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Bill Gates-backed ‘Cowboy Chernobyl’ nuclear reactor races toward approval in Wyoming

For longtime Wyoming resident Steve Helling, the risks outweigh the promises.

“Wyoming is being used as a guinea pig for this nuclear experiment,”

By Samantha Olander, Jan. 10, 2026

A Bill Gates-backed nuclear reactor dubbed “Cowboy Chernobyl” by critics is barreling toward approval in rural Wyoming, alarming residents and nuclear safety experts as regulators fast-track the project under a Trump-era order.

TerraPower, founded by the Microsoft guru, is seeking federal approval to build the western hemisphere’s first Natrium nuclear reactor in Kemmerer, a coal town of roughly 2,000 people near the Utah border and about two hours north of Salt Lake City.

The plant would use liquid sodium rather than water to cool the reactor, a design pitched as safer and more efficient. 

Critics say it introduces new risks while cutting corners on containment.

The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission completed its final safety evaluation in December, concluding there were no issues that would block issuance of a construction permit.

The five-member commission is expected to vote on the permit later this month. TerraPower still needs a separate operating license before the reactor can run.

Local residents say the fast pace has left them uneasy.

“We’re probably two hours away from that place when it comes to how long it takes the wind to get here,” Patrick Lawien of Casper told the Daily Mail. “Obviously, if anything goes wrong, it’s headed straight for us.”

TerraPower began building the non-nuclear portion of the 44-acre site in June 2024, near the retired Naughton coal plant, which shut down at the end of 2025.

The company says the reactor will generate 345 megawatts of power, with the ability to reach 500 megawatts during peak demand. It aims to have the plant operating by 2030………………………………………

uclear watchdogs say speed is the problem.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy group, says TerraPower’s design omits the traditional concrete containment structure used at U.S. nuclear plants. 

The company instead proposes “functional containment,” which relies on internal engineered systems to perform containment functions rather than a physical containment building.

“The potential for rapid power excursions and the lack of a real containment make the Kemmerer plant a true ‘Cowboy Chernobyl,’” said Edwin Lyman, the group’s director of nuclear power safety.

Lyman warned that if containment proves inadequate later, it would be nearly impossible to add a traditional containment structure once construction begins. 

He also criticized the sodium cooling system.

“Its liquid sodium coolant can catch fire, and the reactor has inherent instabilities that could lead to a rapid and uncontrolled increase in power,” Lyman said….

Concerns intensified after the NRC wrapped up its review months ahead of its original schedule.

The accelerated timeline followed an executive order signed by Donald Trump in May directing federal agencies to fast-track advanced nuclear reactor approvals,

TerraPower applied for its construction permit in March 2024 and received preliminary approval in December, well ahead of its initial August 2026 target.

For longtime Wyoming resident Steve Helling, the risks outweigh the promises.

“Wyoming is being used as a guinea pig for this nuclear experiment,” Helling told the Daily Mail. “Wyoming has everything I could want, beauty, clean air, clean water, wildlife, abundant natural resources.”

He said he worries about the long-term cost of disposing of nuclear waste decades down the road, as the U.S. still lacks a permanent storage solution.

Some states, including California and Connecticut, prohibit new nuclear plant construction unless the federal government establishes a long-term solution for radioactive waste storage.

January 16, 2026 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Watchdog halts nuclear plant safety review after seismic data found to be fabricated

Japan’s nuclear watchdog is scrapping the safety screening for two reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant

ByMARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press, January 7, 2026,

TOKYO — Japan’s nuclear watchdog said Wednesday it is scrapping the safety screening for two reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in central Japan after the plant’s operator was found to have fabricated data about earthquake risks, in a setback to Japan’s attempts to accelerate reactor restarts to boost nuclear energy use.

Chubu Electric Power Co. had applied for safety screening to resume operations at the No. 3 and 4 reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in 2014 and 2015. Two other reactors at the plant are being decommissioned, and a fifth is idle.

The plant, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Tokyo, is located on a coastal area known for potential risks from so-called Nankai Trough megaquakes.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority said it started an internal investigation in February after receiving a tip from a whistleblower that the utility had for years provided fabricated data that underestimated potential seismic risks.

The regulator suspended the screening for the reactors after it confirmed the falsification and the utility acknowledged the fabrication in mid-December, said Shinsuke Yamanaka, the watchdog’s chair. The NRA is also considering inspecting the utility headquarters.

“Ensuring safety is the first and foremost responsibility for nuclear plant operators and (data fabrication) is an act of betrayal to their task and one that destroys nuclear safety,” Yamanaka said.

The scandal surfaced Monday when Chubu Electric President Kingo Hayashi acknowledged that workers at the utility used inappropriate seismic data with an alleged intention to underestimate seismic risks and apologized. He pledged to establish an independent panel for investigation.

The screening, including data that had been approved earlier, would have to start from scratch or possibly be rejected entirely, Yamanaka said.

The move is a setback at a time Japan’s government seeks to accelerate reactor restarts to cope with rising energy costs and pressure to reduce carbon emissions.

Public opinion in Japan remains divided due to lingering safety concerns after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns.

