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Indonesia Bets On Thorcon’s Molten Salt Reactor, But History Suggests Trouble Ahead.

Indonesia has none of the ingredients that historically led to nuclear success. It has no prior nuclear fleet, no experience operating reactors, no large-scale nuclear workforce, no plans to build nuclear weapons and no tradition of standardized reactor builds.

Michael Barnard, Clean Technica, 27 Aug 25

Indonesia has taken a bold and likely problematic step with the announcement of its first, early stage regulatory approval for a nuclear power project. Thorcon International, a Singapore-based developer of molten salt reactors, has received permission from Indonesia’s regulator to evaluate a site for a demonstration plant on Kelasa Island. For a country of more than 270 million people with electricity demand that is still growing rapidly, this might appear to be a turning point. Yet if one examines history, technology, and the context in which this project is being launched, the chances of it succeeding look vanishingly small.

Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago, stretching across more than 17,000 islands, with only about 6,000 of them inhabited. This geography creates enormous challenges for the national grid, which is fragmented into multiple regional systems rather than a single interconnected backbone. Java and Sumatra host most of the country’s transmission infrastructure, while many outlying islands depend on small isolated grids. Remote communities often rely on diesel generators for electricity, which are expensive to operate and create significant local pollution…………………………………………………………….

 the government has announced a target of 10 GW of nuclear capacity by 2040, marking its first commitment to nuclear power.

If delivered, these additions would lift renewables to roughly 35% of the national mix while also introducing nuclear into the system for the first time. Looking further ahead, Indonesia targets 75 GW of new renewable capacity by 2035, supported by more than 10 GW of storage, reflecting the scale of investment needed to diversify away from coal and meet climate commitments.

Nuclear power has only succeeded when certain conditions were in place. In the mid-twentieth century, large economies aligned nuclear energy programs with nuclear weapons programs. They standardized on one design, built dozens of gigawatt-scale plants in sequence, trained workforces through government-led programs, and maintained focus for decades. Those programs were not efficient by today’s standards, but they were coherent and well-resourced.

Countries that did not follow that formula, such as Canada’s stop-start approach with CANDUs or the the last couple of decades of western nuclear reactor builds, ended up with mixed results and rising costs. Even China, which has mastered megaproject delivery, is struggling with nuclear because it has spread effort across too many designs and has not locked into the necessary standardization. While nuclear advocates in the west point to China’s build out as impressive, it is years behind on targets and falling further behind. It only achieved its 2020 target in 2024, is still well under its 2% of grid capacity target for 2025 and its scheduled construction through 2030 will leave it tens of GW off that target.

Indonesia has none of the ingredients that historically led to nuclear success. It has no prior nuclear fleet, no experience operating reactors, no large-scale nuclear workforce, no plans to build nuclear weapons and no tradition of standardized reactor builds. It’s not building dozens of standard and proven GW-scale reactors, but only 10 GW in total, starting with a 500 MW unproven design, and not necessarily repeating that one solution multiple times. So far they appear to have little political opposition to nuclear, but that doesn’t mean the bipartisan support required for a two to four decade strategic national construction program. The country is signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has eliminated highly enriched uranium that might be transferable to nuclear weapons from the countyr, so there is military strategic alignment and discipline to call upon.

The choice of a molten salt reactor adds another layer of difficulty. Molten salt designs were first tested at Oak Ridge in the 1960s. They worked in the lab but ran into issues with corrosion, material embrittlement, plugging of salt lines, and complex chemistry that had to be actively managed. They never scaled beyond a few megawatts of thermal output. In recent years, startups from North America to Scandinavia have revived the concept, promising walk-away safety and lower costs. Yet not a single one has delivered a commercial plant. Thorcon itself has never built or operated a reactor, anywhere. It is proposing to build large sealed modules in shipyards and tow them to Indonesia, an approach that exists only on paper.

……………………………..Germany tried thorium in its pebble-bed reactor, and India built an entire nuclear strategy around its domestic thorium reserves, planning a three-stage cycle that would eventually rely on advanced heavy water reactors fueled with uranium-233 bred from thorium. Yet in every case, thorium stopped short of commercial deployment. The complexity of fuel handling, the need for an initial fissile inventory of uranium or plutonium, and the sheer momentum of the uranium-fueled reactor fleet kept thorium in the category of “promising but not delivered.”

