Nuclear power drive obsesses over baseload: Do we need it?
Lately there has been a mounting noise on behalf of more nuclear power in
Scotland, pleas for John Swinney to do a u-turn on his ruling out of new
nuclear reactors.
Calls for Scotland to embrace nuclear have been greeted
with a certain amount of enthusiasm in some quarters, including many SNP
voters. But what troubles me, in the current debate, is that all too often
it feels like we are stuck in an old vision of the grid – and one of the
terms that suggests this is ‘baseload’.
Baseload is defined as the
minimum amount of electricity required by a grid to meet the continuous
demand for power over a day. Currently, it’s mostly used to refer to the
generating capacity that we need to always be there if the wind stops and
the sun doesn’t shine. Britain Remade, for instance, talks about nuclear
in terms of “clean, reliable baseload power”.
But what if nuclear is actually a technology that does not suit a modern renewable grid? What if wind and nuclear are not good bedfellows and, as a baseload, new plants
will only make our electricity more expensive?
In a recent Substack, David Toke, author of Energy Revolutions: Profiteering versus Democracy, described the “accepted truth” in the media that new nuclear power is
needed because there is no other practical or cheaper way to balance
fluctuating wind and solar power, as “demonstrably false”.
He said it
“runs counter to the way that the UK electricity grid is going to be
balanced anyway” – which, he noted, is by gas engines and turbines
“that are hardly ever used”. Simple gas fired power plants, he said,
are many times cheaper per MW compared to nuclear power plant.
Toke advocated for a system balanced by more batteries and other storage as well
as gas turbines or engines which will proved “capacity” rather than
generate much energy. He has a strong point. Of course, the problem with
gas, is that it is, famously, a fossil fuel and produces greenhouse gas
emissions.
However, if, as Toke says, that gas is an increasingly small
percentage of electricity generation, about handling the moments when
demand is not met by wind and solar, the 5% predicted by the UK
Government’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, to be what we require, perhaps
that’s no big deal. It’s a bigger deal, though, if the gas power
station emissions required to balance the grid are, as another Substack
write calculated recently more like 19 percent.
Interestingly, Toke, whose
main criticisms of nuclear are its high cost of electricity generation and
lack of grid balancing flexibility, also noted that if we are thinking
about the financial costs of reducing emissions we might be better off
spending our money in other ways. For instance: “setting up a scheme to
pay £15000 each to 500,000 residents not on the gas grid to switch to heat
pumps will likely save as much carbon as Sizewell C is likely to
save”.
But it seems to me the question is not whether nuclear power is
simply right or wrong, but what its place is within the kind of modern grid
we are developing, a grid which faces transmission challenges between
Scotland, already producing more energy than it uses, and elsewhere, and
whether the costs are worth it. Too often those that argue for nuclear sell
it via the concept ‘baseload’.
But you only have to do a quick scan of
the internet to see it is brimming also with articles about how baseload is
extinct or outdated. These critics point out that what the grid actually
needs is more flexible sources, both of storage and power. One of the
problems is that traditional nuclear power stations tend to be all on or
all off. Torness, for instance, has either one or both of its reactors,
either at full or zero capacity.
That kind of inflexibility in nuclear
plants has already led to constraint payments being made to wind farms,
which have been switched off because there was too little demand even as
the nuclear power stations kept producing. In 2020 energy consultants
Cornwall Insight estimated the quantity in MWh of constraints that could
have been avoided had nuclear power plants in Scotland been shut during two
recent years. It found that, in 2017, 94 per cent worth of windfarm output
that had been turned off (constrained) could have been generated had
nuclear power plant not been operating.
Herald 29th July 2025, https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/25350226.nuclear-power-drive-obsesses-baseload-need/
Sizewell C to build further education campus in Leiston.
Education and employment leaders have hailed new plans for an education campus in Leiston as a “landmark moment”.
The education campus will include College on the Coast, a new permanent further education college delivered in partnership with Suffolk New College, that will provide technical, vocational, and academic pathways aligned to the workforce needs of the new nuclear power plant and the wider energy, infrastructure and engineering sectors.
Sizewell C announced further details of the centre, which will include a post-16 college, at a well-attended public exhibition in July.
A planning application for the College on the Coast and Apprentice Hub, on the eastern edge of Leiston, will be submitted in the coming months. ………..
East Anglian Daily Times 31st July 2025, https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/25353049.sizewell-c-build-education-campus-leiston/
Small Modular Reactors: Déjà Vu All Over Again
Arnie Gundersen, August 1, 2025, https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/01/small-modular-reactors-deja-vu-all-over-again/
Storm clouds began to form in America’s Atoms for Peace construction program during the late 1950s. Clear-headed analysts identified many pitfalls in constructing commercial atomic power reactors that continue now, 70 years later. This February 10, 1958, opinion piece in Time Magazinewas not just prescient for the failure of the Atoms for Peace program, but also applies to the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) marketing ploy in 2025:
“Industry Asks More Government Help to Speed Program”
… to many U.S. businessmen, a stronger atomic defense is only one side of the coin… they insist that commercial nuclear power must be sped up, or else the U.S. will fall far behind other nations.
The main argument is over how much help the U.S. Government should give private industry. AEC’s [Atomic Energy Commission]position is that nuclear power for peaceful purposes should be largely a private venture, with AEC supplying only limited funds.
Originally, businessmen supported the idea, lest nuclear energy grow into a giant public-power program. Now their position has changed. Even the stoutest private power men feel that the program needs a strong infusion of Government aid because commercial nuclear power is so new, so complex, and so costly that private companies cannot carry the burden alone. …“There isn’t a reactor manufacturer in the U.S. who doesn’t favor Government assistance to get them over the hump.”
The big hump is the fact that conventional U.S. power is so cheap—and nuclear power so expensive—that the U.S. itself has no pressing domestic need for a crash program. … U.S. industry is learning, to its sorrow, that there is a vast gulf between atomic power in the lab and in commercial quantities. Costs have shot up to the point where they discourage even the richest companies… Even the biggest companies find the going rough…. G.E., like the others, thinks that if it could build three big plants in a row, it could learn enough to produce competitive power. But G.E. has no plans at the moment. As one reactor builder says: “Private industry has found that there is no money in atomic energy and no prospect of making any money”… For U.S. consumers, the lag in the commercial nuclear program is no great worry…the U.S. can afford to wait…. There is little doubt among nuclear experts that the U.S. must push ahead much faster than AEC Chairman Strauss is willing to go…. But until nuclear power becomes competitive with present power, he wants the Federal Government to make cash contributions to pay most of the difference between nuclear-and conventional-power construction costs… “The only way our country can achieve competitive nuclear power is through the building of a series of full-scale plants …. Our program must be accelerated.” [1][Emphasis Added]
Several themes from the 1958 Time Magazine opinion piece are identical to today’s unfounded marketing ploys announced by SMR manufacturers and supporters.
First, SMR corporations appeal to nationalistic pride by asserting that the U.S. will fall far behind other nations.
Second, the financial demands by today’s SMR investors and manufacturers are almost identical to those made during the 1950s that emphasized the need for Government subsidies. “There isn’t a reactor manufacturer in the U.S. who does not favor Government assistance to get them over the hump.”
Third, there is an unfounded belief that repeatedly building the same design will somehow reduce costs. “G.E., like the others, thinks that if it could build three big plants in a row, it could learn enough to produce competitive power.”
Forth, the Small Modular Reactor vendors are creating a sense of urgency, pushing nuclear regulators faster than necessary.
“There is little doubt among nuclear experts that the U.S. must push ahead much faster than AEC Chairman Strauss is willing to go…The only way our country can achieve competitive nuclear power is through the building of a series of full-scale plants …Our program must be accelerated.”
Fifth, much less expensive and proven technologies are available to produce electricity, so there is no reason to develop a new, untested, cost-prohibitive SMR nuclear technology. “For U.S. consumers, the lag in the commercial nuclear program is no great worry… the U.S. can afford to wait. …But until nuclear power becomes competitive with present power, he wants the Federal Government to make cash contributions to pay most of the difference between nuclear and conventional-power construction costs”
Following the 1958 Time Magazine Opinion, the business-friendly Forbes Magazine published an excellent one-sentence summary 30 years later pronouncing the utter failure of every single U.S. atomic construction project. By 1985, the economic debacle of building nuclear plants had reached the front cover of Forbes Magazine.
The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.[2]
Forbes was one of the first major business magazines to identify the adverse economic implications associated with nuclear power. As a financial magazine, it was a nuclear agnostic, conceptually neither in favor of nor against nuclear, it had no dog in the nuclear fight! It was following the money. In the intervening 40 years since the prescient Forbes cover story, nuclear remains much more costly than renewable alternatives.
