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UK government hopes that United Arab Emirates will invest in Sizewell C nuclear power plan.

UAE approached to invest in Sizewell C nuclear power plan

UK lines up Middle East investor for stake in £20bn-£44bn project despite growing row over other Emirati investment plans.

Alex Lawson,  https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/27/uae-approached-to-invest-sizewell-c-nuclear-power-plant

A United Arab Emirates investor has been approached to take a stake in the Sizewell C nuclear power plant project in Suffolk, it has emerged.

Ministers are searching for new investors in the project, which could cost between £20bn and £44bn, after removing the Chinese state-owned CGN last year due to security concerns over UK infrastructure amid poor Anglo-Sino relations.

The Times reported on Monday that the UK government had lined up Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi fund run by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the owner of Manchester City football club, to back the energy project, with a decision due early next year.

However, a source close to Mubadala denied the fund was interested in Sizewell but said other UAE entities were interested. A separate source said that Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, which is owned by Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ, could be a good fit for the project.

The UAE interest comes against the backdrop of Westminster tensions over a separate Emirati deal. Last week, RedBird IMI – a joint-venture between America’s Redbird Capital and International Media Investments, an Abu Dhabi investor also backed by Mansour – announced a deal to take control of the Telegraph group. The government has indicated it will launch a public interest investigation into the newspaper deal.

The Sizewell C plant aims to generate enough energy to power 6m homes. It is backed by France’s EDF and the UK government, which has spent nearly £100m buying CGN out of the project. CGN had held a 20% stake.

Rishi Sunak hosted Mubadala’s Khaldoon Al Mubarak at a meeting of global business leaders at Hampton Court, south-west London, on Monday as he attempts to attract foreign investment to the UK.

Although a formal search for outside investment launched in September, Sizewell C has been touted to potential investors – including sovereign wealth funds, infrastructure and pension funds – for years. The government earmarked a further £341m to develop the project in August.

Bankers at Barclays have been tasked with procuring investment for the project, which has faced significant opposition in Suffolk.

The interest from the UAE – host of Cop28, which begins this week – in Sizewell C has been mooted for more than a year. Last week, campaigners parked a sign reading “Sizewell C is a toxic investment” outside the UAE embassy in London.

Alison Downes, of the Stop Sizewell C campaign, said: “There may be a dearth of UK interest in Sizewell C, but there is no energy security in handing chunks of the UK’s critical national assets to countries that don’t share our values. If the UAE is not good enough for the Telegraph, it’s definitely not good enough for Sizewell C.”

Investors in Saudi Arabia and Australia have also previously reportedly been approached to back Sizewell C. However, a source close to the project denied there was active interest from Saudi investors.

The project is set up as a 50-50 joint-venture between the government and EDF, which is behind the sister Hinkley Point C development in Somerset. That project is significantly over budget and years late.

Ministers overruled the independent Planning Inspectorate to grant Sizewell C planning consent. Backers are seeking a development consent order that will precede a final investment decision by its backers.

The plant is not expected to generate power until at least the mid-2030s, after most of Britain’s nuclear power stations have been retired.

Sunak’s government hopes to kickstart a renaissance in the nuclear power industry, and launched a new delivery body, Great British Energy, in the summer.

Separately, the boss of Rolls-Royce, Tufan Erginbilgic, is expected to urge the government to back its plans to build small nuclear power plants at an investor day on Tuesday.

Sizewell C and Mubadala have been approached for comment.

November 29, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

The Myth that Putin Was Bent on Conquering Ukraine and Creating a Greater Russia

By John J Measheimer / Substack https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/27/the-myth-that-putin-was-bent-on-conquering-ukraine-and-creating-a-greater-russia/

There is a growing body of compelling evidence showing that Russia and Ukraine were involved in serious negotiations to end the war in Ukraine right after it started on 24 February 2022 (see below). These talks were facilitated by Turkish President Recep Erdogan and former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and featured detailed and candid discussions on the terms of a possible settlement.

By all accounts, these negotiations, which took place in March-April 2022, were making real progress when Britain and the US told Ukrainian President Zelensky to abandon them, which he did. 

Coverage of these events has focused on how foolish and irresponsible it was for President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson to put an end to these negotiations, given all the death and destruction that Ukraine has suffered since then – in a war that Kyiv is likely to lose. 

Yet an especially important aspect of this story regarding the causes of the Ukraine war has received little attention. The well-entrenched conventional wisdom in the West is that President Putin invaded Ukraine to conquer that country and make it part of a Greater Russia. Then, he would move on and conquer other countries in eastern Europe. The counter-argument, which enjoys little support in the West, is that Putin was mainly motivated to invade by the threat of Ukraine joining NATO and becoming a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. For him and other Russian elites, Ukraine in NATO was an existential threat.