Thorcon’s original vision was built on thorium’s promise. Its very name, short for “Thorium Concept,” signaled an intention to commercialize molten salt reactors running on a thorium cycle. Early designs envisioned dissolving thorium in molten fluoride salt, breeding uranium-233 in situ, and demonstrating the fuel’s long-touted advantages. But as the company moved from concept to trying to build an actual plant in Indonesia, pragmatism set in. For a first-of-a-kind power reactor, relying on thorium would mean untested chemistry, uncertain licensing pathways, and even greater risk.

Indonesia’s proposed demonstration plant is therefore designed to run on conventional low-enriched uranium fuel dissolved in molten salt, not thorium. Thorium remains a potential long-term option in the design, but the Indonesian reactor will take the easier, more familiar path to get the project off the ground. In other words, while Thorcon began as a bet on thorium, its first potential real-world deployment has been scaled back to uranium, underscoring how thorium continues to hover at the edge of nuclear power rather than forming its core.

Bent Flyvbjerg’s work on megaprojects should be a warning. He has shown repeatedly that nine out of ten large projects go over budget and over schedule, and nuclear projects are consistently among the very worst. The average nuclear build is more than 100% over budget and about a decade late. Add in the fact that this is a first-of-a-kind reactor by a company with no track record, in a country with no nuclear infrastructure, and the probability of delivering on time, on budget, and at promised cost of electricity falls close to zero. Even if the project is eventually completed, it will almost certainly take much longer and cost much more than advertised, and the benefits to Indonesia will not match the rhetoric.

The alternative paths are clearer and less risky. Indonesia sits on some of the world’s richest geothermal resources and has significant hydro potential. Solar costs continue to fall and the archipelago has ample land and rooftops for deployment. With investment in storage, interconnections, and grid modernization, these resources could supply reliable and cheap electricity without the risks of nuclear. International partnerships like the Just Energy Transition Partnership are already funneling billions into renewables and grid upgrades. Building out this system is not trivial, but it does not carry the weight of unproven technologies, uncertain regulation, and the specter of megaproject failure that Thorcon does.

……………………..A better bet would be to double down on renewables, expand storage, and build the transmission backbone to connect islands and balance supply. That path has its own challenges but rests on proven technologies already delivering results worldwide. Indonesia has made a bold gesture toward nuclear. The sober assessment is that it will not pay off. https://cleantechnica.com/2025/08/26/indonesia-bets-on-thorcons-molten-salt-reactor-but-history-suggests-trouble-ahead/

August 28, 2025 Posted by | Indonesia, politics, thorium | Leave a comment

Wastewater release from Fukushima nuclear plant enters third year.

By Ian Stark, Aug. 25 (UPI) — 

The Japanese utility that keeps the nuclear fuel inside the damaged Fukushima plant cool reports its release of treated wastewater has entered its third year.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company announced Monday that it has completed its third discharge of Advanced Liquid Processing System treated water into the sea on Monday…………………

According to TEPCO, the ALPS is designed to remove 62 types of radioactive materials from the affected sea and dilute the water to lower the tritium levels. The water is considered “treated” to distinguish it from water yet to be decontaminated…………………………..

Around 70 tons of radioactive wastewater is produced daily at the plant, which cools the nuclear fuel that melted inside the reactor buildings at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. As of the first week of August, around 102,000 tons of treated water have been released. https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/08/25/Japan-Fukushima-nuclear-wastewater-TEPCO-radioactive/9871756140747/

August 27, 2025 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, wastes | Leave a comment

German experience shows transition to renewables possible for Taiwan and the world.


https://tcan2050.org.tw/en/nonuke-2/ 2025-08-19, Dr. Ortwin Renn |Professor emeritus of Environmental Sociology and Technology Assessment, Stuttgart University; Scientific Director emeritus, Research Institute for Sustainability at GFZ, Potsdam , Germany (RIFS)

I am writing to express my full support for your initiative to keep Taiwan’s nuclear power reactors permanently shut down and to accelerate the transition toward renewable energy. This position is not only grounded in scientific evidence but also in practical experience from countries such as my home country Germany that have successfully advanced toward a sustainable energy future.

In 2011, I served as a member of the German Federal Government’s Ethics Committee on a Safe Energy Supply, established after the Fukushima disaster. Our task was to assess the future role of nuclear energy in Germany. After extensive consultations with leading scientists, economic stakeholders, and civil society organizations, the Committee reached a consensual recommendation: to phase out nuclear energy within ten years while investing heavily in renewable energy sources. This decision was not only an ethical imperative but also based on sound economic and technological reasoning.

