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Chris Hedges: War With Iran

By Chris Hedges / Original to ScheerPost, https://scheerpost.com/2025/06/22/chris-hedges-war-with-iran/

War opens a Pandora’s box of evils that once unleashed are beyond anyone’s control. The warmongers who ordered the strikes by U.S. bombers on Iranian nuclear sites have no more of a plan for what comes next in Iran than they had in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Syria.

European allies, whom Israel and Trump have alienated with these air assaults, are in no mood to cooperate with Washington. The Pentagon, even if it wanted to, does not have the hundreds of thousands of troops it would need to attack and occupy Iran — the only way Iran might be subdued.

And the idea that the marginal and discredited Iranian resistance group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), which fought alongside Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran and is viewed by most Iranians as composed of traitors, is a viable counter force to the Iranian government is ludicrous.

In all these equations the 90 million people in Iran are ignored just as the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria were ignored. They will not welcome the United States and certainly not Israel as liberators. They may hate the regime, but they will resist. They don’t want to be dominated by foreign powers.

A war with Iran will be interpreted throughout the region as a war against Shiism. Soon there will be retaliation. Lots of it. It will come at first with desultory missile strikes and then attacks carried out by elusive enemies on ships, military bases and installations. Steadily it will grow in volume and lethality.

The death toll, including among the some 40,000 soldiers and Marines stationed in the Middle East, will mount. Ships, including aircraft carriers, will be targeted. We will, as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, begin to lash out with a blind fury, fueling the conflagration we began.

Those who lured us into this war know little about the instrument of war and even less about the cultures or peoples they seek to dominate. Blinded by hubris, believing their own hallucinations, they have learned none of the lessons of the last two decades of warfare in the Middle East. A war with Iran will be a self-defeating and costly quagmire, one more nail in the rotting edifice of the empire.

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

US State Department Spokeswoman Says Israel Is Greater Than America.

Caitlin Johnstone, Jun 23, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/us-state-department-spokeswoman-says?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=166596495&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Journalist Ken Klippenstein has drawn attention to an overlooked remark made by State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce last month saying that the United States is “the greatest country on earth, next to Israel.”

“The pride of being able to be here and do work that facilitates making things better for people and in the greatest country on Earth, next to Israel,” Bruce told Jewish News Syndicate. “It’s an honor to be able to make a difference and to be able to speak in this regard with an administration that I love so much and that I feel genuinely represented by.”

It’s like this administration is doing everything it can to vindicate those who accuse it of being Israel First instead of America First.

I feel like we don’t talk enough about the fact that Donald Trump publicly admitted to being bought and owned by the richest Israeli on earth, Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson.

On the campaign trail last year Trump told the Israeli American Council Summit that the first time he was president, Miriam and her late husband Sheldon “would come into the White House probably almost more than anybody, outside of people that work there.” He said they were always after something, “always for Israel,” and “as soon as I’d give them something, they’d want something else.” He named the US recognition of the occupied Golan Heights as part of Israel as one of the gifts he showered the Zionist state with to please the Adelsons, who pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into his presidential campaigns.

It’s hard to focus on Israel’s airstrikes in Lebanon due to Israel’s invasion of Syria, which is hard to focus on due to Israel’s atrocities in the West Bank, which are hard to focus on due to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which is hard to focus on due to Israel’s war on Iran, which is hard to focus on because of America’s war on Iran.

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Top Ten dumbest things we’re being asked to believe about Iran:

1. That the Iranians want to be bombed.

2. That the guy bombing Iran wants peace.

3. That regime change interventionism is a swell idea this time.

4. That anyone who doesn’t want war with Iran hates Jews.

5. That this time the government and the media are telling us the truth about an American war.


6. That this time the neocons are smart and correct.

7. That bombing Iran makes it LESS likely to try to obtain nukes.

8. That Iran is trying to assassinate the US president when all US presidents have the same foreign policy.

9. That Iran (a country that never starts wars) cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons, but Israel (a country that starts wars constantly) can.

10. That attacking Iran benefits Americans.

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It blows my mind that there are people trying to argue that Trump does not seek war. What do these idiots think the United States would do if another country started bombing American energy infrastructure?

I’m trying to get an important business deal done, so I firebombed the guy’s house to make him more likely to negotiate with me. I just want peace.

The following things are antisemitic:

– opposing war with Iran

– viewing Palestinians as human

– opposing genocide

– Greta Thunberg

– peace

– journalism

– Ms Rachel

– truth

– critical thinking

– the UN

– Tucker Carlson

– Amnesty International

– Human Rights Watch

– equal rights

It’s hilarious that anyone still takes this “antisemitism” schtick seriously. Oh no there’s a special group of white people who might get hurt feelings if I don’t want to send my kids to invade Iran.

The western world has been on a two-year crash course learning all the reasons why the Muslim world has been correct about Israel this entire time.

It’s kind of nice to be arguing with George W Bush conservatives about US foreign policy again. For the last few years I’ve been getting called a Nazi by western Zionists and a Putin-loving fascist by NATO simps; it’s refreshing to be hated for the hippie moonbat I actually am for once.