The negotiations in March-April 2022 make it clear that the conventional wisdom on the war’s causes is wrong, and the counter-argument is right, for two main reasons. First, the talks were directly focused on satisfying Russia’s demand that Ukraine not become part of NATO and instead become a neutral state. Everyone involved in the negotiations understood that Ukraine’s relationship with NATO was Russia’s core concern. Second, if Putin was bent on conquering all of Ukraine, he would not have agreed to these talks, as their very essence contradicted any possibility of Russia conquering all of Ukraine. One might argue that he participated in these negotiations and talked a lot about neutrality to mask his larger ambitions. There is no evidence, however, to support this line of argument, not to mention that: 1) Russia’s small invasion force was not capable of conquering and occupying all of Ukraine; and 2) it would have made no sense to delay a larger offensive, as it would afford Ukraine time to build up its defenses.

In short, Putin launched a limited attack into Ukraine for the purpose of coercing Zelensky into abandoning Kyiv’s policy of aligning with the West and eventually bringing Ukraine into NATO. Had Britain and the West not intervened to scotch the negotiations, there is good reason to think Putin would have achieved this limited objective and agreed to end the war.

It is also worth remembering that Russia did not annex the Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia until September 2022, well after the talks had ended.  Had a deal been reached, Ukraine would almost certainly control a far greater share of its original territory than it does now.

It is becoming increasingly clear that in the case of Ukraine, the level of foolishness and dishonesty among Western elites and the mainstream Western media is stunning. 

November 29, 2023 Posted by | politics, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

President Biden has morphed into the Murder Monster.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL  27 Nov 23

What is going on in the 81 year old soul of Joe Biden?

He looks out from his privileged life in safe America and sees about half of Gaza’s buildings turned into rubble. Over 14,000 mainly innocents dead with likely thousands more buried under the rubble. Food, water, medicine, electricity largely denied the 2.3 million Palestinians with over three quarters now refugees.

All of this enabled and supported by President Biden. He’s sent billions in weapons to Israel to complete the removal of Palestinians from Gaza.

Even the NY Times acknowledges the historical mass killing in Gaza. “People are being killed in Gaza more quickly, than in even the deadliest moments of US-led attacks in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, which were themselves widely criticized by human rights groups.”

They quote former former Pentagon analyst Marc Garlasco, “It’s beyond anything that I’ve seen in my career.” He cited Israel’s use of US 2,000 lb. bombs as being the worst use of superpower bombs in densely crowed areas “since Vietnam or World War II.”

But those two thousand pounders are not enough for Biden. He’s moved to lift restrictions on additional weapons to Israel prevented by government regulations. Current restrictions only allow transfer of weapons to Israel that are obsolete or surplus. Biden wants a blank check to send any weapons, surplus/obsolete or not. He also calls for reducing the concessions Israel must offer for such weapons, eliminate the 30 day waiting period for weapons transfers and scrap the $200 million annual cap on the US replenishing weapons transfers.

Pivoting to Ukraine, Biden is demanding another $61 billion in weapons for Ukraine. His first $113 billion simply extended the US proxy war against Russia for 20 months, causing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian deaths. In one of the most murderous acts in presidential history, Biden torpedoed the Zelensky-Putin peace agreement in the first month of the war to ‘weaken Russia.’

Biden made one wonderful move for peace in his first seven months by ending our illegal and criminal 20 year Afghan war. In the 28 months since it’s been ocean of blood drowning Biden’s legacy and shaming America, possibly beyond redemption.

November 29, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | 2 Comments

Israel’s Genocidal Antisemitism Against the Arab Civilians of Gaza

Netanyahu has unleashed a “unifying” genocidal war against every child, woman and man that comprise the 2.3 million population of Gaza.

By Ralph Nader / CounterPunch,  https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/27/israels-genocidal-antisemitism-against-the-arab-civilians-of-gaza-2/

“It should never have happened,” an elderly Holocaust survivor of a Nazi death camp told the New York Times. He was referring to the colossal failure on October 7th, of Israel’s touted high-tech military and intelligence operations that opened the door to Hamas’ attack on Israeli soldiers and civilians. In many parliamentary countries, the government ministers who are responsible for this kind of failure would have immediately been forced to resign. Not so with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ministers.

Instead, Netanyahu’s coalition of extremists, who know that the Israeli people are enraged about their government’s failure to defend the border, has unleashed a “unifying” genocidal war against every child, woman and man that comprise the 2.3 million population of Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no fuel, no water. … We are fighting human animals and will act accordingly” was the opening genocidal war cry from defense minister Yoav Gallant to defend the onslaught that massive military forces are implementing against the long-illegally blockaded Gazan population.

Israeli leaders declare that there are Hamas fighters possibly in and under every building in Gaza. Israel has long made computer models using their unprecedented surveillance technology (see Antony Loewenstein’s interview in the November/December 2023 issue of the Capitol Hill Citizen). Nothing and no one is off limits for the Israeli bombing.