The results speak for themselves. Between 2011 and 2025, Germany’s share of renewable energy in electricity generation rose from 23% to over 54%—an increase of 230%. Nuclear power, which contributed less than 18% in 2011, was more than compensated for by renewables. In addition, the expansion of renewables significantly reduced reliance on fossil fuels, thereby contributing to climate protection and energy sovereignty.

Today, renewable energy is not only clean but also cost-competitive. The production of electricity from wind and solar power is now cheaper than generating electricity from coal or gas and even cheaper than nuclear power when comparing the costs of building new facilities. It is true that the transition requires substantial upfront investment in grid upgrades, storage systems, and backup solutions. However, once this infrastructure is in place, the long-term costs of renewable energy generation are lower than those of fossil or nuclear alternatives.

Germany’s relatively high electricity prices are not a consequence of renewables, but largely due to global gas price spikes and the cost of imported electricity. The long-term trend is clear: renewable energy is becoming the most economical, environmentally sound, and politically stable source of power.

The lessons for Taiwan are evident. A transition to renewable energy is possible, economically viable, and ultimately beneficial for society. It contributes to climate protection, environmental quality, and public health. It reduces dependence on imported fuels and avoids the long-term risks and costs associated with nuclear energy, including waste management and potential catastrophic accidents. Most importantly, it enables a decentralized and resilient energy system that benefits local communities.

Achieving this transformation requires significant investment and strong political will, but the German experience demonstrates that it is both feasible and advantageous. I strongly encourage Taiwan to seize this opportunity and prioritize a renewable-based energy future over a return to nuclear power.
https://tcan2050.org.tw/en/nonuke-2/

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Germany, renewable, Taiwan | Leave a comment

Older reactors more susceptible to accidents; Nuclear is not a viable climate solution.

 TCAN 19th Aug 2025, Statements of support from international energy scholars for Taiwan’s nuclear phase-out, Dr. M.V. Ramana | Professor; Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (SPPGA), University of British Columbia

There is a debate in Taiwan about possibly extending operations of its nuclear reactors that have been shut down. Doing so poses risks and will not help with mitigating climate change.

Risks Associated with Nuclear Power Plant Extensions 

As they age, nuclear plants become more susceptible to accidents. The likelihood of failures at reactors is often described by something called the bathtub curve. The failure rate is initially high due to manufacturing problems and operator errors associated with new technology. Then curving like a tub, the failure rate declines with experience. But then eventually it starts rising again as aging related wear and tear starts increasing. So, after some point in time, the dangers of continuing operations at nuclear reactors start increasing. As the examples of Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986 and Fukushima, Japan in 2011 show, the consequences of a nuclear accident can be catastrophic with long-lasting and financially expensive impacts.

Nuclear Power is not a Solution to Climate Change

Nuclear energy is one of the most expensive ways to generate electricity. This is the reason the share of the world’s electricity produced by nuclear power plants has been declining consistently since the mid 1990s. If one were to think about nuclear power as a solution to climate change, that share should be increasing while the share of fossil fuels must be decreasing. That is simply not happening. Investing in cheaper low-carbon sources of energy will provide more emission reductions per dollar. Second, it takes about a decade to build a nuclear plant. If you add the time needed for all the necessary preparatory steps—obtaining environmental and safety clearances, getting consent from a community that has to live near a hazardous facility for decades, and raising the huge amounts of funding necessary—you’re looking at 15-20 years.  This timeline is incompatible with the urgent demands of climate science. Thus, nuclear power fails on two key metrics for evaluating any technology claiming to deal with climate change.
https://tcan2050.org.tw/en/nonuke-2/

August 26, 2025 Posted by | safety, Taiwan | Leave a comment

Taiwan nuclear plant re-opening vote fails as approval threshold missed

By Ben Blanchard, August 23, 2025

TAIPEI, Aug 23 (Reuters) – A referendum to push for the re-opening of Taiwan’s last nuclear plant failed on Saturday to reach the legal threshold to be valid, though the president said the island could return to the technology in the future if safety standards improve.

The plebiscite, backed by the opposition, asked whether the Maanshan power plant should be re-opened if it was “confirmed” there were no safety issues. The plant was closed in May as the government shifts to renewables and liquefied natural gas.

The small Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) proposed the referendum earlier this year, and with the backing of the much larger Kuomintang (KMT) passed the legislation for the vote, saying Taiwan needs reliable power supplies and not to be so reliant on imports.