June 24, 2025 Posted by | Israel, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Ford’s nuclear obsession is robbing Ontario of its true clean energy future

Canada’s National Observer Adrienne Tanner, June 19th 2025

Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford just can’t seem to shake his aversion to renewables. 

Ford’s new Energy for Generations plan, mapping out energy generation from now to 2050, is laudable for its end goal: to all but end Ontario’s reliance on gas for electricity generation. But its single-minded pursuit of new nuclear power projects is myopic when it comes to solar and wind, the gold standard sources of clean energy.

Ontario is seriously eyeing sites for three even bigger nuclear plants than it already has — “the equivalent of adding about five Darlington Nuclear Generating Stations to the grid,” the report states — with the possibility of even more of them down the road.

As for solar and wind, the plan calls for a modest increase of slightly more than double the small amounts produced now which comprise 11 per cent of Ontario’s power supply. And the clincher: solar and wind will get a boost while nuclear plants are being scaled up, but only for a short while.

Once new nuclear plants are up and running, Ontario actually plans to dial back progress on renewables. It sounds like the province plans to tear down solar installations and wind farms and haul the pieces off to metal recyclers and landfills. And why? On those questions, the plan is silent. 

The only hint is a bullseye graphic comparing the amount of land needed for a new nuclear plant compared to the much greater amounts needed to generate the same amount of power from solar or wind. As might be expected from a plan that reads like a pro-nuclear manifesto, there isn’t a single mention of the radioactive waste generated from nuclear power plants and the still-unsolved challenges associated with its disposal.

Like his Alberta counterpart, Premier Danielle Smith, Ford seems almost pathologically opposed to solar and wind energy. From the moment he was elected, Ford made it clear he was not interested in clean technology of any description; he cancelled 750 renewable energy projects, slowed the buildout of electric vehicle charging stations, ended the provincial EV rebate, repeatedly lowered gas taxes and has sided with Enbridge, Ontario’s natural gas provider, at every turn.

He’s budged on EV charging stations recently, probably because failing to build at least some would be a bad look for a province trying to capture EV and battery manufacturing industries. And last year, when it became clear Ontario needed  more energy to meet skyrocketing demand, the Ontario government finally opened the door to more solar and wind. Judging by his past record, I would bet that wasn’t Ford’s idea. 

…………………………………………. There might be other forces at play causing Ford to favour Big Nuclear over solar and wind. Ford’s government has always been open-minded, shall we say, to the siren songs of business lobbyists, and the nuclear industry is currently in high gear. It could be Ford can only get excited about energy megaprojects with their jobs and potential for federal backing, regardless of the risk and cost. https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/06/19/opinion/ford-ontario-energy-nuclear-solar-wind?nih=Vf0DQztC-W6YOqBGCjgdMvyuSr-jgXEgtm__lNRKxi0&utm_source=National+Observer&utm_campaign=d7478891e6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_06_19_01_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cacd0f141f-d7478891e6-277039322

June 22, 2025 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

Niger to nationalise uranium project co-owned with France’s Orano

 Niger has said it will nationalise a large uranium project it jointly owns
with French nuclear fuel producer Orano, in a significant escalation of the
tensions between the west African country’s military government and the
state-owned company. The plan was announced on the state broadcaster late
on Thursday, after ministers adopted a draft resolution transferring
complete ownership of the Somair project to the government in Niamey. Orano
owns just over 63 per cent of Somair and Niger’s state-run Sopamin holds
the rest.

 FT 20th June 2025,
https://www.ft.com/content/a0f40288-f932-409a-bc98-eb8e05b43086

June 22, 2025 Posted by | Niger, politics | Leave a comment

Trump says US intelligence ‘wrong’ about Iran not building nuclear bomb

It is extremely rare for a US president to openly contradict the country’s intelligence community.

“This is not just one person, one team saying something,” “It’s the entire intelligence community in the United States. That he would dismiss them … it’s just astounding.”

US president doubles down on claim Iran is building nuclear weapon, again contradicting US intelligence community.

20 Jun 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/20/trump-says-us-intelligence-wrong-about-iran-not-building-nuclear-bomb

United States President Donald Trump has said his director of national intelligence was “wrong” when she testified that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had not re-authorised the country’s suspended nuclear weapons programme.

The comments come after Trump earlier this week cast doubt on Tulsi Gabbard’s March 25 report to Congress, in which she reiterated the US intelligence community’s assessment. On Tuesday, Trump told reporters, “I don’t care” that the intelligence community’s finding contradicted his own claims, saying Iran was in the late stages of developing a nuclear weapon.

But speaking on Friday, Trump went further.

A reporter asked, “What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon? Your intelligence community said they have no evidence.”

The president responded, “Then my intelligence community is wrong. Who in the intelligence community said that?”

“Your DNI [director of national intelligence], Tulsi Gabbard,” the reporter replied.

“She’s wrong,” Trump said.

Gabbard appeared to come to Trump’s defence later on Friday.

“America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly,” she wrote in a social media post. “President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree.”

However, that statement does not contradict her earlier assessment that Iran is not building a weapon. No known US intelligence assessment concludes that Iran is weaponising its nuclear programme.