The financial and schedule collapse of every nuclear project ever proposed in the U.S. during the last 60 years has been well-documented in thousands of mainstream media articles, in academia, assessments by financial analysts, Statehouses, and, of course, in Congress, before Federal Agencies, and in review by Environmental watchdogs and community nonprofits. Yet in 2025, policymakers and politicians remain enthralled with yet another of the nuclear industry’s latest marketing ploy disguised this time as the Small Modular Reactor.
To rephrase Yogi Berra, Building Small Modular Reactors appears to be “Déjà vu all over again”.
NOTES
1. February 10, 1958, Time Magazine ↑
2. Forbes Magazine, Cover Story, February 1985 ↑
Arnie Gundersen is the Chief Engineer, board member, and resident “science guy” at the Fairewinds Energy Education NGO. Since the catastrophe at Fukushima, Arnie focuses his energy worldwide on the migration of radioactive microparticles. During his multiple trips to Japan, Arnie has met and trained community-volunteer citizen-scientists to study the migration of radioactive microparticles from Fukushima in two co-authored peer-reviewed scientific articles.
Trump’s Fantasy Bid for the Nobel Peace Prize
1 August 2025 Michael Taylor, https://theaimn.net/trumps-fantasy-bid-for-the-nobel-peace-prize/
In what may go down as one of the most surreal moments of Donald Trump’s second presidency, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stood before the press corps and delivered a speech so dripping with delusion that it would have made even the most seasoned propagandist blush.
With a straight face and a tone of practiced reverence, she read from a statement that claimed:
“The President has now ended conflicts between Thailand and Cambodia, Israel and Iran, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India and Pakistan, Serbia and Kosovo, and Egypt and Ethiopia. This means President Trump has brokered, on average, about one peace deal or ceasefire per month during his six months in office. It is well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”
The language bore all his hallmarks: self-congratulation, historical revisionism, and the casual rewriting of reality. If you closed your eyes, you could practically hear Trump dictating it himself, likely from a golf cart: “No president has ever done more for peace… The world is calmer because of President Trump.”
Meanwhile, America burns.
Cities across the country remain divided and anxious. Violent crime is rising in some areas. Racial tensions have intensified under his inflammatory rhetoric. Migrants are being plucked off the streets and separated from their families under legally murky executive actions. The economy, battered by trade wars and broken promises, limps along. The climate crisis – arguably the greatest threat to long-term peace – continues to be denied by the administration altogether.
And yet, here we are, talking about a Nobel Peace Prize.
It’s not that Americans don’t value peace. It’s that they can see through a bad sales pitch. The spectacle was not only cringeworthy, it was offensive. Offensive to genuine peacemakers. Offensive to Americans living pay to pay. Offensive to veterans of actual wars.
To be clear, this isn’t the first time Trump has floated his Nobel ambitions. He’s been obsessed with the prize since taking office the first time. He has tweeted about it. Endlessly. He rages that Obama – a lesser president than himself – has one in his trophy cabinet while his own cupboard is bare. But now, with his second term spiraling and his political capital shrinking, the pursuit of a symbolic trophy has become a sad distraction – a transparent bid for legacy over substance.
This press conference wasn’t about peace. It was about ego. It was about shifting the narrative from legal troubles and legislative failures to a grandiose alternate reality where Donald Trump is not just a divisive figure but a global peacemaker.
The Nobel Peace Prize stands for something: diplomacy, de-escalation, justice. Not manufactured press releases. Not fantasies of greatness. And certainly not a list of imaginary accomplishments recited by a spokesperson who knows better, but has clearly chosen not to care.
UK Government abandons plan to greenwash nuclear in a new taxonomy
28th July 2025, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/government-abandons-plan-to-greenwash-nuclear-in-a-new-taxonomy/
Much to the delight of the Nuclear Free Local Authorities, the UK Government has abandoned the latest plan to introduce a new taxonomy for ‘green’ energy technologies. Why? Because, in the small print, Ministers wanted to include nuclear so the plan would have amounted to ‘greenwashing’ the industry.
The government recently published its response to a consultation conducted earlier this year by the Treasury. In the consultation, a taxonomy was described as ‘a classification tool which provides its users with a common framework to define which economic activities support climate, environmental or wider sustainability objectives.’
It should have been a mechanism to facilitate further investment in ‘green’ energy projects, but the proposal was in the NFLA’s view fatally flawed as in the small print the consultation document obliquely included nuclear.
28th July 2025
Government abandons plan to greenwash nuclear in a new taxonomy
Much to the delight of the Nuclear Free Local Authorities, the UK Government has abandoned the latest plan to introduce a new taxonomy for ‘green’ energy technologies. Why? Because, in the small print, Ministers wanted to include nuclear so the plan would have amounted to ‘greenwashing’ the industry.
The government recently published its response to a consultation conducted earlier this year by the Treasury. In the consultation, a taxonomy was described as ‘a classification tool which provides its users with a common framework to define which economic activities support climate, environmental or wider sustainability objectives.’
It should have been a mechanism to facilitate further investment in ‘green’ energy projects, but the proposal was in the NFLA’s view fatally flawed as in the small print the consultation document obliquely included nuclear.
The NFLAs opposed this plan and Dr Paul Dorfman, who kindly drafted our response, explained why: ‘The ‘UK Green Consultation’ document stated that, ‘Subject to stakeholder feedback on the value and use cases of a UK Green Taxonomy, the government proposes that nuclear energy will be classified as green in any future UK Green Taxonomy’ – a ‘horse and cart’ situation that brought into question the role, process and purpose of consultation, with all that has implications for trust in government.
Now Emma Reynolds MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, has stated that Ministers have abandoned the plan: ‘the government has concluded that a UK Taxonomy would not be the most effective tool to deliver the green transition and should not be part of our sustainable finance framework.’ Ms Reynolds claimed that ‘other policies were of higher priority to accelerate investment into the transition to Net Zero and limit greenwashing.’
The NFLAs support the aspiration to achieve Net Zero, but nuclear, as a technology associated with resource intensive activities, environmental damage and contamination, and a deadly legacy of radioactive waste, is in the NFLA’s view most certainly not ‘green’ and its inclusion would have amounted to ‘greenwashing’.
Dr Paul Dorfman succinctly expressed our relief at the government’s U-turn: ‘In this contest, it seems fair that Government has taken a considered step back and has made the right decision not to pursue this Taxonomy.’
The decision appeared to have a near immediate impact with Schroders Greencoat, which describes itself as ‘a specialist renewables infrastructure investor’, widely reported to have decided to withdraw as a prospective investor in Sizewell C. Stop Sizewell C executive director Alison Downes said: “It’s welcome news that Schroders Greencoat won’t be investing in Sizewell C. Based on our dialogue with Schroders, we attribute this to the government deciding not to adopt a green taxonomy, which thankfully has the outcome that nuclear energy cannot be erroneously labelled ‘green’”.
Abuse of Ubuntu in nuclear money grabbing
Just be aware of what kind of types are behind nuclear propaganda on
the beautiful continent nowadays…
Jan Haverkamp, 29 July 25
This is really extremely tasteless. Not only the abuse of Ubuntu, but
also the fact that DeepGEO envisions “Creating intergenerational
equity by solving the challenge of spent nuclear fuel and building
prosperity for our partners.” = grabbing money to dump radioactive
waste in Ghana, Somaliland, and break the law in Finland (which bans
import of radioactive waste)…
Just be aware of what kind of types are behind nuclear propaganda on
the beautiful continent nowadays…
WORLD NUCLEAR NEWS
https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/deepgeo-and-allweld-partner-for-nuclear-energy-in-africa
DeepGeo and Allweld partner for nuclear energy in AfricaFriday, 25
July 2025US-based Deep Geo Inc and South Africa-based Allweld Nuclear
and Industrial have signed a memorandum of understanding to support
the development of new nuclear power capacity in Africa.
DeepGeo is best known for its proposals to develop multinational
repositories in Ghana, Somaliland and potentially Finland and Canada.
Allweld is an Engineering Solutions company which has been serving the
nuclear and other sectors in South Africa and beyond since the early
1960s.
The two will work together to promote DeepGeo’s Ubuntu Nuclear Energy,
a nuclear project company aiming “to lead the development of
standardised fleets of nuclear power plants across Africa and beyond”,
pursuing a “commercial, regional approach” working with one or two
technology partners so it can realise standardisation across projects
and “progressively localise the supply chain so that more benefits can
be realised by the building countries”.
