this tells us is that the Israeli political establishment has, at least implicitly, accepted that the war is over for the moment. But the fact that this political theater unfolds in the shadow of unprecedented U.S. pressure suggests how deeply Israeli decision-making is intertwined with Washington’s priorities. https://mondoweiss.net/2025/10/trumps-push-to-uphold-gaza-ceasefire-is-creating-a-political-crisis-in-israel/

October 27, 2025 Posted by | Israel, politics | Leave a comment

ED MILIBAND’S NUCLEAR NIGHTMARES

Jonathon Porritt, 22 Oct 25, https://jonathonporritt.com/uk-nuclear-subsidies-desnz-spending/

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, the legions of nuclear fat cats residing here in the UK are smiling very broadly indeed. It would appear that both Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband have nothing better to do with our money, as taxpayers, than to go on filling up their subsidy saucers more or less on demand.

Taxpayers really don’t know very much about how DESNZ spends our money. More problematically, not a lot of the UK’s more or less mis-informed energy correspondents are particularly interested in helping taxpayers to understand what’s really going on – for the most part because they’re ‘ideologically captured’, with very little interest in the truth.

A bit harsh? Well, why is it, for instance, that not one of them provides any serious analysis of DESNZ’s annual expenditure? Not least as the details of this (on p.18 of its 2024-2025 Annual Report & Accounts) are completely mind-blowing. To summarise:

DESNZ TOTAL DEPARTMENTAL SPEND

Total departmental spend:     £8.6 billion

Total spend on nuclear power:   £5.1 billion (60%)

Total spend on everything else:  £3.5 billion (40%)

See what I mean? Literally mind-blowing! A few more details on the nuclear side of things:

*Great British Nuclear: £26 million (the more or less useless quango overseeing this fiasco).

*Nuclear Decommissioning Agency : £3 billion (dealing with the legacy of past nuclear programmes).

*Support for Sizewell C power station: £1.67 billion.

*UK Atomic Energy Agency (UKAEA): £400 million (doing bonkers stuff like nuclear fusion).

That’s the size of the nuclear sink hole: roughly £5.1 billion! Leaving roughly £3.5 billion for everything else, including all direct support for renewables, ‘delivering affordable energy’, science, research and ‘capability’, as well as other arm’s length bodies. Moreover, even that low figure is not quite what it seems: roughly £450 million is set aside for another of Ed Miliband’s sink holes, namely Carbon Capture and Storage.

Do you need any more persuading that this is obviously a completely mis-titled Department: instead of DESNZ, it really should be called DNPB&B – the Department of Nuclear Power and Bits & Bobs.

Where the hell are you, Rachel Reeves? For those sick of your hangdog ‘black hole blathering‘, it would be wonderful to think you might instruct just a few of your civil servants to instruct the ever-well-meaning Ed Miliband to undertake an exercise in zero budgeting for FY 25/26. Great British Nuclear could go at a stroke of a pen – no one would notice. The UKAEA’s budget could be halved, leaving it to focus on decommissioning redundant reactors and dealing with nuclear waste. Subsidies for Sizewell C could be massively reduced – although the Department did such a poor deal with various private sector investors that there will be significant compensation to be paid.

Sadly, of course, there is nothing that can be done about the £3 billion set aside, EVERY YEAR, for dealing with the legacy of earlier nuclear programmes – decommissioning, site security, managing nuclear waste and so on. Nuclear campaigners have struggled for years to explain that our ‘nuclear legacy’ is in fact our ‘current nuclear reality’, and that this is a figure which can only grow and grow over the years. The Public Accounts Committee looked recently at the cost of decommissioning many of the facilities at Sellafield, currently assessed at £396 million through to 2070, and couldn’t have made their incredulity any clearer. On top of that, we have the looming additional cost of building a long-term Geological Disposal Facility, for which taxpayers will be paying hundreds of billions of pounds through to the end of this century.

Ask the Treasury or officials at DNPN&B what they believe that total legacy figure will be in FY2030/2031,or FY2040/2041, and you can be absolutely guaranteed to get literally no answer at all.

And yet – AND YET – we go on pouring yet more billions into NEW waste-generating nuclear monstrosities like Hinkley C and now Sizewell C.

It’s nearly 50 years since the highly influential Flowers Report was published in 1976. Its single most important recommendation was as follows:


“There should be no commitment to a large programme of nuclear fission power until it has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that a method exists to ensure the safe containment of long-lived, highly radioactive waste for the indefinite future.”    

We are, truly, led by nuclear donkeys.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, all this never-ending filling-up of the industry’s subsidy saucers has massive opportunity costs for what we should really be doing with precious taxpayers’ money.

As in:

  • getting as enthusiastically as possible behind the potential for tidal power (see yesterday’s blog).
  • getting as enthusiastically as possible behind retrofitting and the green economy (see tomorrow’s blog).