Keep in mind that Israel is an ultra-modern military superpower, with hundreds of thousands of fighters on land, air and sea, going after the few thousand Hamas fighters who have limited supplies of rifles, grenade launchers and anti-tank weapons. Moreover, all of Israel’s supplies are being replenished daily from the U.S. stockpiles in Israel and new shipments arriving by sea, compliments of President Biden. The invasion is a “piece of cake” an experienced U.S. government official told reporter Sy Hersh.

Contradictions abound. First, Netanyahu has always referred to Hamas as a “terrorist organization.” Yet he told his own Likud party for years that his “strategy” to block a two-state solution was to “support and fund Hamas.” (See, the October 22, 2023 article by prominent journalist Roger Cohen in the New York Times).

If Netanyahu believes dropping over 20,000 bombs and missiles on the civilian infrastructure of this tiny crowded enclave and its people, nearly half of whom are children, is so restrained, why has he kept Western and Israeli journalists out of Gaza, other than a few recently embedded reporters restricted to their seats in Israeli armored vehicles? Why has he ordered four nightmarish total telecommunications and electricity blackouts, with excruciating consequences, over the whole Gaza Strip for as long as 30 hours at a time?

None of this or international laws matter to the prime minister whose top priority is to keep his job, with his coalition parties, as long as the invasion continues. And before an outraged majority in Israel ousts him from power for not defending their country on October 7th from some two thousand urban guerrilla fighters on a homicide/suicide mission.

As the slaughter of defenseless babies, children, mothers, fathers and grandparents in Gaza continues to drive the death, injury and disease toll to higher numbers each day, the observant world wonders what the Israeli government, which regularly blocks humanitarian aid, intends to do with Gaza and its destitute, homeless, starving, wounded, sick, dying and abandoned civilian Palestinians.

After all, Gaza has only so many hospitals, clinics, schools, apartment buildings, homes, water mains, ambulances, bakeries, markets, electricity networks, solar panels, shelters, refugee camps, mosques, churches, and the clearly marked remaining United Nations’ facilities left, to bomb to smithereens. Endless American tax dollars are funding the carnage. Israel has also killed over 50 journalists, including some of their families, in the past seven weeks – a record.

Why will it take months to clear out the tunnels? Not so, say military experts in urban warfare. Flooding the tunnels with water, gas, napalm and robotic explosives are quick and lethal and would be deployed were it not for the Israeli hostages.

In addition to the reality that all Gazans are now hostages, over 7,000 Palestinians are languishing in Israeli jails without charges. Many are youngsters and women who were abducted over the years to extort information and to control their extended families in Gaza and the West Bank. What’s holding up an exchange, as Israel did twice before in 2004 and 2011? Again, the Netanyahu coalition stays in power by postponing the pending official inquiries into their October 7th collapse, that Israelis are awaiting.

Meanwhile, the hapless Joe Biden dittoheaded the previously hapless presidential pleas for a two-state solution. The dominant politicians in Israel have always sought “a Greater Israel” using the phrase “from the river to the sea,” meaning all of Palestine. Year after year Israel has stolen more and more land and water from the twenty-two percent left of original Palestine, inhabited by five million Palestinians under oppressive military occupation.

With Congress overwhelmingly in Israel’s pocket, Israeli politicians laugh at proposals for a two-state solution by U.S. presidents. Recall when Obama was president, Netanyahu went around him and addressed a joint session of Congress whose members exhausted themselves with standing ovations – a brazen insult to a U.S. president, unheard of in U.S. diplomatic history!

Day after day, the surviving Palestinian families are trapped in what is widely called “an open-air prison” being pulverized by Israel and its aggressive co-belligerent, the Biden regime. A regime in Washington that urges Netanyahu to comply with “the laws of war,” while enabling Israel with more weapons and UN vetoes to violate daily “the laws of war” and the Genocide Convention. (See our October 24, 2023 Letter to President Joe Biden and the Declarations from genocide scholars William Schabas and other expert historians).

Consider the plight of these innocent civilians, caught in the deadly crossfire of F-16s, helicopter gunships, and thousands of precision 155mm artillery shells. Whether huddled in their homes and schools or fleeing to nowhere under Israeli orders, the IDF is still bombing them.

Palestinians cannot escape their blockaded prison. They cannot surrender because the Israeli army does not want to be responsible for prisoners of war. They cannot bury their dead, so their families’ corpses pile up, rotting in the sun being eaten by stray dogs.

They cannot even find water to drink, since Israel has destroyed the water infrastructure – another of its many war crimes.

For years under Israel’s occupation law, collection of rainwater with rainwater harvesting cisterns has not been permitted. Rain is considered the property of the Israeli authorities and Palestinians have been forbidden to gather rainwater!

The Israeli armed forces will soon control the entire Gaza Strip. Under international law, Israel would become responsible for the protection of the civilian population as well as the essential conditions for Palestinian safety and survival. Will they at last abide by just one international law? Or will they establish obstructive checkpoints to restrict humanitarian charities trying to save lives while Israel continues to push the Gazans into the desert or neighboring countries?