Around 4.3 million people voted in favour of the plant’s re-opening in the referendum, a clear majority over the 1.5 million who voted against, figures from the Central Election Commission showed.

But the motion needed the backing of one quarter of all registered electors – around 5 million people – to get through under electoral law, meaning the plant on Taiwan’s southern tip will not re-open.

Taiwan’s government says there are major safety concerns around generating nuclear power in earthquake-prone Taiwan and handling nuclear waste………………………..https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/taiwan-nuclear-plant-re-opening-vote-fails-approval-threshold-missed-2025-08-23/

August 25, 2025 Posted by | politics, Taiwan | Leave a comment

Taiwan Must Not Turn Back: A Message of Solidarity for a Post-Nuclear Future

TCAN, Statements of support from international energy scholars for Taiwan’s nuclear phase-out, 2025-08-19 Dr. Sun-Jin Yun | Professor and Dean, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Seoul National University

Taiwan has made history as the first country in Asia to phase out nuclear power. Even before its formal policy decision, Taiwan had already halted construction of two nearly completed reactors at the Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant. Then, following its bold commitment to denuclearization in 2016, Taiwan laid out a clear roadmap and proceeded to permanently shut down all six of its operating nuclear reactors by 2025. In total, eight reactors were removed from Taiwan’s energy future. This achievement stands as a global milestone—one that not only reflects the wisdom and determination of the Taiwanese people, but also shows what democratic leadership and civic engagement can accomplish in energy policy.

As a Korean educator and researcher who has supported Taiwan’s anti-nuclear movement—traveling across the island to share the experience of Seoul’s “One Less Nuclear Power Plant” initiative—I have seen firsthand the strength of Taiwan’s civil society. I was deeply inspired by how communities organized, informed, and mobilized to ensure that energy decisions would be made not by technocrats or corporations alone, but by the people. Taiwan’s experience became a source of hope and pride for many of us in Asia, proving that an energy transition rooted in justice and public engagement is indeed possible—even in societies with high electricity demand and heavy dependence on imported fossil fuels, where renewables are still being developed.

Taiwan’s nuclear phase-out was not just a policy—it was a people-powered choice for the future. Let’s not turn back. Let Taiwan lead again.

But today, that progress is under threat. Taiwan’s opposition parties have proposed a national referendum to restart the final two reactors that were recently shut down. On August 23, Taiwanese citizens will be asked to vote on whether to undo what they have so carefully and courageously accomplished. That is why I write this statement—not only to express concern, but to offer international solidarity.

While nuclear energy is often framed as a low-carbon tool for addressing climate change, the reality is more paradoxical: the worsening climate crisis itself is undermining the viability of nuclear power. As the crisis worsens, rising ocean temperatures reduce reactor cooling efficiency, while extreme weather events—such as typhoons and wildfires—and jellyfish blooms, fueled by ocean warming, increasingly threaten plant operations. And in a region prone to typhoons and earthquakes, the risk of catastrophe is never far away. Above all, nuclear energy produces radioactive waste for which no nation on Earth has found a safe, long-term solution.

Meanwhile, Taiwan has made remarkable strides in expanding solar and offshore wind. Your country is already charting a path toward a resilient, renewable energy future. To reverse course now would not only be scientifically and economically unwise—it would undermine the very civic spirit that brought you this far. The world is watching. Taiwan has led before, and you can lead again.

Please stay the course. A nuclear-free Taiwan is not only possible—it is already underway. Let us not go backward, but forward together.
https://tcan2050.org.tw/en/nonuke-2/

August 25, 2025 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, Taiwan | Leave a comment

KHNP And Westinghouse ‘Holding Talks’ Over Nuclear JV For US And Europe

By David Dalton, 22 August 2025, https://www.nucnet.org/news/khnp-and-westinghouse-holding-talks-over-nuclear-jv-for-us-and-europe-8-5-2025

Companies may cooperate on new build as they try to put legal dispute behind them.

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) and Westinghouse are holding talks to set up a joint venture for US and European projects as they try to move on from a legal settlement that has been criticised by politicians in Seoul, multiple press reports have said.

The UK daily Financial Times (subscription required) reported that KHNP’s chief executive will travel to Washington on Saturday to meet executives from Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse.

The proposed joint venture could pave the way for South Korean groups to expand in the US, where president Donald Trump has pledged to quadruple nuclear energy capacity by 2050.