It is extremely rare for a US president to openly contradict the country’s intelligence community, with critics accusing Trump of flagrantly disregarding evidence to justify potential direct US involvement in the fighting, according to Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara.

“This is not just one person, one team saying something,” Bishara said. “It’s the entire intelligence community in the United States. That he would dismiss them … it’s just astounding.”

Speaking on Friday, Trump also appeared to downplay the prospect of the US brokering a ceasefire agreement between Iran and Israel, saying he “might” support such a deal, while adding, “Israel’s doing well in terms of war, and I think you would say that Iran is doing less well.”

“It’s hard to make that request right now. When someone’s winning, it’s harder than when they’re losing,” he added.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou Castro noted that Trump was “really making a point that he’s not going to make an effort to ask Israel to ease up on its aerial bombing of Iranian targets”.

“It seems that Trump is very squarely on Israel’s side as things are progressing, and … it appears that he is not leaning towards the diplomacy route, though, again, he is giving himself that two weeks’ time to make a final decision,” she said.

Trump on Thursday said he would take two weeks to decide the US response to the conflict. Experts say the decision would likely be transformative.

The US is seen as one of the few countries with the leverage to pressure Israel to step back from the brink of wider-scale regional war.

At the same time, the involvement of the US military is seen as key to Israel’s stated mission of completely dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme, which hinges on destroying the underground Fordow enrichment plant.

A successful attack on the facility would require both Washington’s 30,000-pound (13,000kg) GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator and the B-2 bombers needed to deliver it.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Trump also downplayed the potential role of European countries in de-escalating the situation. That came hours after Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met the top diplomats from France, the UK, Germany and the EU in Geneva.

“Europe is not going to be able to help,” the US president said.

June 21, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

House Progressives Back War Powers Resolution as Trump Ratchets Up Rhetoric Against Iran

Brett Wilkins, 17 June 25, https://www.commondreams.org/news/progressives-war-powers-iran

Numerous House progressives said Tuesday that they will support legislation that would force President Donald Trump to obtain congressional permission to wage war on Iran, a development that followed Monday’s introduction of two Senate measures aimed at stopping Trump from dragging the United States into the widening Israel-Iran war.

Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) on Tuesday introduced legislation affirming the legal requirement under the War Powers Resolution of 1973—also known as the War Powers Act—for the president to notify lawmakers within 48 hours of committing troops to military action and limiting such action to 60 days, with a 30-day withdrawal period, unless Congress declares war or issues an authorization for the use of military force.

“The Constitution does not permit the executive branch to unilaterally commit an act of war against a sovereign nation that hasn’t attacked the United States,” Massie explained in a statement. “Congress has the sole power to declare war against Iran. The ongoing war between Israel and Iran is not our war. Even if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution.”

In a post on the social media site X, Massie thanked the resolution’s co-sponsors, all of them Democrats: Don Beyer (Va.), Greg Casar (Texas), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Lloyd Doggett (Texas), Jesús “Chuy” García (Ill.), Val Hoyle (Ore.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Jim McGovern (Mass.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and Nydia Velazquez (N.Y.).

More lawmakers—possibly including Republicans—are expected to sign on to the measure.

“The president does not have the power to unilaterally declare war. Congressional authorization isn’t optional,” Lee said on social media. “When some profit both financially and politically from endless war, the rest of us pay the price. We can’t let them lie us into another conflict that will cost innocent lives.”

Tlaib asserted that “the American people aren’t falling for it again. We were lied to about ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq that killed millions [and] forever changed lives.”

The progressive political action committee Justice Democrats welcomed Massie’s measure: “Here’s an opportunity for bipartisanship that doesn’t sell out the American people. Every member of Congress should oppose U.S. involvement, funding, weapons, or troops fighting another endless war in the Middle East.”

The House proposal follows Monday’s introduction of a war powers resolution by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and bill by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would prevent the Trump administration from using federal funds for a military attack on Iran without congressional approval. It also echoes a 2020 resolution proposed in the then-Democrat-controlled House that would have banned Trump from waging war on Iran without lawmakers’ approval.

Explaining her support for Massie’s legislation, Omar said, “I support this resolution because the American people do not want another war.”

Indeed, an Economist/YouGov poll published Tuesday revealed that only 16% of surveyed voters “think the U.S. should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran.” Just 10% of respondents who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris last year and 19% of 2024 Trump voters want the U.S. to wage war on Iran, as do 15% of self-described Democrats, 11% of Independents, and 23% of Republicans.

A separate survey commissioned by Demand Progress and conducted by the Bullfinch Group recently found that 53% of registered voters—including 58% of Democrats, 47% of Independents, and 56% of Republicans—want Trump to “obtain congressional authorization before striking targets in other countries.”

“We applaud Rep. Massie and Sen. Kaine for introducing these resolutions to keep us out of yet another war in the Middle East,” Demand Progress senior policy adviser Cavan Kharrazian said Tuesday. “It should be in the interest of Republicans and Democrats to uphold the Constitution and prevent Israel from dragging us into a disastrous war with Iran.”