The Israeli operation precisely fits the Genocide Convention’s definition by “intentionally creating conditions of life calculated to physically destroy a racial, religious, ethnic, or national group in whole or in part.” Netanyahu’s regime further incriminates itself by defining the targets for annihilation as being between 21st-century progress and “the barbaric fanaticism of the Middle Ages” and a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness.”

November 28, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics, Reference, weapons and war | Leave a comment

REVEALED: Biden’s ‘nuclear football’ contains BOOK that tells president how to launch attack by contacting ‘Looking Glass’ plane and spherical bunker where four keys ignite missiles

  • The ‘nuclear football’ contains attack plans for the president to pick 
  • Once selected, the command gets set to a ‘Looking Glass’ plane always in the air
  • Then, officers in a bunker use multiple keys to launch the nuclear attack 

By RACHEL BOWMAN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM, 27 November 2023  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12792663/Nuclear-football-book-launch-nuclear-attack-plane-bunker.html

The most important football in the world is not a ball at all, rather it is the ‘nuclear football’ carried with the President of the United States that tells them how to launch a nuclear attack – and its contents may surprise most Americans.

Moran Cerf, 46, a neuroscience professor who studies the procedures of how a president can order a nuclear attack, told The Sunday Times what steps the leader of the free world has to take to launch a strike.

Cerf said the satchel does not contain the technology to directly launch missiles. Instead, it holds a number of plans for the president to pick through.

‘There’s a book, a really thick book with all the nuclear options. Essentially it’s like Choose Your Own Adventure,’ said Cerf. 

‘You open the book and it says, “If you want to bomb North Korea, go to page 470. And if you want to bomb North Korea and you’re going to focus on Pyongyang, go to 471.”‘

Next, the commander in chief will tell an aide what plan they have selected and that begins moving through a chain of command.

‘[This aide] has a communications device that he uses to have the president connect the command and control center, of which there are two,’ said Cerf.

One of these command posts is aboard a plane that is constantly in the air as three planes fly in shifts.

‘There’s always a plane in the air. It’s called the “Looking Glass,”‘ said Cerf.

The command then goes to a military bunker that is ‘spherical, floating on springs in a hollow cavity in the ground’ where two officers are required to launch the missiles. 

Cerf said: ‘Someone reads to them the authentication code, so that they know it’s a real thing. Each one of them has a chain with a key round his neck and they both go to a safe and insert the keys, and then they unlock the safe that has in it two other keys. And those are the keys that are actually the keys.’

‘They have to turn the keys at the same time and hold for eight seconds. And then it launches and from then on, no one can stop it.’

One of five military aides to the president – one from each branch of the armed forces: army, navy, air forces, marines and coast guard – always carries the ‘nuclear football’ in close proximity to the leader.

It has been carried by every president since Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s.

The president authenticates their identity with codes found on a small plastic card carried with them. In case the president is incapacitated or has died, an identical nuclear football is assigned to the vice president.

In the event of a devastating attack on the US, the president – or vice president as backup – would confirm their identity to the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon over a secure phone by reading codes from the Sealed Authenticator System card – also known as the ‘biscuit’ – that they are supposed to carry with them at all times.

Military leaders and White House national security advisors would then brief the president or vice president on the nature of the threat and the options for retaliating. If either person wanted to consult the written options, they could do so.

Then, the president would choose a retaliatory option and the command would be read back to them. Once confirmed, the command center would use the military’s launch authorization codes to release nuclear missiles.

‘In the U.S. protocol you have to rehearse the entire process every four months, so three times a year,’ Cerf said.

However, Cerf said modern presidents rarely run through the drill.

‘The answer is zero times — [Biden] never does it. He always says, “I’m going to send someone else instead. Not a good time for me…” What about Trump? How often do you think Trump did it? And the answer is zero.’

‘The last person to have done it is Carter in the Seventies,’ Cerf said.

November 28, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

The President of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission spent $288,000 on travel in 19 months 

Luxury hotel, $12,000 plane tickets: 

a senior public servant even had her luggage carrier reimbursed

PASCAL DUGAS BOURDON and CHARLES MATHIEU , Journal de Montréal, Monday, November 27, 2023  https://tinyurl.com/ydmpyaa3 
$1,000 per night accommodation in a luxury hotel with luggage porter, business-class airfare 

to Tokyo, Dubai and Vienna: the outgoing President of the Canadian Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has multiplied her expensive trips at taxpayers’ expense.  According to a compilation by our Bureau of Investigation, Rumina Velshi was reimbursed $288,000 in business travel in 19 months between January 2022 and July 2023. 

She is by far the biggest spender in the senior federal civil service, spending $100,000 more than any other publicly employed executive… (more)

November 28, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, Canada, politics | Leave a comment

UK GOVERNMENT BLOCKS MP QUESTIONS ABOUT GAZA-RELATED ACTIVITY AT ITS CYPRUS BASE

Ministry of Defence takes extraordinary step of censoring all requests for information by MPs about RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus, which Declassified has reported is facilitating arms supplies to Israel’s war on Gaza.