January 12, 2026 Posted by | safety | 3 Comments

Japan’s ‘most dangerous’ nuclear power plant admits to manipulating earthquake safety data

Regulator halts review to restart Hamaoka power plant after 14 years

Shweta Sharma, Tuesday 06 January 2026, https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/japan/japan-nuclear-plant-data-manipulation-earthquake-b2895086.html

A Japanese power plant operator has admitted to cherry-picking critical safety data to pass the screening process of the nuclear safety regulator to restart two of its offline reactors.

Chubu Electric said on Monday that it had set up an independent panel of experts to investigate possible misconduct in compiling data as part of a process to restart two reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant.

The plant originally had five reactors but two were permanently shut down in 2009. The remaining three reactors were taken offline in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

Concerns about data manipulation mean the power plant is unlikely to restart anytime soon. It’s also a likely setback for Japan’s efforts to shift back to nuclear power to boost energy security and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Chubu told regulators it had selected an earthquake wave model closest to the average of 20 possible patterns to calculate the Hamaoka plant’s “standard seismic motion”, the maximum shaking the reactors could withstand. However, the company admitted, employees in charge could have deliberately chosen that model to make the plant appear safer and speed up the screening process.

We sincerely apologise for the incident,” Chubu Electric president Kingo Hayashi told a press conference. “The actions could potentially shake the foundations of the nuclear power business.”

The regulator learned about the misconduct last February after it was contacted by a whistleblower.

A senior agency executive called the matter “unbelievable” saying it broke trust in the operator and would make the people question its eligibility.

The industry ministry has now ordered Chubu Electric to submit a detailed report by 6 April explaining the cause of the misconduct and outlining measures to prevent it from happening again.

The Hamaoka power plant, 200km south-west of Tokyo, has been described as the “world’s most dangerous” nuclear power facility by some seismologists and anti‑nuclear campaigners. Government forecasts have predicted an 87 per cent chance of a powerful quake in the area, which sits on two major subterranean faults. A major accident would be likely to force the evacuation of Greater Tokyo, home to 28 million people.

Professor Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a seismologist and a former member of a Japanese government panel on nuclear reactor safety, said in 2003 that Hamaoka was “the most dangerous nuclear power station” in Japan because of the potential for an earthquake to trigger a nuclear disaster.

He assessed at the time that such an incident would devastate a broad area between Tokyo and Nagoya, destroying more than 200,000 buildings and resulting in a huge tsunami.

The plant was ordered to shut down reactors 4 and 5 and cancel the planned restart of reactor 3 following the Fukushima disaster, when a magnitude 9 earthquake triggered tsunami waves up to 15m high. Hamaoka was built to withstand only an 8.5-magnitude quake and an 8m tsunami.

Chubu applied for a review to restart the Hamaoka reactors between 2014 and 2015, and it was approved for standard seismic motion in September 2023.

Shares of Chubu Electric dropped 8.2 per cent, its steepest fall since April 2025, after the latest revelations.

January 9, 2026 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

New roads police team for major construction work

Alice Cunningham, BBC 4th Jan 2026, Suffolk

A police force is hiring a road team to escort abnormal loads heading to and from nationally significant infrastructure projects such as Sizewell C nuclear power station.

Suffolk Police said it was recruiting a designated abnormal indivisible loads (AIL) team that would consist of police motorcyclists.

It envisaged the team would work with several projects for several years, and noted that its current project with the new Sizewell C nuclear plant near Leiston was for 12 years.

Chief Constable Rachel Kearton said the “uplift required to support the policing element of the Sizewell C development has been secured through the planning process and paid for by the Sizewell C developer”……………………a “carefully co-ordinated roads policing provision” was in place to ensure safe movement of the abnormal loads to and from Sizewell.

The UK government, which is the largest shareholder in Sizewell C Limited, is building a new two-reactor nuclear power station on the coast next to the Sizewell A and B sites, that could power the equivalent of about six million homes and will generate electricity for 60 years.

Permission for the project was granted in July 2022 before the government gave its final funding approval last year…………………. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cddg773172jo

January 8, 2026 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Safety fears as Japan prepares to restart nuclear plant ‘built on tofu’

the greatest risk remains the region’s susceptibility to seismic activity.

the will of the majority of residents today is opposition to a restart and that opposition is f

While Fukushima operator Tepco says it is ‘committed to safety’ at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, critics believe it is a disaster waiting to happen.

Julian Ryall, 27 Dec 2025

Campaigners against nuclear energy have condemned Japan’s decision to resume operations at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant, claiming that the facility will be unable to withstand a major earthquake as it was “built on tofu”.

Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), the operator of the Niigata prefecture plant, on Wednesday applied for a final examination of the facility to the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA). Approval is likely to be a formality as the prefectural assembly already gave the nod on Tuesday.

Tepco, which has been fiercely criticised for its handling of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in March 2011, intends to restart one reactor at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa on January 20.

It would be the first of Tepco’s nuclear reactors to resume since three of Fukushima’s six reactors melted down after a magnitude 9 offshore earthquake unleashed devastating tsunamis.

Tepco has been working hard in recent years to convince the local government and residents of Niigata prefecture that it has made upgrades to secure the site from natural disasters.