“The American people, including a clear majority of Republican voters, believe the president must obtain congressional authorization before initiating strikes against another country,” Kharrazian added. “Congress must listen to them and reassert its constitutional war powers authority by passing these resolutions.”

Israel claims it attacked Iran to stop it from obtaining nuclear weapons. However, successive U.S. intelligence assessments have concluded for decades—most recently in March—that Iran is not trying to build nukes. On Tuesday, Trump brushed off his own director of national intelligence’s findings that Iran is not close to having a nuclear bomb.

As Trump ratcheted up his cryptic threats against Tehran amid ongoing Israeli attacks on Iran and Iranian counterstrikes, anti-war voices including the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and the peace group CodePink urged restraint and negotiation to avert escalating the Mideast crisis.

NIAC, which is circulating a petition demanding Congress act to avert U.S. intervention, is planning to hold a Tuesday afternoon No War With Iran Action Hour co-hosted with Peace Action and Action Corps.

“Trump continues to renege on his own commitments to diplomacy and an end to wars by perpetuating [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s war of aggression through his own vocal support and U.S. military equipment and personnel in the region,” NIAC said Tuesday. “Israel’s assaults on Tehran have killed upwards of 224 Iranians and hospitalized over 1,277 more.”

“Happening at the same time, in just the last day alone, Israeli forces have also killed at least 51 Palestinians desperate for aid and food at a World Food Program site in southern Gaza,” NIAC noted. “There is no telling how much more devastation for Iran, Israel, and the U.S. an expanded war on Iran would bring.”

“President Trump must immediately halt military aid and support for the Israel war on Iran,” the group added, “and if he will not, Congress must act within its constitutional authority to save millions of American, Iranian, Israeli, and Palestinian lives.”

June 20, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Westinghouse lobbies for site in Wales as Starmer backs nuclear renaissance

Westinghouse lobbies for site in Wales as Starmer backs nuclear renaissance US nuclear giant plans to build major nuclear power plant in Wales

Matt Oliver, Industry Editor

A US energy giant is in talks with Downing Street to build a major power plant off the
coast of Wales as Sir Keir Starmer throws his support behind a nuclear
renaissance in Britain. Westinghouse, which is also pursuing a US nuclear
expansion under Donald Trump, is understood to have presented plans for at
least two large reactors at Wylfa, in the Isle of Anglesey. It is lobbying
for the Welsh site to be kept in reserve for the project – which could
power several million homes – as the Government considers whether to put
mini nuclear plants there instead.

State-owned South Korean energy giant
Kepco was previously interested in the site but is said to have dropped the
plans after settling a global legal dispute with Westinghouse. Wylfa, where
a now decommissioned nuclear plant generated power until 2015, is seen as
attractive thanks to its ample space and favourable geology. The
Westinghouse plant would be similar in size to Hinkley Point C, in
Somerset, and Sizewell C, in Suffolk, which will use technology provided by
French nuclear giant EDF and come online in the 2030s.

In discussions with government officials, Westinghouse has claimed that a plant at Wylfa using its AP1000 reactors could also come online by the mid-2030s and for just a
fraction of the cost. An offer submitted by the company in February, which
was revised just weeks before Rachel Reeves unveiled her spending review,
proposes two reactors initially, with an option for another two later.

The discussions have surfaced as officials are separately negotiating a final
deal with Rolls-Royce to build the first small modular reactors (SMRs)
after the Derby-based company won a design competition. A location has not
been chosen but Wylfa is seen as one potential site alongside
Oldbury-on-Severn in Gloucestershire. Both are government-owned and Rolls
has said either would be suitable for its needs. But Westinghouse has
argued that Wylfa – regarded by the nuclear industry as the best site in
the country – is more suited to a large project.

The company is also understood to be interested in building SMRs elsewhere in the UK including at Moorside, Cumbria, which was recently made available for development by
the Government.

 Telegraph 18th June 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/06/18/us-nuclear-giant-in-talks-with-no10-build-major-power-plant/

June 20, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

UK’s Bakers’ union rejects new nuclear reactors, calls for socialist Green New Deal

 Bakers’ union rejects new nuclear reactors, calls for socialist Green New
Deal. Tens of thousands of energy jobs could be created with a socialist
Green New Deal without the need of new nuclear reactors, the bakers’
union said today. Delegates from the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union
(BFAWU) passed a motion calling for the democratic public ownership of all
forms of energy. They condemned the loss of skilled jobs in North Sea
industry and Grangemouth oil refinery, saying they have “no faith” in
private firms to tackle the climate crisis “nor do we accept that nuclear
power is a clean form of energy production.”

 Morning Star 16th June 2025
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/bakers-union-rejects-new-nuclear-reactors-calls-socialist-green-new-deal

June 19, 2025 Posted by | employment, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Labour’s £14bn ‘fixation’ with new nuclear power ‘won’t cut bills or help climate’

It’s almost like a mass psychosis because if they really investigated properly what the best use of public funds would be, nuclear wouldn’t get a look-in.”

“It’s almost like a mass psychosis because if they really investigated properly what the best use of public funds would be, nuclear wouldn’t get a look-in.”

The UK Government last week announced a new ‘golden age’ of nuclear but academics and campaigners warn it will be a costly energy fail.