MATT KENNARD AND MARK CURTIS, 20 NOVEMBER 2023  https://www.declassifieduk.org/uk-government-blocks-mp-questions-about-gaza-related-activity-at-its-cyprus-base/

  • MP whose questions were blocked tells Declassified: “This is totally unacceptable in a democracy”
  • RAF sent A400M military transport aircraft from Cyprus base to Tel Aviv this morning
  • Britain’s Cyprus base has secretly become international military hub supporting Israel’s bombing of Gaza

The British government has blocked MPs asking any questions about activity at RAF Akrotiri, its vast air base on Cyprus, Declassified can reveal.

Blocking all parliamentary questions from MPs is a highly unusual move. 

Government departments routinely refuse to answer specific questions about military operations for reasons of “national security”, but blocking all questions by elected parliamentarians goes far beyond the usual level of Whitehall secrecy. 

It comes after Declassified revealed the RAF has made over 30 military transport flights to Tel Aviv since Israel began bombing Gaza. The Ministry of Defence refused to provide us any detail of the cargo or personnel on the flights.

Just this morning an A400M Atlas military transport aircraft operated by the RAF landed in Tel Aviv from Akrotiri. The aircraft can carry 116 soldiers, a Chinook helicopter or a payload of 37 tonnes. 

RAF Akrotiri sits 180 miles from Tel Aviv with a flight time of 40 minutes. 

Declassified has also reported that the US is moving arms to Israel using RAF Akrotiri, which has become an international military hub supporting Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza. Half of US planes flying from British Cyprus are said to be carrying weapons for Israel.

Kenny MacAskill, Alba MP for East Lothian, told Declassified he put down a number of parliamentary questions concerning what military support the UK is providing to Israel and the role of RAF Akrotiri in the supply of military equipment. 

“Your question has been queried because it is subject to a block by Government,” he was told in an email. “The Department [Ministry of Defence] has stated that it will not comment on operational matters at this base.”

MacAskill, a former Scottish justice secretary, told Declassified: “This is totally unacceptable in a democracy. Genocide is being perpetrated in Gaza and we have a right to know what our Government is doing about it.”

MacAskill said he had never experienced such a ‘block’ on asking parliamentary questions before.

He added: “The failure to call for an immediate ceasefire is bad enough but any complicity raises issues of participating in war crimes. We need openness and transparency by our government. This is not in our name.”

Secrecy

The UK military-run Defence and Security Media Advisory (DSMA) Committee – better known as the ‘D-Notice’ committee – has also sent out an ‘advisory’ to all British media to suppress reporting on UK special forces’ activity related to Gaza. The SAS was previously reported to have deployed a force to Cyprus. 

No British mainstream media outlets have reported on Declassified’s recent findings about RAF Akrotiri and Gaza despite the President of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulides having to defend his government from accusations of complicity in Israel’s bombing of Gaza.

In answer to questions about the use of RAF Akrotiri by Cypriot journalists over the weekend, Christodoulides said: “There is no such information, our country cannot be used as a base for war operations”.

However, RAF Akrotiri has long been the staging post for British bombing campaigns across the Middle East. Declassified also recently revealed that 129 US airmen are also permanently deployed at the base. 

The censorship of information requests from MPs makes it all but certain that RAF Akrotiri is being used for covert military purposes that the government does not want the public to know about. 

It is likely the UK is sending material military aid to Israel during its bombing of Gaza, which has now killed over 12,000 Palestinians, although it previously told Declassified it was not providing “lethal aid”.

November 25, 2023 Posted by | politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

New Brunswick Premier Higgs says Canada’s federal government should give funding for small nuclear reactor projects.

NB Telegraph Journal , Adam Huras, Nov 22, 2023 

Premier Blaine Higgs says current federal support for new nuclear power isn’t enough, fearing a piecemeal approach to pursuing small modular reactor technology could see New Brunswick and the country fall behind in a global race.

Higgs made the comments on Wednesday to Brunswick News in reaction to the federal government’s fall economic statement………………………………

“At the end of the day we’re going to have to get to a situation like back in the CANDU reactor days when the federal government played a major role in nuclear development,” Higgs said.

“These are hugely costly items, both the research and then construction.

“I see a real need to get a whole pan-Canadian approach. And we’ll need serious financial support from the federal government to do that.”

Both the feds and two successive New Brunswick governments have already poured millions into the two companies that have set up in the province, while the feds have also contributed to others elsewhere in the country.

Now over two years ago, the federal government spent more than $50 million to subsidize Moltex’s work in developing its stable salt reactor technology in New Brunswick.

The Higgs government spent $20 million to support ARC around the same time.

The feds then announced another $7 million for ARC last month, specifically earmarked for “pre-development work” at Point Lepreau, where a first small modular reactor is slated to come online near the end of the decade.

But the money to date is not nearly enough.

After appearing before a legislative committee earlier this year, Moltex CEO Rory O’Sullivan said it’s still seeking more than $250 million from governments or the public utility over the next seven years in order to build its SMR technology.