Its president, Tomoaki Kobayakawa, told the media that as the operator “responsible” for the Fukushima accident, the company was now “committed to prioritising safety” at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa.

Many people remain unconvinced.

“The plant was famous for having been built on tofu – the bedrock is 30 metres (100 feet) below the surface – with many fault lines running through the site as well as offshore,” said Shaun Burnie, senior nuclear energy specialist for Greenpeace.

“Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is one of the world’s largest nuclear plants and the only one in theory capable of operating for Tepco. So restarting operations has been a priority for both the company and the government for more than a decade,” Burnie told This Week in Asia.

“But resistance from Niigata residents, the scale of safety issues and the incompetence of Tepco have undermined all efforts until now.”

History repeating itself?

Nearly 15 years after the Fukushima plant was the site of the second-worst nuclear accident in global history, Burnie warns that serious problems are being overlooked again.

Even during the preliminary planning stages, in the mid-1970s, it was apparent that ground conditions at the site by the Sea of Japan were not suitable, he said.

That was shown in July 2007, when the Chuetsu-oki earthquake struck. The magnitude 6.6 quake occurred on a previously unknown offshore fault line about 11km (7 miles) off the coast, followed 13 hours later by a 6.8 tremor around 330km (205 miles) to the west.

The nuclear plant, 19km (12 miles) due south from the epicentre of the initial quake, registered a peak ground acceleration – essentially how much the ground shook – of 6.8 metres (22 feet) per second squared in reactor No 1. The design specification for achieving a safe shutdown is 4.5m/s², while the restart level for key equipment in the plant is 2.73m/s².

Burnie said the original design specifications at the site “turned out to be gross underestimates”, with the quakes causing damage of varying degrees at 3,000 places within the plant.

A fire in an electric transformer caused the most serious damage. It left a pall of black smoke over the plant and alarmed local residents. There were also a number of leaks of mildly radioactive water and spills of radioactive cobalt-60, iodine and chromium-51 from overturned storage drums.

Given the events of 2007 and 2011, Burnie said local residents’ concerns were justified, particularly as new issues have come to light.

“We should have no confidence in Tepco assurances on safety at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa,” he said. “For example, two months after the NRA had approved the reactors’ basic safety assessment in late 2017, Tepco revealed that … the site under the emergency hydrogen ventilation buildings at units five, six and seven was vulnerable to liquefaction.”

Tepco “immediately came under pressure to explain the scale of liquefaction at the site, prove that it does not extend to the reactor buildings and how it was that the NRA was not informed prior to granting approval”, Burnie said.

Equally, he said, the NRA had to explain how it failed to identify liquefaction as a problem for a site before it granted basic safety approval.

A series of security incidents have also been cause for concern. There have been accusations of poor handling of sensitive documents, malfunctioning intruder detection systems and an employee borrowing a colleague’s pass to enter the restricted main control room in 2020.

Shaken by fears

But the greatest risk remains the region’s susceptibility to seismic activity.

“There are multiple seismic fault lines in the area of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa site, including large-scale submarine active faults,” Burnie said. “The enormous seismic risks at the site remain unresolved and are certain to dominate the debate about the safety of any reactor restart, including in ongoing legal challenges.”

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Tepco said it would “carefully cooperate with all inspections performed by the NRA while also continuing to prioritise safety and steadily making each and every preparation for a restart”.

Takeshi Sakagami, a member of the Citizens’ Association for Monitoring Nuclear Regulation, said that a recent survey conducted by Niigata prefecture determined that 60 per cent of local residents believed that “conditions are not right” to resume operations at the plant.

“The governor explained that support should increase as understanding deepens,” Sakagami said. But “opponents counter that the will of the majority of residents today is opposition to a restart and that opposition is firm”.

Sakagami believed the government was hastening to restart the reactors “because they fear that Japan’s nuclear technology will fall behind the rest of the world”.

For him, the direction that Japan should take is simple.

“I believe Japan should abandon nuclear power and boldly shift towards renewable energy sources and energy conservation,” he said.

January 1, 2026 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

What Lies Ahead for Ukraine’s Contested Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant?

In the long term, there is the unresolved problem of the lack of water resources to cool the reactors after the vast Kakhovka hydro-electric dam was blown up in 2023, destroying the reservoir that supplied water to the plant.

Besides the reactors, there are also spent fuel pools at each reactor site used to cool down used nuclear fuel. Without water supply to the pools, the water evaporates and the temperatures increase, risking fire.

Asharq Al-Awsat, 29 Dec 25, https://english.aawsat.com/features/5223621-what-lies-ahead-ukraine%E2%80%99s-contested-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, is one of the main sticking points in US President Donald Trump’s peace plan to end the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine. The issue is one of 20 points laid out by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a framework peace proposal.

Here are some of the issues regarding the facility:

WHAT ROLE MAY THE US PLAY?

Russia took control of the plant in March 2022 and announced plans to connect it to its power grid. Almost all countries consider that it belongs to Ukraine but Russia says it is owned by Russia and a unit of Russia’s state-owned Rosatom nuclear corporation runs the plant.

Zelenskiy stated at the end of December that the US side had proposed joint trilateral operation of the nuclear power plant with an American chief manager.