Dan Vevers Sunday Mail Chief Reporter, Daily Record, 15 Jun 2025


Labour’s £14billion “fixation” with new nuclear power will be a costly flop and do nothing to lower Scots’ bills or hit climate targets, experts have warned.

It comes after Keir Starmer’s goverment last week announced a “golden age” of nuclear energy with a £14.2billion investment to finally build the delayed Sizewell C plant in Suffolk which it claimed will create 10,000 jobs.

Ministers say the move is vital to prevent future blackouts and to help the shift to a low carbon economy.

Now campaigners and academics warned nuclear energy is too expensive and plants take too long to build to make any dent in net zero efforts or prevent future blackouts.

And they said the result of “inevitable” cost overruns on nuclear projects would lead to a “nuclear tax” on consumer bills.

It follows pressure on the SNP to end its block on nuclear projects, with Labour saying it could open ­Scotland up to small modular reactors (SMR) if it wins at Holyrood next year.

But Pete Roche, an Edinburgh energy consultant and anti-nuclear campaigner, said: “It’s too late for nuclear. It takes too long to build.

“We’re trying to tackle a climate crisis here, we need to be fast – the faster, the better.

“You can insulate people’s homes and put up wind farms quite quickly in comparison to how long it takes to build a nuclear power station.

“And the worry is when you’re putting all your eggs in the nuclear basket, the money is getting diverted, civil servants’ attention is getting diverted.

“We’re not focused enough on getting the energy transition based on renewables off the ground.

“It’s a fixation and the UK is not on its own. There’s all sorts of talk in other countries of building nuclear power stations again.

“It’s almost like a mass psychosis because if they really investigated properly what the best use of public funds would be, nuclear wouldn’t get a look-in.”

Dr Paul Dorfman, of the Bennett Institute at the University of Sussex, said more than £20billion had now been committed to Sizewell C but the final bill could easily be double that and likely more.

He told the Sunday Mail: “The vast majority of that money comes from public subsidy – in other words, the public will have to pay for all the inevitable over-costs and overruns, which is basically a nuclear tax.”

Dr Dorfman continued: “In Scotland, given the country’s vast renewable power capacity, one wonders what would be the reason to burden Scotland with new nuclear.

“New nuclear builds, wherever they’re built, are always vastly over cost and over time.

“Hinkley Point C [in Somerset] is already 90 per cent over budget and seven years late, with at least seven years of construction remaining.

“And the form of reactor that is doomed to be constructed at Sizewell C is the same reactor being built at Hinkley C.”

He added: “It is possible to sustain a reliable power system by expanding renewables on all levels, whether that’s solar, wind, geothermal, hydrogen, storage and all the rest of it…

“But nuclear risks eating all of the cake.

“The time lost may prove catastrophic, because according to the UK Government, it takes up to 17 years to build just one nuclear power plant.

“Meanwhile all SMRs are in the design phase.

“In terms of the climate, we are running out of time now.” And because of the time it takes to build a nuclear station, he declared: “Nuclear cannot keep the lights on.”

Tor Justad, chair of Highlands Against Nuclear Power (HANP), highlighted the continuing issues related to the old Dounreay plant which shut down in 1985 around radioactive waste.

He said: “For me, investing in nuclear makes no sense, whether economically or in terms of safety or benefit to the wider community.

“We don’t need these massive white elephants which always end up costing twice what they started with and take twice the length of time to build than they predicted.

“And this argument about base load doesn’t take into account the storage possibilities for renewables that we’re developing at a rapid pace, including here in the Highlands.

“We can store electricity now in ways that we never could do ten years ago, and that will continue to improve.”

He added Labour’s pro-nuclear stance is “a real danger” in Scotland…………………………. https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/labours-14bn-fixation-new-nuclear-35393729

June 18, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Trump’s Nuclear Plan Faces Major Hurdles

By Felicity Bradstock – Jun 14, 2025

  • Trump aims to boost U.S. nuclear energy capacity from 100GW to 400GW by 2050, mandating quicker licensing and new reactor construction.
  • Nearly all U.S. uranium is imported—especially from Russia—posing a major obstacle given recent bans and tariffs.
  • With minimal enrichment capacity and mining, companies like Centrus stress the need for urgent public-private investment to meet demand.

 The U.S. President recently announced plans to quadruple the U.S. nuclear
capacity by 2050. However, several challenges must be overcome to meet this
target. Firstly, building a new nuclear plant can take a decade or more,
meaning that operators would have to apply for permits for new projects now
to get them up and running in the coming decades.

In addition, the U.S.
continues to rely heavily on Russia for its Uranium, despite having
introduced heavy sanctions on the country’s energy sector in response to
its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. would need to seek an alternative
supply of enriched uranium, or significantly increase its domestic
production, to fuel its power plants.

 Oil Price 14th June 2025, https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Trumps-Nuclear-Plan-Faces-Major-Hurdles.html

 

June 18, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Sizewell C and Britain’s nuclear renaissance

Is ‘the most announced nuclear power station in history’ finally about to get off the ground?