“The two countries are expected to discuss ways to cooperate on nuclear power, including building nuclear power plants in the US,” a South Korean Democratic Party lawmaker told The Korea Economic 

The move comes after KHNP was awarded a 26 trillion won (€16bn, $18.6bn) contract in June to build two nuclear power plants at Dukovany in the Czech Republic, following the resolution in January of a long-running dispute over nuclear technology rights with Westinghouse.

Unconfirmed reports have said KHNP ceded leadership of nuclear projects in Europe to Westinghouse when it settled the dispute in order to secure the Dukovany contract.

As a result, KHNP is said to be barred from entering the nuclear markets of European Union member states – except the Czech Republic – the US, the UK, Japan and Ukraine.

Thi means it is restricted to pursuing projects in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, South America and Turkey, reports said.

According to press reports, KHNP and its parent company Korea Electric Power Corporation also agreed to pay Westinghouse $825m in goods, services and royalties per exported reactor over the next 50 years.

Westinghouse had accused the South Korean company of infringing on its intellectual property, claiming KHNP’s APR1000 and APR1400 plant designs use its licensed technology.

The January settlement removed a major hurdle for a KHNP-led consortium to sign the final Dukovany contract in June.

KHNP has withdrawn from bidding for nuclear deals in the Netherlands, Slovenia and Sweden in the past year. The company also said this week it had pulled out of a potential Polish project.

August 25, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, South Korea | Leave a comment

Fukushima nuclear plant decommissioning seen overrunning estimate

Fukushima nuclear plant decommissioning seen overrunning estimate. $35bn
already committed, with debris removal price ‘difficult’ to guess. The
amount spent or budgeted so far to decommission the Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear power plant has reached 5.2 trillion yen ($35.4 billion), it was
learned Friday, making it highly likely that the grand total will exceed
the government’s estimate of 8 trillion yen.

 Nikkei Asian Review 22nd Aug 2025, https://asia.nikkei.com/business/energy/fukushima-nuclear-plant-decommissioning-seen-overrunning-estimate

August 25, 2025 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

How did cs137, a fission product get into the Indonesian shipping container?

Dennis LENEVEU, 22 Aug 25,

Re: [Nuclear Waste Watch] US FDA guidance on health impacts of cesium exposure.

 Indonesia has only research reactors. If the cs137 contamination came from these small reactors what about all the large reactors such as CANDUs that have continual measured stack releases of beta gamma particulate that would contain cs137 that is volatile?

CANDUs emit large amounts of carbon 14 that has been measured at elevated levels in tree rings around Pickering. Cs137 would also be expected to be in tree rings wood. Wood is used as shipping containers and many other uses such as furniture and interior housing lumber and wood.

Both carbon 14 and cs147 are known to off gass. C14 is particularly a problem being a beta emitter that would never be measured. Cs137 is a gamma emitter that is easily measured with a Geiger counter. Carbon 14 off gassing has been documented in the Bruce low and intermediate level waste facility but is not routinely measured.

Huge amounts of carbon 14 has been deposited around reactors for years. Carbon14 accumulates in the biosphere. With a half life of 5730 years it’s all still around gradually building up in the environment. The stack releases allowed for reactors are based on airborne exposure only. The carbon 14 is greatly dispersed in the air but settles out and deposits in the environment. Gradual bioaccumulation is ignored in regulations for emission standards. 

August 24, 2025 Posted by | Canada, environment, Indonesia | Leave a comment

North Korea has ‘undeclared’ ICBM base near China border, according to new report.

ABC News, 23 Aug 25

In short:

A missile base near North Korea’s border with China poses a nuclear threat to Australia, East Asia and the US, a new report and an expert say.

There are likely up to nine nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles and launchers at the secret site.

A retired South Korean Army Lieutenant General says it is a “world problem”.

North Korea has built a secret military base near its border with China which may house Pyongyang’s newest long-range ballistic missiles, according to new research.

The Sinpung-dong Missile Operating Base lies about 27 kilometres from the Chinese frontier, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a report published on Wednesday.

The facility in North Pyongan Province likely houses six to nine nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and their launchers, the study said.

It said the weapons “pose a potential nuclear threat to East Asia and the continental United States”.

North Korea has ramped up its nuclear weapons programme since a failed summit with the US in 2019, and leader Kim Jong Un recently called for the “rapid expansion” of the diplomatically isolated nation’s nuclear capability.