Zelenskiy said the Ukrainian proposal envisages Ukrainian-American use of the plant, with the US itself determining how to use 50% of the energy produced.

Russia has considered joint Russian-US use of the plant, according to the Kommersant newspaper.

WHAT IS ITS CURRENT STATUS?

The plant is located in Enerhodar on the banks ‌of the Dnipro River and ‌the Kakhovka Reservoir, 550 km (342 miles) southeast of the capital Kyiv.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has ‌six ⁠Soviet-designed reactors. They were ‌all built in the 1980s, although the sixth only came online in the mid-1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It has a total capacity of 5.7 gigawatts, according to an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) database.

Four of the six reactors no longer use Russian nuclear fuel, having switched to fuel produced by then-US nuclear equipment supplier Westinghouse.

After Russia took control of the station, it shut down five of its six reactors and the last reactor ceased to produce electricity in September 2022. Rosatom said in 2025 that it was ready to return the US fuel to the United States.

According to the Russian management of the plant, all six reactors are in “cold shutdown.”

Both Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of striking the nuclear plant and of severing power lines to the plant.

The plant’s equipment is powered by ⁠electricity supplied from Ukraine. Over the past four years these supplies have been interrupted at least eleven times due to breaks in power lines, forcing the plant to switch to emergency diesel generators.

Emergency generators ‌on site can supply electricity to keep the reactors cool if external power lines are cut.

IAEA ‍Director General Rafael Grossi says that fighting a war around a nuclear ‍plant has put nuclear safety and security in constant jeopardy.

WHY DOES RUSSIA WANT ZAPORIZHZHIA PLANT?

Russia has been preparing to restart the station but ‍says that doing so will depend on the situation in the area. Rosatom chief Alexei Likhachev has not ruled out the supply of electricity produced there to parts of Ukraine.

Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Energy Research Center in Kyiv, said Moscow intended to use the plant to cover a significant energy deficit in Russia’s south.

“That’s why they are fighting so hard for this station,” he said.

In December 2025, Russia’s Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and Nuclear Supervision issued a license for the operation of reactor No. 1, a key step towards restarting the reactor.

Ukraine’s energy ministry called the move illegal and irresponsible, risking a nuclear accident.

WHY DOES UKRAINE NEED THE PLANT?

Russia has been pummeling Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for months and some areas have had blackouts during winter.

In recent ⁠months, Russia has sharply increased both the scale and intensity of its attacks on Ukraine’s energy sector, plunging entire regions into darkness.

Analysts say Ukraine’s generation capacity deficit is about 4 gigawatts, or the equivalent of four Zaporizhzhia reactors.

Kharchenko says it would take Ukraine five to seven years to build the generating capacity to compensate for the loss of the Zaporizhzhia plant.

Kharchenko said that if Kyiv regained control of the plant, it would take at least two to three years to understand what condition it was in and another three years to restore the equipment and return it to full operations.

Both Ukrainian state nuclear operator Energoatom and Kharchenko said that Ukraine did not know the real condition of the nuclear power plant today.

WHAT ABOUT COOLING FUEL AT THE PLANT?

In the long term, there is the unresolved problem of the lack of water resources to cool the reactors after the vast Kakhovka hydro-electric dam was blown up in 2023, destroying the reservoir that supplied water to the plant.

Besides the reactors, there are also spent fuel pools at each reactor site used to cool down used nuclear fuel. Without water supply to the pools, the water evaporates and the temperatures increase, risking fire.

An emission of hydrogen from a spent fuel pool caused an explosion in Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in ‌2011.

Energoatom said the level of the Zaporizhzhia power plant cooling pond had dropped by more than 15%, or 3 meters, since the destruction of the dam, and continued to fall.

Ukrainian officials previously said the available water reserves may be sufficient to operate one or, at most, two nuclear reactors.

December 31, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Trump regulators ripped

  by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/12/28/trump-regulators-ripped/

Rushed approval of Bill Gates’ reactor comes with risks, writes Brett Wilkins with Common Dreams

A leading nuclear safety expert has sounded the alarm over the Trump administration’s expedited safety review of an experimental nuclear reactor in Wyoming designed by a company co-founded by tech billionaire Bill Gates and derided as a “Cowboy Chernobyl.”

On December 1, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced that it has “completed its final safety evaluation” for Power Station Unit 1 of TerraPower’s Natrium reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming, adding that it found “no safety aspects that would preclude issuing the construction permit.”

Co-founded by Microsoft’s Gates, TerraPower received a 50-50 cost-share grant for up to $2 billion from the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. The 345-megawatt sodium-cooled small modular reactor (SMR) relies upon so-called passive safety features that experts argue could potentially make nuclear accidents worse. 

However, federal regulators “are loosening safety and security requirements for SMRs in ways which could cancel out any safety benefits from passive features,” according to Union of Concerned Scientists nuclear power safety director Edwin Lyman.

The reactor’s construction permit application—which was submitted in March 2024—was originally scheduled for August 2026 completion but was expedited amid political pressure from the Trump administration and Congress in order to comply with an 18-month timeline established in President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14300. 

“The NRC’s rush to complete the Kemmerer plant’s safety evaluation to meet the recklessly abbreviated schedule dictated by President Trump represents a complete abandonment of its obligation to protect public health, safety, and the environment from catastrophic nuclear power plant accidents or terrorist attacks,” Lyman said in a statement on December 2.