Link Murray, President of DeepGEO, said: “Allweld has a stellar
international reputation for quality workmanship, reliability, and
employee development. It is a natural partner for supporting our
regional and cooperative approach to nuclear energy development in
Africa – Ubuntu Nuclear Energy. Allweld’s inspired and innovative
leadership is helping us to break open Africa’s nuclear
gridlock.”Mervyn Fischer, Allweld CEO, said: “DeepGEO is a vibrant and
active nuclear company that is clearly deeply committed to the
expansion and sustainability of nuclear energy. If the nuclear
industry expects to make rapid progress, it can’t continue to do
things the same way they have been done before. We need to embrace
innovative solutions. African countries, especially, have the clear
potential to leapfrog their European and American peers by adopting
regional and harmonised approaches.”Ubuntu Nuclear Energy says it is
currently working towards establishing its initial projects and is
seeking early-stage investment and looking to finalise its technology
and supply chain partners.
The MoU says “DeepGEO intends to preferentially partner with Allweld
to support the construction, operation and maintenance of its nuclear
project opportunities in Africa, and potentially globally … Allweld
agrees to lend its support to DeepGEO/Ubuntu Nuclear Energy as a
technical expert and business partner to support its sales and
investment”.And it says the two companies “seek to advance the goal of
Africa reaching full independence in the peaceful uses of nuclear
sciences and technologies”.
Google Helped Israel Spread War Propaganda to 45 Million Europeans
By Alan MacLeod / MintPress News, July 10th, 2025 https://www.mintpressnews.com/israel-europe-youtube-ad-campaign/290163/
While it continues its conflict with its neighbors, Israel is fighting another war just as intensely, spending gigantic amounts of money bombarding Europe with messaging justifying their actions, and scaremongering Europeans that Iranian nuclear missiles will soon be turning their cities into rubble.
A MintPress study has found that, since it struck Iran on June 13, the Israeli Government Advertising Agency has paid for tens of millions of advertisements on YouTube alone. In clear breach of Google’s policies, these ads justify and lionize the attack as a necessary defense of Western civilization, and claim that Israel is carrying out “one of the largest humanitarian missions in the world” in Gaza.
The countries most targeted by this campaign include the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, and Greece.
Information War
“A fanatical regime firing missiles at civilians, while racing towards nuclear weapons. While Iran deliberately targets cities, Israel acts with precision to dismantle this threat.” Thus starts one Israeli government ad that hundreds of thousands of YouTube viewers in Europe have been compelled to watch.
“Terror architects behind the elimination of Israel plan: eliminated. Israel targets only military and terror sites, not civilians. But the threat remains,” the voiceover continues, over ominous music and high-tech graphics. “We will finish the mission for our people, for humanity. Israel does what must be done,” it concludes.
“Iran’s ballistic missile program isn’t just a threat to Israel, it is a threat to Europe and the Western world,” another, seen by 1.5 million viewers in just three weeks, claims. “Iran is developing missiles with ranges of approximately 4000 km. That places Europe within the regime’s striking distance,” it adds, as graphics show virtually the entire continent turning blood red, signifying a nuclear attack. “This isn’t tomorrow’s threat. It is today’s reality. The threat posed by the Iranian regime must be stopped. Israel does what must be done.”
Ominous messages like these, translated into multiple languages, have reached tens of millions of people across Europe. Other Israeli government ads take a different tack, attempting to present Israel as a virtuous victim and an unwilling participant in war. As one commercial notes:
Imagine this: you are holding your newborn in a hospital room. Then the air raid sirens go off. Iran fires ballistic missiles at hospitals, at innocent Israelis. Patients, doctors, newborn babies: deliberately targeted. While Iran aims at families and children, Israel responds with precision, striking military sites. This is not a war of choice. Those who target civilians and hospitals become the target.”
The claims made in such videos are often highly questionable. For example, around 935 Iranians were killed in Israeli strikes, compared to just 28 Israelis, suggesting Israel is far less careful to avoid civilian deaths than its opponent. Indeed, since October 2023, Israel has repeatedly and deliberately targeted hospitals. The World Health Organization has documented at least 697 Israeli strikes on medical facilities.
Ninety-four percent of Gaza’s hospitals have been destroyed or damaged, and more than 1,400 medical personnel have been killed. This includes Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, head of orthopedics at al-Shifa Hospital, who was reportedly raped to death by Israeli prison guards. According to UNICEF, Israel has killed or injured over 50,000 Palestinian children. An American nurse who worked in Gaza told MintPress News that IDF soldiers regularly shoot boys in the genitals to prevent them from reproducing.
Despite this, Israeli advertising presents the country as the savior of the Palestinian people. One Ministry of Foreign Affairs video, set to epic, inspiring music, describes Israel as undertaking “One of the largest humanitarian operations in the world right now.” “This is what real aid looks like. Smiles don’t lie. Hamas does,” it concludes.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, called the commercial “scandalous” and directly challenged YouTube: “How can this be allowed?” The video has been translated into Italian, French, German, and Greek, and has been viewed by nearly seven million people on YouTube alone.
Transparently Inorganic
All referenced videos appear in the Google Ads Transparency Center as paid content from the Israeli Government Advertising Agency, and there is strong evidence that few, if any, of their millions of views are organic. The five versions of the “Gaza Humanitarian Aid” video, for example, collectively have only a few thousand “likes”—barely 1% of what would be generally expected of videos with this amount of views—and only two comments in total.
The difference between organic and paid content is clearer in videos that Israel has not promoted. Other videos on Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs YouTube channel receive only tens of views per day, not millions, which strongly suggests that close to 100% of their traffic is paid advertising.
The scale of this public relations operation is difficult to overstate. Even as the Israeli government hikes taxes and slashes domestic spending, its foreign PR budget has grown by more than 2,000%, the Foreign Ministry receiving $150 million more for public diplomacy.
Much of that money is evidently being spent on ads. In the past month, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has uploaded videos that have topped 45 million views on YouTube alone. The countries most targeted include the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, and Greece.
Greece is a particularly noteworthy case. Over the past 12 months, the Israeli government advertising agency has funded 65 separate YouTube ad campaigns targeting the country.
The Greek version of a recent ad—titled “An efficient system is in place, delivering aid where it’s needed”—presents Israel as a benevolent bringer of life to Gaza and has garnered over 1 million views in just four days, equivalent to nearly 10% of Greece’s entire population. The video currently has no comments and fewer than 3,000 likes.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs uploads its videos in English, French, German, Italian, and Greek. Countries that do not speak these languages—such as Slovakia, Denmark, and the Netherlands—are still targeted, though users there generally receive the English version.
Israel has avoided targeting nations whose governments have formally condemned its actions, such as Ireland or Spain, spending nothing to reach those populations. The Netanyahu administration, evidently, has decided to attempt to shore up support in allied countries, even as their populations increasingly turn against Israel.
While many of these figures might shock readers, this investigation only examined the advertising campaign of a single organization, the Israeli Government Advertising Agency, and on a single platform, YouTube. It does not include other Israeli government and non-governmental groups, nor the myriad organizations collectively comprising the pro-Israel lobby in the West.
Israel has also attempted to influence the debate on other platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. What is presented here is merely the thinnest slice of a much broader operation.
Israel and Silicon Valley
Some videos the Israeli government has released attempt to portray Israel in a positive light, but instead perpetuate racist stereotypes about Western civilization and its supposed superiority. In one ad, Benjamin Netanyahu states (emphasis added):
I want to assure the civilized world, we will not let the world’s most dangerous regime get the world’s most dangerous weapons. The increasing range of Iran’s ballistic missiles would bring that nuclear nightmare to the cities of Europe and eventually to America.”
Thus, the Israeli prime minister implies that Iran’s threat matters only if it endangers the so-called “civilized world,” that is, Europe and North America. “Never again is now. Today, Israel has shown that we have learned the lessons of history,” Netanyahu continues, directly comparing the 12-Day War (which Israel started) to the Holocaust. “When enemies vow to destroy you, believe them. When enemies build weapons of mass death, stop them. As the Bible teaches us, when someone comes to kill you, rise and act first.”
Google’s advertising rules explicitly prohibit commercials that “display shocking content or promote hatred, intolerance, discrimination, or violence.” Yet many of the ads described here explicitly justify Israeli aggression.
MintPress News contacted Google to ask how much the Israeli government’s advertising agency spent on ads, how many impressions those ads generated, whether the company had a response to Albanese’s comments, and whether the videos violated its policies.
Google did not answer the first three questions and reiterated that it has “strict ad policies that govern the types of ads we allow on our platform.” “These policies are publicly available, and we enforce them consistently and without bias. If we find ads that violate those policies, we swiftly remove them,” the company added, implying that it does not consider the ads a violation of its standards.
Few who have studied Google’s connections to the Israeli government will be surprised that the Silicon Valley giant grants enormous leeway to the Netanyahu administration. Former CEO Eric Schmidt is known as one of Israel’s most vocal supporters. Google has been financially invested in Israel since at least 2006, when it opened its first offices in Tel Aviv. In 2012, at a meeting with Netanyahu himself, Schmidt declared that “the decision to invest in Israel was one of the best that Google has ever made.”