ARC executives appeared before the same legislative committee for what they said is a $1.1-billion project.

Higgs is now suggesting a pooled focus on finding a technology that works and can be deployed across the country and sold abroad…………………………………….

Green bonds are designed to raise funds to invest in environmental or climate change mitigation projects. Investors purchase bonds and receive periodic interest payments and the repayment of their initial investment at a future date in exchange for upfront cash.

But nuclear projects weren’t originally considered “green” under the initial criteria………………………

 https://tj.news/new-brunswick/higgs-says-federal-support-for-new-nuclear-power-isnt-enough—

November 24, 2023 Posted by | politics | Leave a comment

UK MPs say that Wylfa big nuclear power project should go ahead, locals not so sure

Wylfa should be the next site for a nuclear power station, according to
politicians in Westminster. The recommendation was made my MPs and Peers on
the Cross-Party Parliamentary Group on Nuclear Energy. It said choosing the
site on Ynys Môn was key if the UK Government is to meet its target of
large-scale nuclear power stations producing 24 gigawatts of energy. The
group said the Conservative-led government in Westminster must give the
site its backing during this Parliament and start negotiations as soon as
possible in order to meet that ambition. A report produced by the
cross-party group of politicians described Wylfa as the “best site in
Europe for large-scale nuclear.”

There has long been talk about the
proposed project in north Wales, which the parliamentary group argues would
create high-quality jobs on Ynys Môn. That is disputed by local campaign
group People Against Wylfa-B. It said claims over the number of jobs
possibly created are exaggerated. The project has been a source of heated
debate from its inception more than a decade ago.

ITV 17th Nov 2023

https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2023-11-17/the-site-described-as-best-in-europe-for-nuclear-power-station

November 21, 2023 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

  Jill Stein’s Ominous Warning on Growing Threat of Nuclear War

NewsWeek, Nov 19, 2023, By Jason Lemon

Green Party presidential hopeful Jill Stein warned that President Joe Biden and U.S. leaders are “absolutely” risking the possibility of nuclear war by their actions in support of Israel.

Stein, who previously ran for president in 2012 and 2016, announced on November 9 that she is once again throwing her hat in the ring for the 2024 cycle. The long-shot candidate blasted Biden, Democrats and Republicans for their response to the Israel-Gaza War in an exclusive interview with Newsweek on Thursday, warning that the response could be pushing the world to a point of no return………………………………..


The U.S. government, which classifies Hamas as a terrorist group, has reiterated its support and solidarity with Israel. Fourteen U.S. Navy ships have been positioned in the Mediterranean to assist Israel with intelligence gathering and to deter other regional actors from getting involved in the conflict. Additionally, an Ohio-class nuclear-powered submarine has been sent to the region, according to a November 5 CENTCOM statement.

“I would just note that the U.S. has sent a nuclear submarine there now aside from two battleship or two missiles groups,” she said. “In a nuclear submarine, you have enormous firepower as a rule that’s equivalent to about four or 5,000 Hiroshima bombs packed into one nuclear submarine.”

“The world won’t survive this,” she warned. “And yes, we’re not at nuclear war now, but could a nuclear war be triggered? Absolutely. And we’re seeing this become more dangerous every day.”

The Times of Israel reported on November 6 that it’s unclear whether the nuclear-powered submarine in the Mediterranean is carrying nuclear warheads. The aquatic military vessel is, however, capable of carrying such warheads. The submarine can carry 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Stein, who is Jewish, described Israel’s actions towards Gaza as “genocide.” She also accused Israel of being an “apartheid” state.

“Israel doesn’t have a future if this violence is allowed to continue. I don’t mean just violence from Hamas. There will be violent resistance to apartheid and occupation so you can wipe out Hamas, and then you’ll have the next generation of Hamas, which is going to be even more vicious and brutal,” she said.

Israel rejects claims that it’s committing “genocide” and that it’s an “apartheid” state. Israeli leaders and U.S. leaders routinely describe the country as a “beacon of democracy” in a troubled region of the world. They also often dismiss such criticism as “antisemitic.”

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have said Israel’s treatment of Palestinians amounts to “apartheid.” Pro-Palestinian activists, including some progressive anti-Zionist Jewish groups, have accused Israel of perpetuating a “genocide” in Gaza.  https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-jill-stein-warning-nuclear-war-1844899

November 20, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

The Sir John Armitt interview: ‘I’m not sure the government is really serious about nuclear’.

 At the age of 77 and with the successful delivery
of the Olympics under his belt, Sir John Armitt is not one to pull his
punches. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was wrong to cancel HS2 in the way that
he did, is daft to sell off the project’s land almost certainly at a
loss, is not serious about nuclear power, has misjudged renewable energy
and has imperilled the UK’s climate change targets, says the country’s
infrastructure tsar.

And that’s not even the full charge sheet. The
National Infrastructure Commission (NIC), which Sir Armitt chairs, has just
published their latest assessment on major long-term challenges, which
includes a series of bold policy recommendations directed to the
government, like shutting down Britain’s gas network and spending
billions to roll out heat pumps.