Lyman continued:

“The only way the staff could finish its review on such a short timeline is by sweeping serious unresolved safety issues under the rug or deferring consideration of them until TerraPower applies for an operating license, at which point it may be too late to correct any problems. Make no mistake, this type of reactor has major safety flaws compared to conventional nuclear reactors that comprise the operating fleet. Its liquid sodium coolant can catch fire, and the reactor has inherent instabilities that could lead to a rapid and uncontrolled increase in power, causing damage to the reactor’s hot and highly radioactive nuclear fuel.

“Of particular concern, NRC staff has assented to a design that lacks a physical containment structure to reduce the release of radioactive materials into the environment if a core melt occurs. TerraPower argues that the reactor has a so-called “functional” containment that eliminates the need for a real containment structure. But the NRC staff plainly states that it “did not come to a final determination of the adequacy and acceptability of functional containment performance due to the preliminary nature of the design and analysis.

“Even if the NRC determines later that the functional containment is inadequate, it would be utterly impractical to retrofit the design and build a physical containment after construction has begun,” Lyman added. “The potential for rapid power excursions and the lack of a real containment make the Kemmerer plant a true ‘Cowboy Chernobyl.’” 

The proposed reactor still faces additional hurdles before construction can begin, including a final environmental impact assessment. However, given the Trump administration’s dramatic regulatory rollback, approval and construction are highly likely.

Former NRC officials have voiced alarm over the Trump administration’s tightened control over the agency, which include compelling it to send proposed reactor safety rules to the White House for review and possible editing.

Allison Macfarlane, who was nominated to head the NRC during the Obama administration, said earlier this year that Trump’s approach marks “the end of independence of the agency.”

“If you aren’t independent of political and industry influence, then you are at risk of an accident,” she warned.

Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams. This article first appeared on Common Dreams whose content is available through a Creative Commons license.

December 31, 2025 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Occupied and Imperiled: Charting a Path for Zaporizhzhia’s Nuclear Future

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, is a central issue in U. S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

ByNewsroom, December 27, 2025, https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2025/12/27/occupied-and-imperiled-charting-a-path-for-zaporizhzhias-nuclear-future/

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, is a central issue in U. S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. This matter is part of a broader peace proposal from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, comprising 20 key points. The power plant has been under Russian control since March 2022, with Russia asserting ownership while most of the world maintains it belongs to Ukraine. A significant proposal has emerged from the U. S. for a joint trilateral operation of the plant with Ukrainian participation and an American chief manager overseeing its operations.

Currently located in Enerhodar, the power plant has six reactors and a total capacity of 5.7 gigawatts. However, since Russia’s takeover, five reactors have been shut down, and the last one ceased operation in September 2022. Four of the reactors have transitioned to using fuel from Westinghouse, moving away from Russian nuclear fuel. The plant’s management states that all reactors are now in “cold shutdown. ” Both Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of attacks on the plant and disruptions to its power lines, which has often compelled it to rely on emergency diesel generators for essential cooling functions.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, is a central issue in U. S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. This matter is part of a broader peace proposal from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, comprising 20 key points. The power plant has been under Russian control since March 2022, with Russia asserting ownership while most of the world maintains it belongs to Ukraine. A significant proposal has emerged from the U. S. for a joint trilateral operation of the plant with Ukrainian participation and an American chief manager overseeing its operations.

Currently located in Enerhodar, the power plant has six reactors and a total capacity of 5.7 gigawatts. However, since Russia’s takeover, five reactors have been shut down, and the last one ceased operation in September 2022. Four of the reactors have transitioned to using fuel from Westinghouse, moving away from Russian nuclear fuel. The plant’s management states that all reactors are now in “cold shutdown. ” Both Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of attacks on the plant and disruptions to its power lines, which has often compelled it to rely on emergency diesel generators for essential cooling functions.

An ongoing concern is the dwindling water supply necessary for cooling the reactors, exacerbated by the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam in 2023. The plant requires adequate water for both its reactors and spent fuel pools; without it, the risk of overheating and fire increases. Reports indicate a significant drop in the water level at the plant’s cooling pond, raising alarms about the safety of operations, as the current reserves may only suffice for one or two reactors. Consequently, the situation at the Zaporizhzhia plant raises critical questions about nuclear safety amid the conflict and the potential repercussions if issues remain unaddressed.

December 30, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Warning Chernobyl nuclear plant radiation shield is at risk of collapse

By PERKIN AMALARAJ, FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER, 24 December 2025

A Russian strike could collapse the internal radiation shelter at the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine, the plant’s director has warned. 

Kyiv has accused Russia of repeatedly targeting the facility, the site of a 1986 meltdown that is still the world’s worst ever nuclear disaster, since Moscow invaded in February 2022.

A hit earlier this year punched a hole in the outer radiation shell, triggering a warning from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it had ‘lost its primary safety functions.’

In an interview with AFP, plant director Sergiy Tarakanov said fully restoring that shelter could take three to four years, and warned that another Russian hit could see the inner shell collapse.