Company co-founder Sergey Brin has also come to the defense of Israel, denouncing the United Nations as “transparently anti-Semitic” and telling Google staff that using the word “genocide” to describe Israeli actions in Gaza is “deeply offensive to many Jewish people who have suffered actual genocides.”
Earlier this year, with the Israeli economy in dire straits following its 18-month campaign against its neighbors, Schmidt’s company came to the rescue, injecting billions into Israel in a record-setting acquisition. Google purchased local cybersecurity firm Wiz for $32 billion. The monumental sum paid—equivalent to 65 times Wiz’s annual revenue and boosting the Israeli economy by 0.6%—left some analysts wondering if the deal had more to do with underwriting the Israeli economy than making a shrewd business investment.
It also raises questions about the safety of Google users’ most sensitive personal data, given that Wiz was founded and continues to be staffed by former Israeli spies from the intelligence group, Unit 8200.
Google has a long history of working closely with Israeli intelligence. A 2022 MintPress News investigation identified at least 99 former Unit 8200 agents employed by Google.
Among them is Gavriel Goidel, head of strategy and operations for Google Research. Goidel joined Google in 2022 after a six-year career in military intelligence, during which he rose to become Head of Learning at Unit 8200. There, he led a large team of operatives who sifted through intelligence data to “understand patterns of hostile activists,” according to his own account.
The Turning Tide
Google is far from the only tech giant recruiting Israeli spies to run their most politically sensitive departments. The same study found that hundreds of former Unit 8200 intelligence agents are employed at companies such as Meta (formerly Facebook), Microsoft, and Amazon. And a significant amount of what America reads about the Middle East is also written by ex-Israeli spies.
A MintPress investigation from earlier this year uncovered a network of Unit 8200 alums working in top newsrooms across America.
Wikipedia is another key theater of war for the Israeli state. A project overseen by future Prime Minister Naftali Bennett deployed thousands of young Israelis to monitor and edit the online encyclopedia, removing troublesome facts and framing articles more favorably in Israel’s favor. Those who made the most edits would receive rewards, including free hot air balloon rides.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also launched a campaign to harass and intimidate American students, establishing a “task force” to carry out psychological operations aimed at, in its own words, “inflicting economic and employment consequences” against pro-Palestine protestors. While Foreign Minister Eli Cohen heads the task force, it stresses that its actions “should not have the signature of the State of Israel on it.”
Amid mounting criticism, the Israeli government has sought to turn the tide by inviting influencers for direct talks with Netanyahu. In April, the Israeli prime minister met face-to-face with conservative internet personalities, including Tim Pool; Dave Rubin; Sean Spicer; Bethany Mandel; David Harris Jr.; Jessica Krause; Seth Mandel; and Mollie Hemingway, where they discussed how best to sell war with Iran to Western publics, and how to counter anti-Zionist sentiment online.
Other social media personalities report having been offered large sums of money in exchange for a few words of support for Israel.
In terms of turning the tide of European public opinion, Israel has its work cut out for it. A recent YouGov survey found the country was widely reviled across the continent. More than 20 times as many Italians, for instance, hold “very unfavorable” (43%) views of Israel than “very favorable” ones (2%).
Even in Germany, where popular support for Israel is highest, only 21% said they hold favorable opinions of the state (including only 4% highly favorable), with 65% displaying open opposition (including 32% who strongly dislike it).
A massive plurality of Britons, meanwhile, agreed with the statement: “Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews.” Forty-eight percent answered in the affirmative, as opposed to just 13% who disagreed. This is despite European governments offering full-throated support to Israel, and even criminalizing pro-Palestine protests and persecuting journalists who oppose Western support for Tel Aviv.
The government of Israel is spending millions of dollars daily on gigantic advertising campaigns aimed at turning the tide of public opinion. To that end, it is developing a PR network as sophisticated as the advanced weapons systems it uses on its neighbors. On YouTube alone, its paid advertising, translated into five languages, has reached at least 45 million people in the past month. Whether this strategy will ultimately prove effective remains unclear. After all, it is difficult to convince the public to support a genocide.
MAGA Going to Israel for Propaganda Training
The Israeli government is paying to have 16 MAGA social media influencers, with millions of followers, brought to Israel to learn how to stop American youth from turning against Tel Aviv over Gaza, writes Joe Lauria.
By Joe Lauria, Consortium News, https://consortiumnews.com/2025/07/20/maga-going-to-israel-for-propaganda-training/
The Israel foreign ministry will spend $86,000 to finance a tour of Israel for 16 Americans to get them to use their vast online influence to craft more positive images of a nation openly engaged in genocide.
The effort is being made as Israel reacts to a significant turn in public opinion against it, especially by Western youth. Tel Aviv realizes its usual methods of propaganda — and apparently its own inhouse troll army — are no longer working as they once did.
The daily Haaretz reported:
“Foreign Ministry officials say the tour delivers significant media, advocacy, and diplomatic benefits – and represents a strategic shift, as traditional outreach is no longer sufficient to shape public opinion. They aim to leverage the massive followings of young social media influencers to bolster Israel’s standing in the U.S.”
The Americans, whose names have not been divulged, belong to the MAGA and America First movements, the newspaper said. They are all younger than 30 and each have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers, a vast, target-rich environment for propaganda. Israel intends to bring more than 500 “influencer delegations” to Israel this year, the ministry said.
It is paying an organization called Israel365 to organize the first American tour because it is in a “unique position to convey a pro-Israel stance that aligns entirely with the MAGA and America First agenda.”
Israel365’s website says the group “stands unapologetically for the Jewish people’s God-given right to the entire Land of Israel,” calls the two-state solution a “delusion,” and says it’s defending “Western civilization against threats from both Progressive Left extremism and global jihad.”
Israeli officials justified the no-bid contract with the organization because of its “experience and know-how in creating awareness, engagement, and mobilization of Christian audiences regarding their support for the Jewish people and the State of Israel,” Haaretz reported.
Ministry officials told the newspaper that “while older Republicans and American conservatives still hold pro-Israel views, positive perspectives towards Israel are falling across all younger age groups.”
News of the tour comes after the U.S. national teachers union voted to ditch the Zionist curriculum of the Ant-Defamation League, which was influencing young American minds.
Western youth, including conservatives, have become increasingly aware of the history of Israel’s expulsion of Palestinian people from their land and of Israel’s stated genocidal intent and actions in Gaza today. It is a wave of understanding Israel needs to contain.
A ministry source said: “We’re working with influencers, sometimes with delegations of influencers. Their networks have huge followings, and their messages are more effective than if they came directly from the ministry.”
Haaretz reported:
“The strategy appears to be paying off. During the 12-day conflict last month with Iran, Israeli digital messaging garnered roughly 1.8 billion online views, boosted in part by social media influencers with millions of followers. The Foreign Ministry has set a goal of bringing 550 influencer delegations to Israel by the end of 2025 to continue this outreach.”
The Foreign Ministry chose Israel365 because “with the rise of the America First movement and MAGA in American politics, it’s essential for Israel that the movement adopt a pro-Israel position.” A Foreign Ministry document said Israel365 “has the ability to smoothly link the spiritual/biblical and geopolitical aspects of support for Israel.”
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
The Militarization and Weaponization of Media Literacy-NATO Invades the Classroom
July 10, 2025, Nolan Higdon and Sydney Sullivan, https://www.projectcensored.org/military-weaponization-media-literacy/
This Dispatch is informed by our forthcoming 2025 article, “Media Literacy in the Crosshairs: NATO’s Strategic Goals and the Revival of Protectionist Pedagogy,” from the Journal of Media Literacy Education, Volume 17, Issue 2.
During President Donald Trump’s second term, education has remained a central battleground in American politics. Republicans claim that classrooms have become hotbeds of “woke” indoctrination, accusing educators of promoting progressive agendas and tolerating antisemitism. In contrast, Democrats argue that conservatives are systematically defunding and dismantling public and higher education precisely because it teaches values like diversity, equity, and inclusion. While these partisan skirmishes dominate headlines, they obscure a much deeper and more enduring issue that encompasses all of these issues and more: the influence of corporate and military power on public education.
For decades, scholars have warned that corporations have steadily infiltrated the classroom—not to promote critical thinking or democratic values, but to cultivate ideologies that reinforce capitalism, nationalism, and militarism. Critical media literacy educators, in particular, have called attention to the convergence of tech firms and military entities in education, offering so-called “free” digital tools that double as Trojan horses for data collection and ideological control.