The report — which CSIS called the first in-depth, open-source confirmation of Sinpung-dong — says the base is one of about “15-20 ballistic missile bases, maintenance, support, missile storage, and warhead storage facilities which North Korea has never declared”.

The facility is “not known to have been the subject of any denuclearisation negotiations previously conducted between the United States and North Korea”, the study said.

Citing their analysts’ current assessments, CSIS said the launchers and missiles could leave the base in times of crisis or war, link up with special units and conduct harder-to-detect launches from other parts of the country.

The base, along with others, “represent the primary components of what is presumed to be North Korea’s evolving ballistic missile strategy, and its expanding strategic-level nuclear deterrence and strike capabilities”, the report said.

Site built near China to deter attacks

In-Bum Chun, a retired South Korean Army Lieutenant General, told ABC’s Radio National that North Korea believed it could scare the US out of its alliance with South Korea by building these kind of missile bases…………………………………………….https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-22/north-korea-secret-missile-base/105684760

August 23, 2025 Posted by | North Korea, weapons and war | Leave a comment

South Korea’s state-run nuclear power firm barred from North America, Europe over intellectual property dispute: Report

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power president confirms South Korean company closed its operations in Poland

Berk Kutay Gokmen  |19.08.2025 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/south-koreas-state-run-nuclear-power-firm-barred-from-north-america-europe-over-intellectual-property-dispute-report/3663824

South Korea’s state-run nuclear power firm has been banned from bidding for new power plant projects in North America and Europe over an intellectual property (IP) dispute, the Seoul-based Yonhap News reported on Tuesday.

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) faces the IP dispute under its agreement with the US energy firm Westinghouse, signed in January, according to industry sources.

The sources mentioned that the KHNP cannot sign for new nuclear power plant deals in North America and the UK, Japan, Ukraine, and EU nations, excluding the Czech Republic.

The agreement was signed after Westinghouse accused the KHNP of infringing on its IP, claiming that the plant designs of the South Korean company utilize its licensed technology.

The deal had cleared a major obstacle for the KHNP-led Korean consortium to finalize a 26 trillion won ($18.7 billion) contract in June to build two nuclear power units in the Czech Republic.

The report came as the KHNP President Whang Joo-ho confirmed on Tuesday that the company had closed operations in Poland.

“After the new Polish administration took office … the country decided to drop the state-owned enterprise projects (in the nuclear power sector),” Whang said.

Poland became the fourth European country where the KHNP confirmed its business closure, following Sweden, Slovenia, and the Netherlands.

August 22, 2025 Posted by | politics international, South Korea | Leave a comment

Hundreds rally in Taipei against restart of No. 3 nuclear power plant.

Taiwan is an earthquake- and typhoon-prone island, which makes it unsuitable for the development of nuclear energy.

on May 17, Taiwan officially became a “nuclear-free homeland,” a status that was accomplished after 40 years of hard work, Shih said, calling for that to be retained.

Since the plant was closed, Taiwan has not experienced a power shortage, he said.

08/16/2025 , By Wu Hsin-yun and James Lo),
https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202508160014

Taipei, Aug. 16 (CNA) About 300 people took to the streets of Taipei on Saturday to campaign against an upcoming referendum on the restart of the Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant in southern Taiwan.

Led by the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU), the rally included members of the Taiwan Society North, World United Formosans for Independence, and political parties such as the Green Party Taiwan and New Power Party.

The approximately 300 participants walked from Taipei’s National Taiwan University to the Liberty Square, then to a Legislative Yuan building on Jinan Road, calling for the nuclear plant to remain closed.

The campaign was held ahead of the Aug. 23 referendum, which will ask voters to decide on the restart of the Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant that has been inoperative since May 17 when its No. 2 reactor unit was decommissioned after 40 years of service.

The advocates for and against the reopening of the plant, commonly known as Taiwan’s No. 3 nuclear plant, have been holding televised debates and various other activities to push their respective views.

At Saturday’s rally, TEPU founding chairman Shih Hsin-min (施信民) said that Taiwan is an earthquake- and typhoon-prone island, which makes it unsuitable for the development of nuclear energy.

With the retirement of the No. 3 nuclear plant on May 17, Taiwan officially became a “nuclear-free homeland,” a status that was accomplished after 40 years of hard work, Shih said, calling for that to be retained.

Since the plant was closed, Taiwan has not experienced a power shortage, he said.