14 June 25, https://theweek.com/politics/sizewell-c-and-britains-nuclear-renaissance

After years of setbacks, Britain has finally ended the uncertainty “over the future of its nuclear industry”, said the FT. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has pledged a game-changing £11.5 billion of new state funding for the Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk – in addition to a £2.7 billion commitment previously made in the autumn Budget.

Although Reeves has had to make tough decisions on day-to-day departmental budgets in the Spending Review, she was able “to find the extra billions for Sizewell C through a change to her fiscal rules”, which has made £113 billion available for extra capital spending across government, funded by borrowing. In two further nuclear-boosting moves, Rolls-Royce has been chosen as preferred bidder to build Britain’s first “small modular nuclear reactors”; and more than £2.5 billion is being invested in “the nascent technology of nuclear fusion“.

“Sizewell C must be the most announced nuclear power station in history,” said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. “It feels as if every energy secretary in the last half-decade, facing up to the reality that most of the existing nuclear fleet will be going offline by the early 2030s, has endorsed the Suffolk plant.” The difference this time is that Ed Miliband‘s promise of “a golden age for clean energy abundance” is being backed by “serious government money”.

The move is a recognition that we cannot rely on the private sector alone to finance and build nuclear projects, as the last project attempted – at Hinkley Point C in Somerset, which is heavily delayed and over budget – has shown. Sizewell C is effectively “a replica of Hinkley”, and both projects are being built jointly by the UK government and EDF, the French government-owned energy company. But the hope is that lessons have been learnt and that it can be built a lot more cheaply. “The game now is about rounding up private-sector investors to play a supporting financing role.”

“Rinse and repeat” is one way of looking at things, said Eleanor Steafel in The Daily Telegraph. But it rather overlooks the fact that Hinkley Point has been “beset with problems” from the moment that EDF broke ground there in 2017 – and is currently £28 billion over budget, and counting. Indeed, the biggest hole in this week’s announcement is the government’s reluctance to spell out how much Sizewell C is expected to cost, let alone how much consumers will be paying for the electricity it eventually generates, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. The promise of Sizewell is that it may one day bring us “baseload power”, complementing wind and solar. But taxpayers have a right to know “if the costs of delivering it will be radioactive”.

June 18, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

  UK Nuclear power is not a done deal. 

Sophie Bolt, CND General Secretary,  CND 13th June 2025 https://cnduk.org/nuclear-power-is-not-a-done-deal/

This week has seen the Government’s latest attempt to foist a nuclear future on Britain. But despite its increased promised financial support, the nuclear issue is clearly not a done deal, writes Vice President Dr Ian Fairlie.

The media’s response to the Government’s nuclear push has been decidedly unenthusiastic as can be seen from the selection below of UK newspaper comments.  Most are cool or unenthusiastic: some are downright critical.

 “Sizewell C nuclear cost doubled to £40bn – UK govt to shoulder half upfront cost, will ultimately be paid for by households and businesses via electricity bills.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/06/11/cost-of-milibands-nuclear-plant-doubles-to-more-than-40bn/

 “£14bn investment in a new mega nuclear power station, Sizewell C, is not being classified as a financial asset. So all £14bn of the finance will be added to the value of national debt, rather than the zero net figure. This is what would have happened under the old fiscal definitions, so what on earth was the point of Reeves’s controversial fiscal-rule change? In serious practical terms, it means there is £14bn less to invest in other projects – which is the opposite of what the fiscal rule change was supposed to achieve. In other words Reeves’s changes to the fiscal rules now seem totally pointless – because if investing in a cutting-edge power plant does not create a valuable and sellable financial asset, then goodness alone knows what would.”
https://www.itv.com/news/2025-06-10/peston-why-arent-treasury-and-reeves-investing-more

  “The government has commissioned just three SMR reactors, none expected before 2035. Rolls Royce said in 2015 that to make building a modular factory worthwhile, you would need an order book of 50 to 70.”
https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/spending-review-miliband-nuclear-reeves-grpp5l8d5

  “GB Energy handed £2.5bn bill for funding small modular reactors. Financing nuclear projects will leave state-owned company less cash for backing wind and solar technology.”
https://www.ft.com/content/a8e3a775-33c9-4ad6-b01a-bfb212dfdcbe

 “Imagine this – one morning you’ll be strolling down to the park to give the dog some exercise, and ka-boom! The roof’s blown off the local baby nuke, and glowing hot radioactive ash is showering the surrounding streets. A small armageddon, but an armageddon all the same. Widespread use of nuclear power is the kind of thing that, among other things, such as leaving a toxic legacy for thousands of years and an upsurge in deformities and cancers, could end political careers.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ed-miliband-sizewell-c-nuclear-power-energy-b2767052.html


 “The Scottish Government has a long-standing objection to nuclear power mainly on environmental grounds. Those objections are not daft – to this day, governments around the world are vexed by the question of how to dispose safely of highly dangerous radioactive waste. Accidents at nuclear power plants can be catastrophic. More immediately, building new nuclear capacity is also infamously expensive and costs are prone to rise, often astronomically.”https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/25232597.scotland-blindly-follow-england-nuclear-power-path/

Will the Government really push ahead with its new nuclear proposals given this chorus of doubts?  It’s a moot point.  It would surprise no-one if we were to see quiet retrenchments or delays….much like we are seeing with another Government mega-project – HS2.  