One striking example is the rise of programs like NewsGuard, which uses public fears over fake news to justify increased surveillance of students’ online activity. Relatedly, in 2018, the Atlantic Council partnered with Meta to perform “fact-checking” on platforms such as Facebook. In 2022, the US Marine Corps discussed developing media literacy trainings. It remains to be seen what training, if any, they will develop. However, what is known is that a large global player has entered the media literacy arena: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). While NATO presents its initiatives as supportive of media literacy and democratic education, these efforts appear to be oriented more toward reinforcing alignment with its strategic and political priorities than to fostering critical civic engagement.
NATO was created in 1949, during the Cold War, as a military alliance to contain communism. Although the war officially ended in 1991, NATO has expanded both its mission and membership. Today, it encompasses more than thirty member nations and continues to frame itself as a global force for peace, democracy, and security. But this self-image masks real conflicts of interest.
NATO is deeply intertwined with powerful nation-states and corporate actors. It routinely partners with defense contractors, tech firms, think tanks, and Western governments—all of which have a vested interest in maintaining specific political and economic systems. These relationships raise concerns when NATO extends its reach into education. Can a military alliance—closely linked to the defense industry and state propaganda—credibly serve as a neutral force in media education?
In 2022, NATO associates collaborated with the US-based Center for Media Literacy (CML) to launch a media literacy initiative framed as a strategic defense against misinformation. The initiative included a report titled Building Resiliency: Media Literacy as a Strategic Defense Strategy for the Transatlantic, authored by CML’s Tessa Jolls. It was accompanied by a series of webinars featuring military personnel, policy experts, and academics.
On the surface, the initiative appeared to promote digital literacy and civic engagement. But a closer look reveals a clear ideological agenda. Funded and organized by NATO, the initiative positioned media literacy not as a means of empowering students to think critically about how power shapes media, but as a defense strategy to protect NATO member states from so-called “hostile actors.” The curriculum emphasized surveillance, resilience, and behavior modification over reflection, analysis, and democratic dialogue.
Throughout their webinars, NATO representatives described the media environment as a battlefield, frequently using other war metaphors such as “hostile information activities” and “cognitive warfare.” Panelists argued that citizens in NATO countries were targets of foreign disinformation campaigns—and that media literacy could serve as a tool to inoculate them against ideological threats.
A critical review of NATO’s media literacy initiative reveals several troubling themes. First, it frames media literacy as a protectionist project rather than an educational one. Students are portrayed less as thinkers to be empowered and more as civilians to be monitored, molded, and managed. In this model, education becomes a form of top-down, preemptive defense, relying on expert guidance and military oversight rather than democratic participation.
Second, the initiative advances a distinctly neoliberal worldview. It emphasizes individual responsibility over structural analysis. In other words, misinformation is treated as a user error, rather than the result of flawed systems, corporate algorithms, or media consolidation. This framing conveniently absolves powerful actors, including NATO and Big Tech, , of their role in producing or amplifying disinformation.
Third, the initiative promotes a contradictory definition of empowerment. While the report and webinars often use the language of “citizen empowerment,” they ultimately advocate for surveillance, censorship, and ideological conformity. Panelists call for NATO to “dominate” the information space, and some even propose systems to monitor students’ attitudes and online behaviors. Rather than encouraging students to question power—including NATO itself—this approach rewards obedience and penalizes dissent.
Finally, the initiative erases the influence of corporate power. Although it criticizes authoritarian regimes and “hostile actors,” it fails to examine the role that Western corporations, particularly tech companies, play in shaping media environments. This oversight is especially problematic given that many of these corporations are NATO’s partners. By ignoring the political economy of media, the initiative offers an incomplete and ideologically skewed version of media literacy.
NATO’s foray into media literacy education represents a new frontier in militarized pedagogy. While claiming to promote democracy and resilience, its initiative advances a narrow, protectionist, and neoliberal approach that prioritizes NATO’s geopolitical goals over student empowerment.
This should raise red flags for educators, policymakers, and advocates. Media literacy is not a neutral practice. The organizations that design and fund media literacy programs inevitably shape those programs’ goals and methods. When a military alliance like NATO promotes media education, it brings with it a strategic interest in ideological control.
Educators must ask: What kind of media literacy are we teaching—and whose interests does it serve? If the goal is to produce informed, critically thinking citizens capable of questioning power in all its forms, then NATO’s approach falls short. Instead of inviting students to explore complex media systems, it simplifies them into a binary struggle between “us” and “them,” encouraging loyalty over literacy.
True media literacy must begin with transparency about who and what is behind the curriculum. It must empower students to question all forms of influence—governmental, corporate, and military alike. And it must resist the creeping presence of militarism in our classrooms. As educators, we must defend the right to question, not just the messages we see, but the institutions that shape them.
Nolan Higdon is a political analyst, author, host of The Disinfo Detox Podcast, lecturer at Merrill College and the Education Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Project Censored Judge. Higdon’s popular Substack includes the bi-weekly Gaslight Gazette, which chronicles important and well-researched examples of disinformation, character assassination, and censorship in the United States.
Sydney Sullivan is an educator, author, and researcher specializing in critical media literacy, student well-being, and digital culture. She is a lecturer in the Rhetoric and Writing Studies department at San Diego State University and a co-host of Disinfo Detox. Her popular Substack series @sydneysullivanphd explores how digital habits shape student mental health, media literacy, and classroom culture.
Local website reveals city’s secret nuclear weapons programme
by Paul Linford , 18 Jul 2025, https://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2025/news/local-website-reveals-citys-secret-nuclear-weapons-programme/
A city news website has revealed a university’s role in a programme to develop a new nuclear warhead.
The Sheffield Tribune, part of Mill Media, found evidence of a secure cell established at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre – part of the University of Sheffield.
The unit was set up by the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) – an MoD body responsible for developing nuclear weapons — with the purpose of helping develop a new warhead for the UK’s nuclear arsenal, known as Astraea.
Data journalist Daniel Timms pieced together the story from documents already in the public domain, including a set of minutes from a meeting of parish councillors in Berkshire.
Danie spent four months working on the story and has written a first-person piece about how he uncovered the scoop.
Local website reveals city’s secret nuclear weapons programme
by Paul Linford Published 18 Jul 2025
A city news website has revealed a university’s role in a programme to develop a new nuclear warhead.
The Sheffield Tribune, part of Mill Media, found evidence of a secure cell established at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre – part of the University of Sheffield.
The unit was set up by the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) – an MoD body responsible for developing nuclear weapons — with the purpose of helping develop a new warhead for the UK’s nuclear arsenal, known as Astraea.
Data journalist Daniel Timms pieced together the story from documents already in the public domain, including a set of minutes from a meeting of parish councillors in Berkshire.
Daniel, pictured, spent four months working on the story and has written a first-person piece about how he uncovered the scoop.
The key breakthrough came when he read a set of minutes from a meeting of Berkshire parish councillors around the AWE’s Aldermaston HQ in November 2023 which was addressed by an AWE director, Andrew McNaughton.
Wrote Daniel: “Unsurprisingly, AWE publishes very little. But they do have occasional meetings with local parish councillors around their Berkshire site. And in the published minutes, I finally find what I’d been searching for.
“It was the 108th meeting of the committee, in November 2023. Andrew McNaughton, the executive director for infrastructure on the fissile programme, explained that AWE had not had to design new warheads for decades, and taking this on will require new buildings and facilities.
“But in the meantime, they were doing some work elsewhere. And this was where the key admission was made.
“‘We already have a secure cell in Sheffield (part of Sheffield University) where we have some of the equipment we have been using… where we are going to be trialling the processes and training some of our employees,” McNaughton said.”
The Tribune gave both the Ministry of Defence and the university the opportunity to dispute its reporting, but they did not.
Added Daniel: “I’ve been working on this story for four months. I have no previous experience with the defence sector, and I assumed it would be an interesting diversion that would ultimately lead nowhere.
“Instead, largely by relying on freely available documents, I’ve been able to reveal where a significant aspect of the UK’s nuclear weapons programme is taking place — in a building with apparently minimal security just outside Sheffield.
“It’s possible that others with more of a headstart — and with less benign motives — have been able to do the same. But, given the lack of pushback (we haven’t been asked not to publish) perhaps the parties involved aren’t too concerned.”
A spokesperson for the university told The Tribune: “Our work at the AMRC involves developing and testing new technologies and processes for manufacturing companies and does not involve production of components for deployment.
Local website reveals city’s secret nuclear weapons programme
by Paul Linford Published 18 Jul 2025
A city news website has revealed a university’s role in a programme to develop a new nuclear warhead.
The Sheffield Tribune, part of Mill Media, found evidence of a secure cell established at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre – part of the University of Sheffield.
The unit was set up by the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) – an MoD body responsible for developing nuclear weapons — with the purpose of helping develop a new warhead for the UK’s nuclear arsenal, known as Astraea.