I’ll return to the whole question of just how many billions Rachel Reeves could divert from these nuclear sink holes as we get a little closer to the budget in November.

Managing our ‘Energy Legacy’: £85 million (roughly half the total figure).

October 26, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Miliband starts fight with SNP over deploying new nuclear in Scotland

 By Tom Pashby

 Miliband starts fight with SNP over deploying new nuclear in Scotland.
Energy secretary Ed Miliband has asked Great British Energy – Nuclear to
explore deploying new nuclear at Torness, Hunterston and potentially other
parts of Scotland, despite the fact that the SNP-run Scottish Government
does not allow new nuclear developments in Scotland.

 New Civil Engineer 24th Oct 2025, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/miliband-starts-fight-with-snp-over-deploying-new-nuclear-in-scotland-24-10-2025/

October 26, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

MPs ‘deeply concerned’ about government’s proposed new nuclear siting policy

 By Tom Pashby

 MPs ‘deeply concerned’ about government’s proposed new nuclear
siting policy. MPs have said they are “deeply concerned” that the
government’s proposed new siting policy for new nuclear reactors “fails
to present a truly joined-up approach across planning, safety and
environmental regulation”.

 New Civil Engineer 24th Oct 2025, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/mps-deeply-concerned-about-governments-proposed-new-nuclear-siting-policy-24-10-2025/

October 26, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Senate should invoke War Powers Act to prevent Trump invasion of Venezuela

23 October 2025 AIMN Editorial, By Walt Zlotow , https://theaimn.net/senate-should-invoke-war-powers-act-to-prevent-trump-invasion-of-venezuela/

The Trump administration is already at war with Venezuela. Trump’s Navy has sent 7 small, unarmed Venezuelan boats to Davy Jones Locker, killing 29 innocents. Trump claims he’s just killing Venezuelan drug smugglers sent by Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro to kill Americans with illegal drugs. That is not law enforcement. It is premeditated mass murder.

Falsely claiming Maduro is a narco terrorist, Trump has put a $50 million bounty for his arrest. Trump has also sent 8 warships, including a sub, 10,000 troops, 2 B-52 bombers and 10 F-35 fighter jets into the region around Venezuela. That sure looks like a prelude to violent regime change, if not outright invasion.

A few principled senators, disgusted by Trump’s extra-legal war preparations, are pushing back. Senators Tom Kaine (D-VA), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) introduced Senate Joint Resolution 90 which would invoke the War Powers Act of 1973 to prevent Trump from invading Venezuela without authorisation from Congress. Such authorization from Congress will never come.

Their resolution may be voted on next week. Every morally centered American seeking to head off an extralegal, unconstitutional invasion of Venezuela should contact their senators to support that noble effort.

October 25, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

UK Government look at bypassing SNP amid block on ‘billion pound’ nuclear investment.

The Scottish Government is refusing to give planning permission for any new nuclear reactors to be built in Scotland – despite the possibility of billions of pounds of investment.

UK Government look at bypassing SNP amid block on ‘billion pound’ nuclear
investment. The Scottish Government is refusing to give planning permission for any new nuclear reactors to be built in Scotland – despite the possibility of billions of pounds of investment. There has been interest
from the likes of Rolls Royce in building nuclear reactors north of the
border, but any planning applications would be rejected by the SNP
Government.

However, a source close to the UK Government suggested that it was pushing for reactors to be built in Scotland. It would put it on a
collision course with the SNP who are anti-nuclear. Former Scottish
Secretary Alister Jack suggested a few years ago that his office were
already plotting a similar move, if the SNP are kicked out of office in
2026. Now, this idea has been revived, it is understood, with Scotland set
to miss out on billions of pounds of investment if John Swinney clings on
to power in May next year. The UK and USA signed a lucrative deal last
month which will fast track the creation of small nuclear power stations,
halving the time it takes to gain regulatory approval for nuclear projects
from up to four years to two.

Express 22nd Oct 2025, https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/uk-government-look-bypassing-snp-36109802

October 25, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Parliamentary Committee calls for clear direction on Oldbury and Wylfa, and a “one-stop shop” to finally overcome excessive cost and delays in deployment of nuclear energy

  House of Commons Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, 24 October 2025

In a report today the Commons Energy Security and Net Zero Committee says new planning guidance for building Britain’s future nuclear energy generation brings a welcome ‘presumption of consent’ for low-carbon generation across a range of nuclear technologies.

But the UK’s move into unprecedented territory of private development of new nuclear sites creates new challenges. The Committee is concerned that the “exhaustive” drafting of the criteria in EN‑7, intended to introduce the flexibility to consider a wide range of factors towards approval, may in fact just duplicate issues also addressed by specialist regulators and create more uncertainty, delay and cost.   