‘If a missile or drone hits it directly, or even falls somewhere nearby, for example, an Iskander, God forbid, it will cause a mini-earthquake in the area,’ Tarakanov said. 

The Iskander is Russia’s short-range ballistic missile system that can carry a variety of conventional warheads, including those to destroy bunkers.

‘No one can guarantee that the shelter facility will remain standing after that. That is the main threat,’ he added.

The remnants of the nuclear power plant are covered by an inner steel-and-concrete radiation shell – known as the Sarcophagus and built hastily after the disaster – and a modern, high-tech outer shell, called the New Safe Confinement (NSC) structure.

Our NSC has lost several of its main functions. And we understand that it will take us at least three or four years to restore these functions,’ Tarakanov added.

The IAEA said earlier this month an inspection mission found the shelter had ‘lost its primary safety functions, including the confinement capability, but also found that there was no permanent damage to its load-bearing structures or monitoring systems.’

Director Tarakanov said that radiation levels at the site remained ‘stable and within normal limits.’

Daily Mail 23rd Dec 2025, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15409149/Warning-Chernobyl-nuclear-plant-radiation-shield-risk-collapse.html

December 28, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Radioactive substance leaks from Fukui nuclear power plant in Japan

Jen Mills, Metro 24 Dec 2025

Radioactive water leaked from a disused power plant in Japan today during work to decommission it.

Parts of the Fugen nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture are being dismantled, and while this took place, around around 20ml of water containing a ‘high’ amount of the radioactive isotope tritium leaked from a pipe.

Japanese broadcaster NHK One reported earlier that detailed investigations were underway to see if any workers were splashed with the water, though internal exposure via inhalation had been ruled out.

Citing the Nuclear Regulation Authority, they said no radioactive material had leaked outside the controlled area of the plant.

December 28, 2025 Posted by | incidents, Japan | Leave a comment

Trump’s rush to build nuclear reactors across the U.S. raises safety worries

NPR, December 17, 2025

In May, President Trump sat in the Oval Office flanked by executives from America’s nuclear power industry.

“It’s a hot industry. It’s a brilliant industry,” the president said from behind the Resolute desk.

It’s also an industry that’s having a moment. Billions of dollars in capital are currently flowing into dozens of companies chasing new kinds of nuclear technologies. These are small modular designs that can potentially be mass produced in the hundreds or even thousands. Their proponents say these advanced designs promise to deliver megawatts of power safely and cheaply.

But there’s a problem, Joseph Dominguez, the CEO of Constellation Energy, told the president.

New nuclear plants keep getting caught up in safety regulations.

“Mr. President, you know this because you’re the best at building things,” Dominguez, whose company runs about a quarter of America’s existing nuclear reactors, said. “Delay in regulations and permitting will absolutely kill you. Because if you can’t get the plant on, you can’t get the revenue.”

Now, a new Trump administration program is sidestepping the regulatory system that’s overseen the nuclear industry for half a century. The program will fast-track construction of new and untested reactor designs built by private firms, with an explicit goal of having at least three nuclear test reactors up and running by the United States’ 250th birthday, July 4, 2026.

If that goal is met, it will be without the direct oversight of America’s primary nuclear regulator. Since the 1970s, safety for commercial reactors has been the purview of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But the NRC is only consulting on the new Reactor Pilot Program, which is being run by the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy……………………………………………………………………………………………………

Sites across the country will host new reactor designs

The new pilot program may be an unproven regulatory path run by an agency with limited experience in the commercial sector, but supporters say it’s energizing an industry that’s been moribund for decades.

“This is exactly what we need to do,” said Isaiah Taylor, founder and CEO of Valar Atomics, a small nuclear startup headquartered in Hawthorne, Calif. “We need to make nuclear great again.”

Valar and other companies plan to build smaller reactors than those currently used in the nuclear industry, and that makes a Chernobyl or Fukushima-type accident impossible, noted Nick Touran, an independent nuclear consultant. “The overall worst-case scenario is definitely less when you’re a smaller reactor,” he said.

Critics, however, worry that the tight July 4 deadline, political pressure and a lack of transparency are all compromising safety. Even a “small” release of radioactive material could cause damage to people and the environment around the test sites.

“This is not normal, and this is not OK, and this is not going to lead to success,” warned Allison Macfarlane, a professor at the University of British Columbia who served as chairman of the NRC under President Barack Obama. “This is how to have an accident.”

AI’s need for speed

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Right from the start it was clear that, unlike the slow and deliberate safety culture that has dominated nuclear power for decades, this new program would be all about speed.

…………officials responsible for overseeing safety would do “whatever we need to ensure that the government is not stopping you from reaching [nuclear] criticality on or before July 4, 2026.”

A new regulator

Before the executive order, the Energy Department did not regulate the safety of commercial nuclear reactors. That job fell to another body: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The commission was set up in 1975 by Congress as an independent safety watchdog, said Allison Macfarlane, the former NRC chair. Part of the reason the NRC was formed was because the predecessor to the DOE, known as the Atomic Energy Commission, oversaw both safety and promotion of nuclear power at the same time.

“This was a very strong conflict of interest,” Macfarlane said.