Data journalist Daniel Timms pieced together the story from documents already in the public domain, including a set of minutes from a meeting of parish councillors in Berkshire.
Daniel, pictured, spent four months working on the story and has written a first-person piece about how he uncovered the scoop.
The key breakthrough came when he read a set of minutes from a meeting of Berkshire parish councillors around the AWE’s Aldermaston HQ in November 2023 which was addressed by an AWE director, Andrew McNaughton.
Wrote Daniel: “Unsurprisingly, AWE publishes very little. But they do have occasional meetings with local parish councillors around their Berkshire site. And in the published minutes, I finally find what I’d been searching for.
“It was the 108th meeting of the committee, in November 2023. Andrew McNaughton, the executive director for infrastructure on the fissile programme, explained that AWE had not had to design new warheads for decades, and taking this on will require new buildings and facilities.
“But in the meantime, they were doing some work elsewhere. And this was where the key admission was made.
“‘We already have a secure cell in Sheffield (part of Sheffield University) where we have some of the equipment we have been using… where we are going to be trialling the processes and training some of our employees,” McNaughton said.”
The Tribune gave both the Ministry of Defence and the university the opportunity to dispute its reporting, but they did not.
Added Daniel: “I’ve been working on this story for four months. I have no previous experience with the defence sector, and I assumed it would be an interesting diversion that would ultimately lead nowhere.
“Instead, largely by relying on freely available documents, I’ve been able to reveal where a significant aspect of the UK’s nuclear weapons programme is taking place — in a building with apparently minimal security just outside Sheffield.
“It’s possible that others with more of a headstart — and with less benign motives — have been able to do the same. But, given the lack of pushback (we haven’t been asked not to publish) perhaps the parties involved aren’t too concerned.”
A spokesperson for the university told The Tribune: “Our work at the AMRC involves developing and testing new technologies and processes for manufacturing companies and does not involve production of components for deployment.
“Our collaboration with partners in the defence sector helps them to overcome sustainability and productivity challenges, and support UK security and sovereign capabilities.”
Joshi Hermann, proprietor of Mill Media commented: “This is a fantastic story from Daniel Timms, revealing the existence of a secret nuclear weapons programme in Sheffield.
“If he can work this out from sources and the minutes of a parish council meeting in Berkshire, then the Russians/Chinese can too.”
The first US atomic rush was a bust. Will Trump’s big nuclear-for-AI plans fare any better?
Bulletin, By Chloe Shrager | July 18, 2025
As Big Tech turns to nuclear power to solve the artificial intelligence power problem, critics have cast doubt on energy developers’ ability to build new reactors on a timeline that will satisfy data centers’ energy needs.
High costs and lack of commercial economic viability have been persistent obstacles to new nuclear infrastructure development. But on May 23, President Donald Trump signed four executive orders that represent the most explicit government commitment to nuclear power for artificial intelligence yet.
Three of the orders explicitly mention AI as a driver for nuclear energy development and a potential beneficiary. One directive incentivizes the operation of privately funded advanced nuclear reactor technologies on federal sites—mainly national laboratories or military installations—allegedly to power AI infrastructure, labelled as “critical defense facilities,” and mandates the deployment of small modular nuclear reactors on one of these sites within 30 months.
Previously, tech companies were the most vocal advocates pushing for nuclear power to meet AI’s energy demands. Now the US government—heavily influenced by Big Tech’s hand—has made nuclear power for AI a national security priority, setting a goal of quadrupling the United States’ nuclear capacity from 100 gigawatts to 400 gigawatts by 2050. Whether government intervention can overcome the challenges that have plagued nuclear deployment for decades remains to be seen—and if so, at what cost?
Déjà vu. As with the rise of the nuclear power industry in the 1950s and 60s, the demand for nuclear energy is being created, justified, and incentivized by the government and its national security interests rather than by market forces.
Robert Duffy, a professor of political science at Colorado State University, summarized the history of the US nuclear power industry in a 2004 paper.
“The atomic energy subgovernment was endowed with additional prestige and power because of the program’s identification with national security issues,” Duffy wrote. “The actors in this tightly knit monopoly were united by the conviction that the development of atomic energy, first as a weapon but later as a means of generating electricity, was both necessary and desirable for the nation’s welfare.”
Duffy showed that the government’s rush to create a nuclear industry in the United States ultimately undermined that very industry. The hasty development, government incentives, and ambitious timelines led to cost overruns, safety problems, and public opposition that ultimately killed new nuclear construction for decades.
Today, the Trump administration is repeating history by declaring AI technologies driven by advanced nuclear power generators a key national security interest.
“There seems to be an aspect to the government’s interest in AI which is sort of positing that as the next nuclear weapons race,” Tim Judson, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, observes. “If you expect the most powerful countries in the history of the world, and the wealthiest corporations that have ever existed, which are trying to develop […] ‘digital gods,’ to not do everything they can to win that race, then you don’t understand human nature, and you don’t understand geopolitics.”
But by trying to rush nuclear power development again for geopolitical reasons (then the Cold War, now the global AI race), the US government risks creating another failed—or at least costly and insufficiently safe—nuclear program…………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Sticky problems. Even without the economic hurdles, the fundamental problem remains timing, and presidential orders cannot change the laws of physics. As Mycle Schneider, an independent nuclear policy analyst and main contributor to the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, bluntly states: “I doubt that any SMR would be operating 10 years from now in the Western world.”
Schneider’s skepticism isn’t unfounded. Construction times for nuclear plants average around 10 years, he said, and that’s just the construction phase—which only begins with the pouring of reactor foundations. Even with the Trump administration’s regulatory streamlining and federal site access, the reality of nuclear development timelines clashes directly with AI’s immediate energy needs. “All of these deals with nuclear companies are about future power plants maybe coming online in the 2030s, but all the AI data centers are being built today,” Judson observes.
Small modular reactors have long been promoted by the industry—and now also the government—as a solution to nuclear power’s problems, promising faster construction, lower costs, and standardized designs. The Trump administration’s nuclear orders specifically enable SMR testing and deployment on federal sites, betting that government support can make SMR promises a reality.
But the reality has proven far more complex, even with unprecedented government backing. Canada’s recent approval of the world’s first SMR in a G7 country demonstrates both the promise and the problems. The project’s price tag sits at nearly $21 billion Canadian dollars ($15.1 billion US dollars) for four reactors at Ontario’s Darlington site, roughly $12.5 million US dollars per megawatt—far exceeding the costs of renewable alternatives that can be deployed in a fraction of the time. Even more so, Judson says the energy company GE Vernova-Hitachi chose to pursue its SMR project in Canada because the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission regulations allow construction permit applications to be submitted with much of the design still incomplete. “The jury is very much still out on whether the BWRX-300 [SMR design] will prove feasible to build on time and on budget, but what we know so far is not encouraging,” Judson said.
The long-term management of nuclear waste also poses a sticky issue to new nuclear development, especially the relatively higher waste per gigawatt from SMRs compared to full-scale reactors, which has no permanent solution yet……………………………………………………………. https://thebulletin.org/2025/07/the-first-us-atomic-rush-was-a-bust-will-trumps-big-nuclear-for-ai-plans-fare-any-better/
Trump’s Weapons Magic Show is Smoke & Mirrors Masterclass
Simplicius, Jul 15, 2025
Trump finally ‘wowed’ the world today with his grand announcement on punitive measures against Russia.
As usual, the announcement struck a dull and lackluster chord for most, with Russian markets jubilantly jumping by nearly 3% in response. But let’s dig in to see whether there is actually more meat on the bone of Trump’s scary threats than people give credit for.
Firstly, the timing: Axios now reports that Putin allegedly told Trump he plans to ‘intensify’ the Russian summer offensive in the next 60 days, with the goal—according to some sources—purportedly being to capture the remainder of nominal Russian territory, i.e. Donetsk, Lugansk, and Zaporozhye oblasts
Axios: According to Trump, Putin allegedly told him about plans to intensify the offensive in Ukraine in the next 60 days.
Trump shared details of the conversation with the Russian leader with his French counterpart Macron, adding: “He wants to take everything.”
It was after this conversation, according to the publication, that Trump criticized Putin and promised to increase arms supplies to Ukraine.
If there’s any hint of truth to such reports, then Trump’s “50-day notice” would seem to line up with Putin’s timeline, given that the conversation happened days ago, and thus Putin’s “60-day plan” would fall almost precisely on Trump’s deadline.
The basic interpretation of that could be that Trump is giving Russia two months to capture whatever territory it claims belongs to it, then “the hammer” will come down.
Now on the weapons side, as always, is where the biggest cloud of ambiguity lies. No one seems to know precisely what weapons and from what package will be sent, but according to CNN, it all sounds like more of the same, but just ‘repackaged’ with a new price tag.