It concludes that new policy statement EN-7 “fails to present a truly joined-up approach across planning, safety, and environmental regulation” and so risks undermining its own purpose: to provide a definitive and coherent framework for decision-making.  Commercial developers, facing a front-loaded application system and potential review both by multiple regulators and in Court, may be driven to “gold plate” applications with excessive detail.  ……………………………………………………………………………… https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/664/energy-security-and-net-zero-committee/news/209808/committee-calls-for-clear-direction-on-oldbury-and-wylfa-and-a-onestop-shop-to-finally-overcome-excessive-cost-and-delays-in-deployment-of-nuclear-energy/

October 25, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

UK Government planning for nuclear power in Scotland in anticipation of a Labour 2026 victory

A senior UK Government minister also says Scottish
independence would be a win for Vladimir Putin. The UK government could
soon start submitting planning applications for new nuclear power stations
in Scotland in anticipation of a Labour administration at Holyrood. A
senior government source said ministers do not want Scotland “to be left
behind” and suggested potential sites including Torness in East Lothian
were being actively considered.

A senior government source said that civil
nuclear companies see Scotland as “off limits” because of the SNP’s
stance on nuclear energy. However, they said: “The reality is planning
law is devolved and so that requires a change of government in Holyrood
next May to translate these possibilities but we are planning practical
changes on the ground because we don’t want Scotland to be left behind.”


Scottish Labour has high hopes of winning the 2026 Scottish Parliament
election and its leader Anas Sarwar has repeatedly lauded the benefits of
nuclear power. However the party has slipped back in the polls and is now
several percentage points behind the SNP, who are the current favourites to
win on polling day.

Scotsman 22nd Oct 2025, https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/uk-government-planning-for-nuclear-power-in-scotland-in-anticipation-of-a-labour-2026-victory-5369530

October 24, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

A Genuinely Just Transition: Kill Off Sizewell C – Shaft Reform UK

the insanity of Labour’s nuclear obsession

Jonathon Porritt. 23 Oct 25,
https://jonathonporritt.com/just-transition-uk-sizewell-c-reform/

I’ve been more than a little mean about Ed Miliband in my last two blogs – which is somewhat ungenerous given that he would appear to be the last sensible, caring person standing in this misbegotten Labour Government.

So, let me big him up for a bit!

Last Saturday, he gave what is probably his most important speech since becoming Secretary of State at DESNZ – on what (in my opinion) is probably the single most important policy area within the sprawling DESNZ portfolio: the green economy, skills, energy efficiency, retrofit etc.

He was unveiling details of the Government’s latest scheme to create an extra 400,000 ‘green jobs’ over the course of the next few years. Thirty one skilled trades have been identified as priority areas, with HVAC (heating and ventilation engineers) and plumbing at the top of the list, with carpenters, electricians and welders next in line.

The Government won’t just be targeting those particular skills, but those who they hope will end up in the new jobs: school leavers, NEETS, veterans, ex-offenders – and those exiting the once safe embrace of fossil fuel jobs (the package includes a designated fund of £20 million to upskill workers from the oil and gas industries). Miliband indicated that any companies benefiting from Government money will have to demonstrate the contribution they can make to those goals.

There wasn’t anything like enough in the speech about ramping up the current retrofitting programmes to reduce still chronic levels of fuel poverty here in the UK, let alone about opportunities to support energy efficiency schemes across the economy – including the highly effective SALIX scheme which is allocated a miserly £32 million a year.

As we all need to keep reminding people, overall energy consumption here in the UK has actually declined by a massive 28% over the last 20 years – one of the reasons why our greenhouse gas emissions have declined by 40% during that time. As the indefatigable Andrew Warren points out:

“There is no good reason why this trend should not continue. There are still approaching nine million homes on the gas network running gas-guzzling boilers, and many of these could readily switch to electric heating. There are still some fifteen million homes with grossly inadequate insulation. And still a majority without energy efficient glazing”.

So let’s hope we hear more about these critical areas in the future. But for the time being, let’s celebrate what looks like Labour’s most substantive attempt yet to set about a genuinely ‘just transition’ away from fossil fuels.

And that’s why Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should go on backing Ed Miliband every step of this politically contested way! The two of them still seem to have not the first idea of how to combat the surging success of Reform UK in the polls – other than to claim (pretty idiotically) that they will deliver Nigel Farage’s agenda in a rather nicer and less aggressive way.

By contrast, Miliband gets the true threat from Reform to Labour. His interview on Sunday with Laura Kunzberg was splendidly combative, providing Labour with its strongest strapline yet: that Reform UK “is waging war on jobs”.