But in recent years, companies, particularly those trying to build new kinds of reactors, had become frustrated with the NRC, Macfarlane said. “The promoters of these small modular reactors were becoming very vociferous about the NRC being the problem,” she said.

In 2022, the NRC rejected a combined license application for Oklo, a new nuclear startup. Oklo had submitted an application to build and operate its small reactor, called the Aurora powerhouse. But the NRC denied the application because it contained “significant information gaps in its description of Aurora’s potential accidents as well as its classification of safety systems and components.”

Oklo was told it could resubmit its application to the NRC, but it never did.

Then at the May signing of the executive order, Oklo’s CEO Jacob DeWitte appeared behind President Trump applauding the new reactor program at DOE.

“Changing the permitting dynamics is going to help things move faster,” DeWitte said to the president. “It’s never been more exciting.”

Oklo had another connection to the Energy Department — the secretary of energy, Chris Wright, was a member of Oklo’s board of directors until he took the helm at the DOE. Wright stepped down following his confirmation in February.

In August, a little over a month after that initial meeting between industry executives and the DOE, the Office of Nuclear Energy announced the 11 advanced reactor projects had been selected for the Reactor Pilot Program. Three of Oklo’s reactors were part of the new pilot program, including a test version of the reactor design rejected by the NRC…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Valar’s design looks far different from the reactors that are running today. It will use a special type of fuel together with a high-temperature gas to generate heat and electricity. Taylor said gathering real data will speed development and increase safety over the long-term….

(Valar is also party to a lawsuit against the NRC arguing the commission does not have the authority to regulate small reactors. In his interview, Taylor told NPR the company intends to file for an NRC license “when we’re ready.”)

…………………………………………………..  critics question whether the pilot program will really produce safe nuclear reactors.

The July 4, 2026, deadline puts enormous pressure on the program, said Heidy Khlaaf, the chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute, which recently published a report warning that AI development could undermine nuclear safety.

“I think these manufactured timelines are actually incredibly concerning,” Khlaaf said. “There’s no timeline for assessing a new design and making sure it’s safe, especially something we haven’t seen before.”

Then there’s the question of public transparency. The NRC makes many of the documents around its decisions available publicly. It also frequently allows the public to comment as well, added Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. The new pilot program is far more opaque and “is really an attempt to subvert the laws and regulations that go around commercial nuclear power,” he said.

While many of the test reactors are small and tout themselves as inherently safer than existing nuclear power plants, they are still capable of leaking radiation in an accident, Lyman noted. “If they are located closer to populated areas, if there aren’t any provisions for offsite radiological emergency planning … then you are potentially putting the public at greater risk, even if the reactors are small,” he said.

Perhaps most worrying, said former NRC Chair Macfarlane, is how the DOE’s safety assessment might be used to build more small reactors across the country, once the pilot reactors are built.

………………………………………..Macfarlane is unconvinced. She said relying on the hasty DOE analysis for the construction of potentially dozens or even hundreds of small reactors around the U.S. is the real risk.

“They can look at what the DOE did, they can take it as a piece of input, but they have to do their own separate analysis,” she warned. “Otherwise, none of us are safe.” https://www.npr.org/2025/12/17/nx-s1-5608371/trump-executive-order-new-nuclear-reactors-safety-concerns

December 21, 2025 Posted by | safety, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Subject: Rushing to Deregulation – the report of the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce


 NFLA 18th Dec 2025

Introduction:
‘Nuclear plants should be built closer to urban areas and should be allowed to harm the local environment’ so concluded The Times, 24 November 2025 on reporting on the findings of the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce in its final report to the UK Government. This recommendation made to Ministers
flew in the face of accepted policy, the Semi-Urban Population Density Criteria. that building new nuclear plants near towns and cities should be banned because of the risk posed to large numbers of people in the event of an accident involving radioactive materials.


Many of the other 46 recommendations made by the NRTs were equally disquieting, representing a
manifesto of deregulation – a ‘radical reset’ – in the vain hope that this will spark a renaissance in the nuclear industry, with new nuclear plants thrown up more quickly and more cheaply.

The outcome of the inquiry was effectively predetermined in line with a press release from the Office of the Prime Minister issued 6 February 2025. This appeared to mirror the front pages of vituperative pro-nuclear newspapers, with Prime Minister Starmer speaking of his determination to ‘slash red tape to get Britain building [new nuclear power stations] – as part of his Plan for Change ‘with the government ‘ripping up archaic rules and saying no to the NIMBYS to prioritise growth’.

The press release announced that the Prime Minister was establishing a Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce charged
with making this vision a reality which will ‘report directly to the PM’.
i
Although supposedly independent, three of the five taskforce members had clear links to the nuclear industry (Andrew Sherry is former chief scientist at the National Nuclear Laboratory, Dame Sue Ion has held various posts in UK nuclear industry bodies, and Mark Bassett is a member of the InternationalNuclear Safety Advisory Group), handy for a body charged with identifying the means to sideline Britain’s ‘overly bureaucratic’ nuclear regulations.

Cynics – like this author – might postulate that the findings were largely pre-written at the outset and that the real purpose of the taskforce was to seek to justify them.