Reports indicate the same air-to-air missiles, howitzer and GMLRS rounds will be sent as before, but simply that now NATO countries will foot the bill. Prior to that, under Biden’s PDA, the US was sending weapons directly to Ukraine from its own stockpiles, and then replenishing those stockpiles with new orders to the MIC, from taxpayer funds. Now, it will come from European taxpayer funds—a win for the US, we must admit.
But the biggest focal point were the Patriot ‘systems’. Again, the cloud of confusion—no one quite knows what the numbers represent: Patriot launchers, batteries, battalions, etc. Trump once mentioned the word ‘batteries’, but the numbers being discussed do not appear to realistically jibe. For instance, he mentioned sending “17” to Ukraine, but the US itself only has something like a total 50-70 active batteries, and obviously sending a third of its entire Patriot stock is unlikely.
When you really read between the lines, what Trump appeared to intimate was that the eventual goal is to scrounge up a larger amount of ‘systems’ for Ukraine, but “initially” only a tiny fraction will be sent. This is one of the few commenters who grasped the nuances of the mealy-mouthed ‘announcement’:
Recall that Rubio just recently implied the US has no more Patriots to give, a video I posted several updates ago. He called on Europe to give their Patriots instead, but quelle surprise, in a new FT article German Defense Minister Pistorius admitted that Germany will not be sending any Patriots nor Taurus missiles:
You can see in the above [on original], he goes on to say that Germany could purchase two systems from the US for Ukraine, instead. This is a kind of puerile shell game which is really meant to bolster the PR narrative that Ukraine is being ‘supported’ in order to keep hopes alive, so that the AFU doesn’t collapse from demoralization.
German Defense Minister Pistorius to Reuters:
Decision on two Patriots for Ukraine will be taken within days or weeks, but actual delivery of first system will take months.
In short: it’s a lot of hoopla to kick the can down the road again, repackaging the same policy with new fanfare.
The sanctions threat was likewise fraught with double-meaning. Trump called them ‘tariffs on Russia’, but in reality they are merely tariffs on US’ own allies:
Russia exports virtually nothing to the US which can be ‘tariffed’. The threat here is meaningless as these other heavyweights will not put up with Trump’s threat, forcing him to back away at the last moment as usual, then claiming “victory” after securing some other secondary fig leaf ‘deal’.
In conclusion: the entire charade appears to be a sneaky but brilliant act of jugglery by Trump, wherein he once again gives the appearance of major ‘action’ against Russia to silence critics and placate neocons, while in actuality doing little to further Ukraine’s war efforts, apart from plugging the previous status quo back onto life support. The act is meant to play both sides, relieving pressure on himself, while not overly risking his relationship with Putin in the hopes he can still clinch his big Nobel-earning armistice.
Notably, top-shelf items like JASSM missiles were all absent from the discussion, contrary to high-octane predictions from the peanut gallery the day before. Likewise, in the earlier-mentioned FT article, Pistorius once again categorically rejected—for the umpteenth time—the sending of Taurus missiles to Ukraine:
So, what are we left with? Essentially, the resumption of Biden’s PDA status quo with an ambiguous new promise of “a few” Patriot launchers, which is more a preliminary call to look for some potential stock among allies.
When asked what would happen after the 50 day mark if Putin refuses to back down, Trump told a reporter: “Don’t ask me that question.”
The bigger debate is whether Trump has now officially taken ownership of the war, despite his feeble attempts to impute his continued failings to Biden; many think so. But I still suspect Trump is trying his hardest to playact the stern and impatient taskmaster to signal ‘toughness’ against Putin for his deep state audience, all while actually trying to mitigate damage to US-Russian relations.
For instance, ‘senior officials’ told FT just two days ago that Trump still views Zelensky as the primary obstacle to peace:
That would likely make his ‘anger’ at Putin a put-on.
—
Intermezzo:
Ex-Russian prime minister Sergei Stepashin has a stark message for Germany, amidst all the militarization threats:
Moscow ‘knows location’ of German missile plants as Merz plans to hand Zelensky the bombs to hit ‘center of Russia’ — ex-PM Stepashin
Given that all the Trump-Ukraine weapons antics are merely an attempt to front-run and offlet some steam from the Russian summer offensives, let us now turn to frontline news:
Starting in western Zaporozhye Russian forces took over the remainder of Kamyanske:……………………………………………………………………………………….. https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/trumps-weapons-magic-show-is-smoke?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=168312161&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=c9zhh&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The next four phases of Ukraine’s collapse.
Now, a major collapse of Ukraine’s defense fronts along the entire or nearly entire battle line—which stretches from Kherson just north of Crimea in the east, then north through Donetsk to Kharkiv and Sumy—is imminent
by Gordonhahn, July 14, 2025, https://gordonhahn.com/2025/07/14/les-quatre-prochaines-phases-deffondrements-de-lukraine/
*Translated by Wayan, proofread by Hervé, for Saker Francophone .
I wrote some time ago : “ With the collapse of the front and the army on the verge of dissolving, Zelenskiy’s post-Maidan regime is deeply divided and in danger of dissolution, which could lead to state collapse, internecine warfare, and widespread chaos .” Below, I detail these four imminent or potential collapses—collapses of the battlefront, the Ukrainian army, the Maidan regime, and the Ukrainian state itself—because this issue is of crucial importance to the question of war or peace in Ukraine and to the challenges that will be faced in any reconstruction.
A dysfunctional Ukrainian army, regime, and state will prevent Kyiv from concluding any peace process and treaty that U.S. President Donald Trump or others might develop. In fact, the peace effort Trump is beginning to enlist Russian President Vladimir Putin in will almost certainly be thwarted by a cascade of two or more of the four major dysfunctions, collapses, and crises that appear to await Ukraine unless the war ends or a radical shift occurs in the correlation of Russian and NATO-Ukrainian forces. The first two of these collapses, of the front and the army, will almost certainly occur this year. The last two—of the Maidan regime and the Ukrainian state—may be postponed until next year.
The collapse of the military front in Ukraine
Ukraine’s defensive fronts have slowly weakened and increasingly collapsed over the past year. Throughout last year, Russian territorial gains and, for most of this year, Ukrainian losses increased monthly, just as I predicted more than a year ago. The infamous Institute for the Study of War , a Washington-based organization that relies on Ukrainian propaganda and turns itself into “ data ,” falsely claimed : “ Russian forces gained 4,168 square kilometers (1,609 square miles, GH), largely consisting of fields and small settlements in Ukraine and Kursk Oblast, at a reported cost of more than 420,000 casualties in 2024. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi said on December 30 that Russian forces suffered 427,000 casualties in 2024. ISW observed geotagged evidence to estimate that Russian forces advanced 4,168 square kilometers in 2024, indicating that Russian forces suffered approximately 102 casualties per square kilometer of Ukrainian territory seized .”
The propaganda element here lies primarily in the claim that Russia’s territorial gains were ” largely fields and small settlements ” and in the figures for Russian losses. The Russians seized ” largely fields and small settlements ” because the landscape of Ukraine, like that of any country, is largely made up of arable land and small villages.
However, Russia did capture several small towns and the main Ukrainian strongholds of Avdiivka, Vuhledar, Kurakhove, Selydove, Novosilevke, Toretsk, and almost all of Chasov Yar. The Russians may not have suffered 420,000 casualties over the course of the entire war, let alone in 2024. For 2024, the Mediazona institute—which, in affiliation with the BBC and the Russian opposition outlet Meduza , scours internet sources, social media, obituaries, and regional government announcements—counted 120,000 Russians killed in action between the start of the country’s ” special military operation ” in February 2022 and the end of 2024. It found that at least 31,481 Russian soldiers died between January 1, 2024, and December 17, 2024. Even if we increase this figure by 50%, taking into account the typical 1:3 ratio of killed to wounded, we still arrive at a figure of only about 180,000 Russian casualties in 2024, half of the reported Ukrainians/ ISW .
What is going on here? The acceleration of what I have called Russia’s ” attrition and advance ” strategy has been downplayed by ISW by accompanying it with data on territorial gains from the Ukrainian Defense Minister and other Ukrainian military sources on Russian losses in order to give the impression of massive Russian losses disproportionate to the ” modest ” territorial gains. This is done to support the Western myth that Russia is throwing away the lives of its soldiers in ” human wave ” attacks.
ISW carefully avoids the prospect of negative comparison by omitting any mention of Ukrainian casualties, mimicking the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and US-funded ” Ukrainian ” news outlets such as Ukrainskaya Pravda .
The raw data show that Russian territorial gains have indeed increased throughout the year on a nearly monthly basis, with the possible exception of December, which saw a decline compared to November. As Western media outlets finally began to expose the fallacy of the “ Ukraine is winning ” propaganda line in the fall of last year, the New York Times referenced data from a military expert with the Finland-based Black Bird group, Pasi Paroinen.