“Obviously, this is a massive fight with Reform. Reformers say they will wage war on clean energy. Well, that’s waging war on these jobs….. it’s all part of its attempt at a culture war, but I actually think they’re out of tune with the British people because I think people recognise that we need the jobs from clean energy”.

If I wasn’t somewhat suspicious of the whole idea of ‘eco-populism’, I’d say this is a very clear signal of Miliband taking the fight directly to the climate-denying neanderthals in both Reform and Badenoch’s Tory party – and, in the process, reminding Zack Polanski, the Green Party’s new leader, that he shouldn’t expect to command this territory unchallenged!

Which is precisely why my blog yesterday – about the insanity of Labour’s nuclear obsession – highlighted the scale of the challenge Ed Miliband faces. This whole ‘green economy’ commitment has been allocated £880 million in the DESNZ budget – 50% of what Sizewell C will get in direct subsidy! And that’s before we all start paying through the nose for Sizewell C on our electricity bills. It’s abundantly clear that this newly unveiled strategy is going to need a whole lot more backing than that.

Which is why Miliband has a very strong signal to send to Rachel Reeves: kill off Sizewell C – shaft Reform. 

October 24, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

The Palestinian Authority may become a casualty of the Trump plan and the new Western consensus

Western support for a two-state solution was never intended to create Palestinian statehood — it was meant to justify the existence of the Palestinian Authority. Now that the Western consensus is shifting, so are thoughts about the need for the PA.

Monodoweiss, By Qassam Muaddi  October 17, 2025

Total and lasting “forever” peace. Not just for Palestine, but the entire Middle East.

That’s what U.S. President Donald Trump promised at the signing of the Gaza ceasefire deal in Egypt last week. One way the plan differs from previous incarnations of the “peace process” is that it abandons the framework of the two-state solution as the accepted way of resolving the Palestine question.

Historically, the U.S. model for integrating Israel into the region was the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1994 after the Oslo Accords, which was given limited governing responsibilities over the West Bank and Gaza with the nominal assumption that it would be the precursor to a Palestinian state.

Trump’s plan tries to bypass all of this, putting Gaza under the administration of a U.S.-led board of “peace” headed by Trump himself. The PA has no clear role in running the Strip — at least not according to Trump’s 20 points, which mentions that the PA would have to undergo a series of “reforms” that could, in some unspecified future, establish “a path” toward Palestinian self-determination. During the reconstruction phase, the West Bank and Gaza would be politically split.

Israel has made its rejection of a Palestinian state official policy. But it is also a matter of national consensus across the Israeli political spectrum, as recently articulated by Benny Gantz, a member of the opposition, in the New York Times. 

It goes back to well before October 7…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza two years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that the PA will have no role in governing the Strip in the future. Yet the calls by Ben-Gvir and the Israeli far right to abolish the PA altogether are not so easy to implement.

The PA runs civil affairs in the West Bank, responsibilities that would otherwise fall to Israel. It also sustains the image of a peace process on which most Western countries and the UN base their official positions, anchored in the rhetoric of a “two-state solution.”

But nominal Western support for a two-state solution was never meant to actually implement it. Rather, the function this support has ended up performing has been to maintain the political rationale for supporting the continued existence of the PA. The demands of the maximalist Israeli far right have placed this in jeopardy.

If Trump’s “peace” plan, if one can call it that, is to have a chance, it would need some European buy-in, especially in funding and bankrolling the so-called “reforms.” That puts it at odds with the maximalist Israeli position.

Last Monday, as the leaders of 20 countries met in Egypt’s Sharm al-Sheikh to sign the Gaza ceasefire deal, the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, told the media that the EU would increase its aid to the PA by 1.6 billion euros. He added that European intervention will focus on humanitarian aid, police training, governance, border control, and PA reforms, to ensure that “in the future, Palestine will be a democratic state, free of terrorism.”

The new global consensus

The PA has already adopted a political platform that recognizes Israel, rejects armed resistance, and commits to security cooperation. But the PA is also part of a larger Palestinian political spectrum. Even if there aren’t elections, the PA is still bound to operate in relation to other Palestinian political forces. This sets a bare minimum “floor” that the PA is obliged to maintain, which is the rhetorical insistence on a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and perhaps as an afterthought, paying some lip service to the right of return. Decades of Palestinian struggle since the Nakba have made it impossible for the PA to rhetorically sidestep this political ethos, even though it has done virtually everything on the ground to render it materially meaningless.

In other words, the PA cannot abandon its pretenses to being Palestinian and representing some notion of Palestinian nationhood.  This is what Palestinians fear the “reforms” are about — turning the PA into a self-governing and apolitical body shorn of any remnants of Palestinian national culture and memory………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://mondoweiss.net/2025/10/the-trump-plan-the-palestinian-authority-and-the-new-western-consensus/

October 24, 2025 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, politics | Leave a comment

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