Nuclear is another area where Sir Armitt
– who worked on delivering the Sizewell B station – believes the
government needs to act faster: “At the moment, we’re not making any
progress really on Sizewell C, there is no deal being done with EDF… so
we don’t see nuclear as really having a significant part to play in any
new stations other than Hinkley before 2035. “I would say I’m not sure
the government’s really serious about nuclear.” To his mind, it is a
commercial deal, and – if you were serious – you would “sit down and
thrash something out”, not “leave it to drift”.

 Politics Home 19th Nov 2023

https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/national-infrastructure-interview-sir-john-armitt-rail-nuclear-climate

November 20, 2023 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Ukraine war a ‘good investment’ for US – Trump rival

“the Ukrainian army has degraded 50% of the Russian military capability without one drop of American blood. Seems to me that’s a pretty good return on investment for us, and one we should double down on,“

Chris Christie made the case for “doubling down” on funding for Kiev

Former New Jersey governor and aspiring Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie has condemned “isolationism” and urged Americans to double down on funding the Ukrainian war effort, describing it as a good “return on investment.”

Speaking at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Wednesday, Christie argued he was the only “serious” Republican presidential candidate showing “moral clarity” to the world, often praising US President Joe Biden while taking potshots at GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.

Our strategy in Ukraine is driven by a principled commitment to support Ukrainians fighting and dying for their country,” Christie said at one point. He added that he would have provided “more weapons, and sooner” than Biden…….

Christie pointed out that he has visited Kiev and met with President Vladimir Zelensky, who told him that “without American help, Ukraine would now be occupied by Russia.” Zelensky also said that Ukraine did not need any American soldiers, only weapons to win the war by itself, Christie added.

“We’ve done that, but with less than 4% of one year’s military budget. And with that, the Ukrainian army has degraded 50% of the Russian military capability without one drop of American blood. Seems to me that’s a pretty good return on investment for us, and one we should double down on,” the former governor concluded………………………………………..

Faced with the growing opposition from some Republican lawmakers to continued spending on the Ukraine conflict, the White House has recently changed its “messaging” to present it as stimulus for the American defense industry. The supposed economic benefits have yet to materialize, however……………………more https://www.rt.com/news/587448-us-ukraine-chris-christie/

November 18, 2023 Posted by | politics, Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

Poll: Majority of Americans Support a Ceasefire in Gaza

The poll from Reuters/Ipsos is the second to show that most Americans want a ceasefire.

By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com  https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/16/poll-majority-of-americans-support-a-ceasefire-in-gaza/

A new poll from Reuters/Ipsos found that the majority of Americans support the idea of a ceasefire in Gaza, a position that has been rejected by the Biden administration.

About 68% of respondents agreed with the statement “Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate,” including three-quarters of Democrats and half of Republicans.

The poll is the second in recent weeks to show the majority of Americans support a Gaza ceasefire. A poll published by Data for Progress on October 20 found that 66% of respondents agreed with the idea of the US calling for a ceasefire and using its leverage to prevent further violence.

The Biden administration has called for “pauses” in the fighting but has refused to use the term ceasefire as it’s determined to continue backing Israel’s brutal assault, which is currently focused on Gaza’s biggest hospital.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll also showed a general decline in US public support for Israel. Just 31% of poll respondents said they supported sending Israel weapons, while 43% opposed the idea.

Only 32% of respondents said the US should support Israel, compared with 41% in a poll that was conducted in October. The plurality of Americans, 39%, support the idea of the US being a neutral mediator in the conflict.

November 18, 2023 Posted by | public opinion, USA | Leave a comment

White House, Senate, House all out of sync with electorate on Gaza

     

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, 17 Nov 23 Glen Ellyn IL 

President Biden talks restraint and aid for besieged Palestinians, but pours in millions in weapons for Israel’s destruction and ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Mike Johnson attended the pro Israel rally in Washington D.C. Both offered total support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Schumer told the crowd “We stand with Israel. America feels your pain. We ache with you, we stand with you, and we will not rest until you get all the assistance you need.” He offered not a word a sympathy or aid to the 2.3 million Palestinians and their housing being systematically destroyed largely by US supplied weaponry.

Johnson was even crueler, responding “We stand with that” to crowd chants of “No ceasefire, no ceasefire.”

The top 3 US officials all ignore the electorate which favors immediate ceasefire. The Action for Progress and Reuters/Ipsos polls show 66% and 68% respectively favor ceasefire. The Reuters/Ipsos poll reveals support for Israel has dropped from 41% to 32% since the war started October 7. Just 31% favor US weapons for Israel compared to 43 opposed. A plurality, 39%, want the US to be a neutral mediator to end the war.