More to the point, we need to address the whopping elephant in the room here which is …why is the Government pressing ahead with these unpopular  ill-advised proposals?  In fact, the previous Sunak government admitted the real reasons for supporting nuclear….the military ones. That is, the MOD’s perceived needs to maintain nuclear technology and know-how for its nuclear weapons programme – both for the warheads and the submarine reactors.

We think this Government should own up to these reasons and stop pretending that its civil nuclear proposals are about satisfying our energy needs. They, most decidedly, are not.  If the Government were to retire its ageing nuclear weapons, it would also free up its way to intelligent energy policies as well.  A two-fold bonus for Britain.

June 17, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Bankrupting the UK with Uranium Fuelled Nukiller

The following is an extract from Richard Murphy’s blog on the insanity of the nuclear boondoggle

Marianne Birkby,  Radiation Free Lakeland, 13th June 2025, https://radiationfreelakeland.substack.com/p/bankrupting-the-uk-with-uranium-fuelled

A look at the National Grid Live right now shows that nuclear is providing 3.09 GW of electricity while wind is providing 15.94 GW and solar 4.12 GW and yet our chancellor chooses to put taxpayers money not into the free fuel of solar and wind but into the planetary destroying, uranium fuelled, nukiller.

“And let’s be clear that some of this capital expenditure also makes no sense at all. For example, one of the biggest items of expenditure will be on nuclear power stations, where supposedly at least £30 billion is to be spent, although everybody in reality knows that this will turn into a sum of well in excess of £100 billion, given the cost overruns that always occur in nuclear power budgets.

Starmer has claimed that the government has now decided that Sizewell C will be built. But as everyone in Suffolk knows, that decision was made long ago because the whole of East Suffolk has already been scarred with building works to facilitate the Sizewell C programme.

So what Stamer is saying is complete nonsense. What this so-called spending review admits is that there is no prospect of finding any foreign funding for Sizewell C, which was this government’s quite absurd hope. It has therefore, to fund this white elephant itself.

This power station and the others to which the government has committed will cost at least £1,500 per household in the UK, and that might at best result in power for 6 million households.

However, the actual cost of this energy is the highest that we can produce, and that is before taking into account decommissioning costs. Those at Sellafield now amount to £136 billion, and no one thinks that this is the total sum involved. And now Reeves actually wants more investment at Sellafield, which is only going to make things worse, but is part of her plan to apparently make us a nuclear superpower. So, if you want to know what leaving a debt for future generations to pay really looks like, building Sizewell C and other power stations is all that you need to do to ensure that this outcome will become a reality.

In contrast to all this emphasis upon nuclear power, there was none at all on renewable energy in this statement. There was a mention of £2.5 billion for carbon capture and storage, but that is another white elephant.

There was no commitment to renewable energy, to battery technology, or even things as basic as insulating houses and fitting proper triple glazing, although a nod perhaps to the last was included without any mention of the sums involved being made.

What is clear is that Starmer and Reeves would rather lumber generations to come with the cost of nuclear power rather than invest in renewable energy now, when that is the lowest cost of energy that we have available to us.”

Full article can be read here

June 17, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Refresher On The Rules For Discussing Israeli Wars

Caitlin Johnstone, Jun 13, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/refresher-on-the-rules-for-discussing?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=165865670&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Okay it’s been a few months since the last war Israel started, so now that Iran’s on the chopping block let’s go over the rules once again.

Rule 1: Israel is never the aggressor. If Israel attacks someone it’s either a response to an aggression that happened in the past, or a preemptive attack to thwart an imminent aggression in the future.

Rule 2: History automatically restarts at the date of the last act of aggression against Israel. If someone attacks Israel it was completely unprovoked, because nothing happened before the attack on Israel.

Rule 3: Anything bad that Israel does is justified by Rule 2. This is true even if it does things that would be considered completely unjustifiable if it were done by a nation like Russia or China.

Rule 4: Israel has a right to defend itself, but nobody else does.

Rule 5: Israel never bombs civilians, it bombs Bad Guys. If shocking numbers of civilians die it’s because they were actually Bad Guys, or because Bad Guys killed them, or because a Bad Guy stood too close to them. If none of those reasons apply then it’s for some other mysterious reason we are still waiting for the IDF to investigate.

Rule 6: Criticizing anything Israel does means you hate Jewish people. There is no other possible reason for anyone to oppose acts of mass military slaughter besides a seething, obsessive hatred for a small Abrahamic faith.

Rule 7: Nothing Israel does is ever as bad as the hateful criticisms described in Rule 6. Criticisms of Israel’s actions are always worse than Israel’s actions themselves, because those critics hate Jews and wish to commit another Holocaust. Preventing this must consume 100 percent of our political energy and attention.

Rule 8: Israelis are only ever the victims and never the victimizers. If Israelis kill Iranians, it’s because the Iranians hate Jews. If Iranians kill Israelis, it’s because the Iranians hate Jews. Israel is an innocent little lamb that just wants to mind its own business in peace.