In working upon this justification, the taskforce, reinforced by intermittent but consistent statements from Government Ministers, nuclear trades unions, and industry lobbyists, has sought to trash regulators as overzealous, and their regulations as disproportionate, and campaigners and members of the public who oppose nuclear development as NIMBYS and BLOCKERS, with their recourse to legal remedies seen as irksome……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A445-NB331-Rushing-to-Deregulation-Dec-2025.pdf

December 21, 2025 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Panic as Chernobyl’s $2 billion protective shield cracks open sparking fears of a deadly radiation leak

Daily Mail, By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR, 18 December 2025 

The dome built over the remains of the Chernobyl disaster has been damaged, raising fears it may no longer be able to contain radioactive material.

Officially known as the New Safe Confinement (NSC), the at least $2 billion protective shield was constructed over Reactor 4, which caused the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986.

The United Nations‘ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a nuclear watchdog, revealed this month that the NSC was severely damaged in a Russian drone strike in February. 

The IAEA team conducted a safety assessment earlier this month, finding the dome had lost its primary safety functions, including confinement capability.

IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said: ‘Limited temporary repairs have been carried out on the roof, but timely and comprehensive restoration remains essential to prevent further degradation and ensure long-term nuclear safety.’

The inspection brought some relief, confirming that the dome’s main structure and monitoring systems remain intact. 

But beneath the damaged shelter lies massive quantities of radioactive material from the 1986 disaster, making the site a ticking time bomb.

The IAEA has urged urgent repairs and upgrades to Chernobyl’s protective shelter, calling for better humidity control, advanced corrosion monitoring, and a high-tech automatic system to keep the radioactive reactor remains under control. 

The damaged dome is the latest of several such expert missions since September last year, when the substations became increasingly affected by the military conflict.

‘These substations are essential for nuclear safety and security. They are absolutely indispensable for providing the electricity all nuclear power plants need for reactor cooling and other safety systems,’ Grossi said

‘They are also needed to distribute the electricity that they produce to households and industry.’

In 2026, with support from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Chornobyl site will undertake additional temporary repairs to support the re-establishment of the NSC’s confinement function, paving the way for full restoration once the conflict ends.

‘The IAEA – which has a team permanently at the site – will continue to do everything it can to support efforts to fully restore nuclear safety and security at the Chornobyl site,’ Grossi said in a statement……………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-15393121/Chernobyl-protective-shield-radiation-leak.html

December 21, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant running on single power line, Russia says.

By Reuters, December 17, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-running-single-power-line-russia-says-2025-12-16/

MOSCOW, Dec 16 (Reuters) – The Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine is currently receiving electricity through only one of two external power lines, its Russian management said on Tuesday.

The other line was disconnected due to military activity, the management said, adding that radiation levels remain normal. Repair work will begin as soon as possible.

The nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, has been under Russian control since March 2022, when Russian forces overran much of southeastern Ukraine. It is not currently producing electricity but relies on external power to keep the nuclear material cool and avoid a meltdown.

Each side has regularly accused the other of shelling the facility. It experienced a couple of complete power outages earlier this month but was subsequently reconnected.

In September and October the plant was without external power for 30 days, relying on backup diesel generators, until a damaged line was reconnected during a local ceasefire arranged with the help of the U.N. nuclear agency.

Reporting by Reuters Writing by Maxim Rodionov Editing by Mark Trevelyan

December 20, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Fire at Windscale piles

   Does Britain Really Ned Nuclear Power?  by Ian Fairlea,  beyondnuclearinternational

“…………………………………………………………….In 1957, a major fire occurred at Windscale nuclear site (what is now known as Sellafield). The effects of the Windscale fire were hushed up at the time but it is now recognised as one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents. An official statement in 1957 said: ‘There was not a large amount of radiation released. The amount was not hazardous and in fact it was carried out to sea by the wind.’ The truth, kept hidden for over thirty years, was that a large quantity of hazardous radioactivity was blown east and south east, across most of England.

After years of accidents and leaks, several of them serious, and regular cover-up attempts by both the management and government, it was decided to change the plant’s name in 1981 to Sellafield, presumably in the hope that the public would forget about Windscale and the accident.

When, in 1983, Greenpeace divers discovered highly radioactive waste being discharged into the sea through a pipeline at Sellafield and tried to block it, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL), who then operated the site, repeatedly took Greenpeace to the High Court to try to stop them and to sequestrate its assets. The first generation of British Magnox nuclear power stations were all secretly designed with the dual purpose of plutonium and electricity production in mind.

Some people think that because plutonium is no longer needed by the UK to make weapons as it already has huge stocks of weapons grade plutonium, there no longer is any connection between nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. This is incorrect: they remain inextricably linked. For example:

  • All the processes at the front of the nuclear fuel cycle, i.e. uranium ore mining, uranium ore milling, uranium ore refining, and U-235 enrichment are still used for both power and military purposes.
  • The UK factory at Capenhurst that makes nuclear fuel for reactors also makes nuclear fuel for nuclear (Trident and hunter-killer) submarines.
  • Nuclear reactors are used to create tritium (the radioactive isotope of hydrogen) necessary for nuclear weapons.

………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/12/14/does-britain-really-need-nuclear-power/

December 17, 2025 Posted by | incidents, Reference, UK | Leave a comment

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