America has become a pariah worldwide thru its endless support of Israeli Apartheid, ethnic cleansing and destruction of the open-air prison Israel maintains in Gaza. It is bound by international law to protect, not destroy, the 2.3 million Palestinians imprisoned there under Israeli control. The US public is beginning to get that. The top 3 US leaders, Biden, Schumer and Johnson apparently never will.

November 18, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

A small modular reactor’s demise calls for big change in Energy Department policy

By Henry Sokolski | November 14, 2023, https://thebulletin.org/2023/11/a-small-modular-reactors-demise-calls-for-big-change-in-energy-department-policy/

NuScale Power Corp., which is developing America’s flagship small modular reactor (SMR), has lost its only firm utility customer, the Utah Associated Municipal Power System. That utility pulled the plug last week on the project just days after Iceberg Research, a financial advisory firm, urged investors to short sell NuScale (that is, to bet the value of its shares will decrease). Shares, worth $14.87 in August, plummeted more than 85 percent, closing Monday at $2.23.

Regrettably, the US Energy Department has already given NuScale hundreds of millions in grants, and the US Export Import Bank and the US Development Finance Corporation have promised NuScale another $4 billion in financing toward a plant in Romania. NuScale’s latest loss could cast a financial pall over its parent company, the Fluor Corporation, and other Energy Department-backed SMR projects, X-Energy and Oklo.

How could this happen? Simple: The Energy Department overrode market signals, went all in with SMRs and NuScale, and stuck US taxpayers with the tab. Sadly, this is nothing new. Think Solyndra, ethanol mandates, Fisker automobiles, fast breeder reactors, and synthetic fuels.

The NuScale case, however, is worse. In the Energy Department’s zeal to sell SMRs so the country can get to net zero carbon dioxide emissions, the department failed to focus on its primary missions. These include setting energy cleanliness and efficiency standards, assuring nuclear security, spotlighting energy market trends, and conducting basic energy research to validate unproven energy concepts—e.g., fusion power—rather than commercializing systems we know already work — e.g., fission reactors. That failure of focus raises obvious questions.

Did the Energy Department do due diligence in assessing NuScale’s financial health and integrity? Did it properly weigh independent analyses that questioned the economic and environmental viability of small modular reactors more generally?Also, what of the nuclear security issues that building these plants in war zones raise?

The State and Energy departments have been pushing federal financing to export SMRs to Ukraine, its immediate neighbors, and East Asia. All of the proposed projects are within shooting distance of Russian, Chinese, and North Korean missiles. Worse, officials in Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang have all threatened to attack such plants.

Japan’s prime minister and Ukrainian officials have called for increased hardening and military protections for their reactors (including installing missile defenses as Belarus has at its reactor). The Energy Department, however, has yet to offer any narrative on how it might keep US-exported reactors safe against such assaults.

Then there are the nuclear weapons proliferation headaches that the exporting of small fast reactors present. One of the Energy Department’s favorite SMR projects, Bill Gates’ Natrium fast reactor, is largely a knock off of the Prism fast breeder reactor. It was designed to produce plutonium, much of which would be super weapons-grade plutonium (i.e., even easier to make into weapons than what our military uses). TerraPower, which is developing Natrium, says it plans on exporting Natrium plants. One would think the Energy Department could have explained how such reactor technology can be shared without spreading fissionable material to make nuclear bombs. So far, it has not.

Some argue that providing nuclear alternatives to Russian natural gas and preventing global warming should overshadow such proliferation concerns. Yet, most of Russia’s top gas customers are now buying elsewhere. As for fighting global warming, victory is only possible by reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the cheapest, quickest fashion. SMRs are neither quick nor cheap.

Both the nuclear industry and its critics have long favored using marginal abatement cost models to determine which energy fixes to make first to curb carbon emissions at the lowest cost. Using these models, it’s clear that making natural gas substitutions for coal-fired plants, increasing efficiencies, reducing energy demand, improving electrical transmission and storage systems, and tapping renewables all should come well before building new nuclear plants. Unfortunately, the Energy Department has yet to reference any of these models in its public statements about SMRs.

So how is the misplaced confidence in SMRs best remedied?

First, Congress should wind down the funding of Energy Department schemes to commercialize energy “winners,” nuclear or nonnuclear. Instead, the department and Congress should focus on setting energy and cleanliness goals and deadlines. To incentivize industry to meet them, the Energy Department should consider offering industry prizes.

Second, the Energy Department should make the most favored greenhouse gas cost abatement models, such as the popular McKinsey Company package, publicly available for all to use and improve. To feed better data into these models, Congress should require the Energy Department to report annually on the real costs (including subsidies) of different types of electrical generation, distribution, transmission, and storage systems.

Finally, before the United States exports any small modular reactors, the Energy Department and the Pentagon should clarify what can (and can’t) be done to protect them against military assaults and what the nuclear proliferation dangers are in the various nations that would operate them. It’s bad enough that Energy Department-backed reactors are burning holes in taxpayers’ pockets. At the very least, the Energy Department and the Pentagon should make sure that they don’t blow up in everyone’s face.

November 17, 2023 Posted by | politics, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

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