Rule 9: The fact that Israel is literally always in a state of war with its neighbors and with displaced indigenous populations must be interpreted as proof that Rule 8 is true instead of proof that Rule 8 is ridiculous nonsense.

Rule 10: The lives of people in Muslim nations are much, much less important to us than western lives or Israeli lives. Nobody is allowed to think too hard about why this might be.

Rule 11: The media always tell the truth about Israel and its various conflicts. If you doubt this then you are likely in violation of Rule 6.

Rule 12: Unsubstantiated claims which portray Israel’s enemies in a negative light may be reported as factual news stories without any fact checking or qualifications, while extensively evidenced records of Israeli criminality must be reported on with extreme skepticism and doubtful qualifiers like “Iran claims”, “Hezbollah says” or “according to the Hamas-run health ministry”. This is important to do because otherwise you might get accused of being a propagandist.

Rule 13: Israel must continue to exist in its current iteration no matter what it costs or how many people need to die. There is no need to present any logically or morally grounded reasons why this is the case. If you dispute this then you are likely in violation of Rule 6.


Rule 14: The US government has never lied about anything ever, and is always on the right side of every conflict.

Rule 15: Israel is the last bastion of freedom and democracy in the middle east and therefore must be defended, no matter how many journalists it has to assassinate, no matter how many press institutions it needs to shut down, no matter how many protests its supporters need to dismantle, no matter how much free speech it needs to eliminate, no matter how many civil rights its western backers need to erase, and no matter how many elections its lobbyists need to buy.

June 16, 2025 Posted by | Israel, politics | Leave a comment

Group of Australian MP’s Call for AUKUS Inquiry

Crossbench MPs from the House of Representatives and Senate have written to Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles, calling for an urgent parliamentary inquiry into AUKUS.

In April, the UK Parliament’s Defence Committee announced an inquiry into the AUKUS arrangements, and this week the US defence department announced they were undertaking a rapid review of AUKUS.

AUKUS represents Australia’s largest defence investment in decades and is central to our defence and foreign affairs strategy.

Australians are concerned to know more about the strategic and financial implications of this policy which has been jointly adopted by major party governments without significant parliamentary scrutiny.

A full and formal parliamentary inquiry is therefore both important and timely.

Quotes from letter to Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles

Allegra Spender, Independent MP for Wentworth

AUKUS is the centrepiece of our defence and foreign policy strategy, but it’s been adopted by the major parties with very poor public engagement. AUKUS will shape Australia’s future for decades with enormous implications both financially, economically, and strategically, but in discussions at the community level, there are consistent questions and concerns that have not been addressed. AUKUS won’t work without wider community interrogation and engagement, and a parliamentary inquiry is the first step to building that.

We also need a more open discussion of the challenges facing AUKUS. Most urgently, the US Navy is currently short of attack submarines and there is a very clear risk that the US President at the time will not be able to certify that the Virginia class submarines can be transferred to Australia without undermining US Navy capability: a requirement of the current enabling legislation. We must publicly face those risks and actively manage them including identifying viable alternatives.

Helen Haines, Independent MP for Indi

In light of the reviews of AUKUS by our two partner nations and the consequential nature of the agreement, it important for our Parliament to apply the same level of scrutiny.

Andrew Wilkie, Independent MP for Clark

More than ever an Australian Inquiry into AUKUS is needed, and President Trump’s caution about the deal gives Australia a great chance to reset. Nuclear subs were always the wrong technology for Australia’s future submarine needs given the shallow littoral and offshore waters in our region, not to mention the ridiculous cost and impractical timeframe.

Nicolette Boele, Independent MP for Bradfield

Any time Parliament commits to spend $368 billion, we should at least have a full parliamentary inquiry. The case for an inquiry on AUKUS is even stronger given the rules of global co-operation have dramatically changed since it was signed.

AUKUS now risks our defence — because we don’t know if these submarines will ever arrive. It risks our budget — because we may waste $368 billion in taxpayer’s money. And it risks our Australian values, which we do not import from the United States.

Sophie Scamps, Independent MP for Mackellar

Circumstances have changed significantly since the AUKUS deal was first announced and it’s only reasonable it be reviewed in the current context.

This is the largest investment in our defence capability in decades, other parties are conducting their own reviews, and the Australian community largely supports a parliamentary inquiry – it’s high time the Government responds.

Senator Jacqui Lambie

We’ve poured billions into AUKUS with nothing to show for it but broken promises and cancelled defence programs. It’s a $368 billion blank cheque to the US and UK with zero guarantee of real capability for decades.

Australians deserve better and it’s time for a full parliamentary inquiry into this dud deal.

Senator David Pocock

With the UK and now the US reviewing AUKUS, Australia is now the only country not actively considering whether the agreement in its current form best serves our national interest. Given the scale and cost of this deal, a transparent review is not just sensible, it’s overdue.

Kate Chaney, Independent MP for Curtin

AUKUS is a monumental strategic commitment with far-reaching implications for our economy, sovereignty, and security posture, yet it continues to unfold with minimal public transparency and virtually no parliamentary accountability. Australians want to understand whether this is the best use of our resources and the right path for our security.

June 15, 2025 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics | Leave a comment

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