It turned out that Russian gains were being made all along the front line, from the north at Kharkiv to the south at Zaporozhye. Paroinen’s measurement of Russia’s overall gains in the first ten months of 2024 confirmed my own expectation of an intensified Russian advance. Russian advances during this period amounted to over 1,800 square kilometers and were made at an increasingly accelerated pace:
“ Half of Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine so far this year have been made in the last three months alone. In August, Ukraine’s defensive lines buckled and Russia quickly advanced 16 km. In October, Russia made its most significant territorial gains since the summer of 2022, as Ukrainian lines buckled under sustained pressure. October’s gains amounted to over 257 square km of land in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region alone .” Russian forces advanced 2,356 square kilometers in September, October, and November 2024, making 56.5% of their 2024 territorial gains during this period . November proved to be the most successful month for Russian forces in terms of territorial gains in 2024, “ advancing at the significantly higher rate of 27.96 square kilometers per day ” during that month.
ISW was careful not to compare Russia’s territorial gains in 2024 with those made in 2023, so as not to highlight the crucially important trend of accelerating Russian advances and Ukrainian retreats, but France 24 television picked up the slack . It noted that the Russian military had advanced in 2024 “ seven times more than in 2023 ,” taking “ 610 square kilometers in October and 725 square kilometers in November. These two months saw the Russians capture the most territory since March 2022, in the opening weeks of the conflict. Russia’s advance slowed in December, reaching 465 square kilometers in the first 30 days of the month. But it is already nearly four times greater than in the same month last year and two and a half times more than in December 2022. ”
Now, a major collapse of Ukraine’s defense fronts along the entire or nearly entire battle line—which stretches from Kherson just north of Crimea in the east, then north through Donetsk to Kharkiv and Sumy—is imminent. Some fronts may hold out longer, but they are unlikely to survive 2025. Russian forces are beginning to encircle the crucial industrial, mining, and transport center of Pokrovsk. After its fall, perhaps in two months, Moscow’s army will have a relatively unimpeded march toward Dnipro, Zaporozhye, and other points less south of the Dnieper. After that, the territorial advance will continue to accelerate at an ever-increasing pace and could lead to major breakthroughs across the Dnieper at any moment now, given the already dire and deteriorating state of Ukraine’s armed forces.
The collapse of the Ukrainian army
To read further: https://lesakerfrancophone.fr/les- quatre-prochaines-phases-dplombs-de-lukraine
Hoping for nuclear to boost the economy -will not end well.
Samuel Rafanell-Williams, Scottish CND:
MANY readers will be conscious of
the emerging PR operation to promote nuclear power and admonish the
Scottish Government over its long-standing opposition to new nuclear
projects in Scotland.
This comes at a time when The Ferret reported 585
cracks in the reactor of the Torness nuclear plant in East Lothian,
prompting fears about radioactive risks (Hunterston B power station was
closed in 2022 following the discovery of 586 reactor cracks).
The industrial messes of the Hinkley and Sizewell nuclear projects in England,
both running billions over budget, also don’t sweeten the case for
starting similar projects in Scotland.
Transparently, this media drive is
an attempt to manufacture consent for new potential nuclear plants in
Scotland in the wake of the UK Government’s recent proud announcement of
“Nuclear Britain”.
These PR efforts in Scotland are being led by
lobbyists like Britain Remade, a group composed of former Tory party
officials firmly committed to lifting Scotland’s ban on nuclear power, as
recently reported by Bella Caledonia.
Make no mistake, the UK
Government’s promotion of nuclear power is integral to its vision of a
war economy: massive investment, including exorbitant public expenditure,
into so-called “civilian” nuclear power (£40 billion-plus for Hinkley,
£40bn-plus for Sizewell) is a precondition for shoring up the nuclear
weapons industry. As Scottish CND have frequently argued, much of the same
technical expertise, personnel and fissile materials are required in both
fission and the production of warheads and propulsion reactors for naval
vessels. All nuclear states know building their omnicide weapons relies on
a nuclear power programme.
The National 11th July 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25305651.hoping-nuclear-boost-economy-will-not-end-well/
Energy Scotland’s John Proctor responds to The Herald’s pro-nuclear spread.
Nuclear power in Scotland – not needed, not economic, not wanted, not safe
Leah Gunn Barrett, Jul 07, 2025, https://dearscotland.substack.com/p/energy-scotlands-john-proctor-responds
Energy Scotland* convener John Proctor has given me permission to publish a letter he sent to The Herald in response to its series of pro-nuclear articles published at the end of June. The Herald is owned by London-based Newsquest which, in turn, is owned by US media conglomerate, Gannett. The Herald has not published his letter.
I see Joani Reid MP has joined Anas Sarwar MSP and Michael Shanks MP in the chorus calling for new nuclear energy plant in Scotland (The Herald 28th June).
Of course, Joani has no concerns about someone building one of these in her back-yard – as her back-yard is in London, but Michael Shanks was bit more bullish when he declared he would be relaxed about having a Small Modularised Reactor (SMR) erected in his constituency. I am not sure how the good people of Rutherglen feel about this.
What I find mystifying is the lack of proper scrutiny being applied to the claims made by those members of the Nuclear Energy All-Party Parliamentary Group and their well-funded nuclear lobbyists. It does not surprise me that they are unable to set out what configuration they favour, as the reactors which they claim will produce 400 MWs do not exist. They have not been manufactured, tested or installed – anywhere!
As an Engineer, I would be keen to ask the politicians if they have thought about some of the basic elements of a power plant. Do they have any ideas what the thermal capacity of the proposed reactors are? Have they understood what the cooling requirements might be? How about the status of design of the ‘core catcher’ (the system designed to prevent a Chernobyl type event)?
Be under no illusion, Ms Reid, Mr Shanks and Mr Sarwar and the Nuclear lobby are building a Potemkin village.
They of course don’t want to talk about the European Power Reactor (EPR) configuration being installed at astronomical cost at Hinkley C.
This project is forecast to cost £45,000,000,000 when it finally comes on line sometime next decade. It is not easy to get a proper sense of this sum – but it might surprise the readers of The Herald that this is the equivalent of paying £1 million every single day for 110 years – and this is just the construction cost. We have not even started talking about operational costs, asset management and asset decommissioning.
Hinkley C is the same configuration Labour have just committed to at Sizewell C. Are we really gullible enough to believe Julia Pyke (Managing Director of Sizewell C) when she assures us that the Consortium have learned the lessons from Hinkley C?
If I can be generous for a moment, and accept that they can achieve a 10% saving relative to Hinkley C, that would still indicate a £40 billion project cost – which is enough to build 80 hospitals similar to the Forth Valley Hospital.
When Ms Pyke was recently asked on BBC how the project was going, she answered airily that it is ‘on schedule and within budget’. I waited eagerly for the obvious follow up question – ‘What is the budget and schedule?’ but that question never came.
The supporters of nuclear energy tell us that we need these plants for baseload capacity. They fail to acknowledge that in Scotland, we already generate more capacity from renewables than we consume – and this surplus is only going to grow as we continue to see more investment in wind, solar, tidal and energy storage.
‘What about intermittency and lack of system inertia?’ is the nuclear advocates’ stock question when discussing the growth of renewables.
The answer is beautifully simple – we will continue to do what we do now – rely on gas fired CCGTs (Combined-Cycle Gas Turbines). Which is reassuring – as there will be no nuclear plant coming on stream anytime soon.
‘But what about Net Zero?’ might be the next question. Thankfully, there are a raft of solutions to this currently available and more coming on stream every week. For example, gas turbine manufacturers are again building on 50 years of experience of burning hydrogen in gas turbines, and they will be ready to burn hydrogen or blended hydrogen/methane as quickly as the hydrogen market can come on stream.
My prediction is that the hydrogen market will come on stream faster than any SMRs (Small Modular Reactors) can be built – and if UK politicians had a strategic bone in their body, they would be trying to beat our friends in Europe to win the hydrogen race.
However as we have seen with HS2 and the third runway at Heathrow, they will carry on with their blundering plans to build new nuclear.
This comes to the final question that is not asked of nuclear supporting friends in the English Labour and Tory parties. How will they reduce the cost of energy when they are committed to this ruinously expensive nuclear build program?
The UK Government have no answer to this – and this is why the Scottish Government must keep in place the moratorium on new nuclear in Scotland and continue their support of renewables such as tidal power and also fully commit to their Hydrogen Action Plan.
John Proctor
Convener – Energy Scotland
*Energy Scotland, a member of the Independence Forum Scotland (IFS), is an association of Scottish-based energy professionals committed to addressing Scotland’s energy challenge of building a secure, decarbonised, affordable energy system which benefits Scottish industry and consumers.
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