The No. 3 nuclear power plant is an old facility, and restarting it would mean disregarding the future of Taiwan’s new generations, Shih said.

August 20, 2025 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, Taiwan | Leave a comment

Taiwan set to hold referendum on restarting last nuclear reactor.

Aug. 23 vote could reverse island’s nuclear phase-out amid fierce debate over energy security, safety, and politics

Girard Lopez  |17.08.2025, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/taiwan-set-to-hold-referendum-on-restarting-last-nuclear-reactor/3661615

TAIPEI, Taiwan

Taiwan will vote next week on whether to restart its last nuclear reactor, a move that could reverse the island’s “nuclear-free homeland” policy adopted in 2016.

The Aug. 23 referendum will ask voters if they agree to restart the Maanshan nuclear power plant’s second reactor in southern Taiwan if authorities find no safety concerns.

The unit was shut down in May under Taiwan’s nuclear phase-out plan.

The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) proposed the measure on April 18 with support from the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT).

Opposition-dominated local legislature approved it on May 20, and the Central Election Commission scheduled the vote for Aug. 23.

Both pro- and anti-nuclear energy advocates have held rallies and campaigns ahead of the vote.

To pass, the referendum needs support from over 25% of Taiwan’s 5 million eligible voters and more “yes” than “no” ballots.

Nuclear power supplied over half of Taiwan’s electricity in the 1980s but fell to about 6% in 2023 as reactors were decommissioned.

Taiwan had three nuclear reactor plants, all of which have been decommissioned gradually since 2018. The island’s fourth plant was never completed, and a 2021 referendum rejected restarting construction.

Supporters say nuclear energy is crucial for an island reliant on imported fossil fuels, especially amid geopolitical risks.

They cite its low carbon footprint and note that countries like Japan and some EU members have extended reactor lifespans.

TPP chairperson Huang Kuo-Chang criticized the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for missing its renewable energy target in a televised debate, saying: “Instead, coal plants are running at full capacity, worsening southern Taiwan’s air quality and harming public health, causing allergies from birth for many children as well as rising cardiovascular disease cases.”

Opponents warn of seismic risks, unresolved nuclear waste issues, and delays to renewable energy adoption.

They also contend that shifting to renewables should be gradual, much like phasing out coal, and argue the TPP and KMT’s preference for nuclear power is politically driven.

“Energy transition doesn’t mean shutting something down overnight. For example, if we shut all coal plants today, we’d instantly lose 40% of our power—unrealistic. Instead, we gradually reduce reliance on polluting or risky sources while scaling up cleaner ones,” said Lin Zheng Yuan of the Green Citizens Action Alliance.

August 18, 2025 Posted by | politics, Taiwan | Leave a comment

Vonnegut on Nagasaki: “The most racist, nastiest act by this country, after human slavery”

““The rights and wrongs of Hiroshima are debatable,” Telford Taylor, the chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, once said, “but I have never heard a plausible justification of Nagasaki” — which he labeled a war crime.”

Author: John LaForge,  August 7, 2014, https://www.peacevoice.info/2014/08/06/vonnegut-on-nagasaki-the-most-racist-nastiest-act-by-this-country-after-human-slavery/

For the full article:
Vonnegut on Nagasaki: “The most racist, nastiest act by this country, after human slavery”
877 Words

“The rights and wrongs of Hiroshima are debatable,” Telford Taylor, the chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, once said, “but I have never heard a plausible justification of Nagasaki” — which he labeled a war crime.

In his 2011 book Atomic Cover-Up, Greg Mitchell says, “If Hiroshima suggests how cheap life had become in the atomic age, Nagasaki shows that it could be judged to have no value whatsoever.” Mitchell notes that the US writer Dwight MacDonald cited in 1945 America’s “decline to barbarism” for dropping “half-understood poisons” on a civilian population. The New York Herald Tribune editorialized there was “no satisfaction in the thought that an American air crew had produced what must without doubt be the greatest simultaneous slaughter in the whole history of mankind.”

Mitchell reports that the novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. — who experienced the firebombing of Dresden first hand and described it in Slaughterhouse Five — said, “The most racist, nastiest act by this country, after human slavery, was the bombing of Nagasaki.”

On Aug. 17, 1945, David Lawrence, the conservative columnist and editor of US News, put it this way: “Last week we destroyed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Japanese cities with the new atomic bomb. …we shall not soon purge ourselves of the feeling of guilt. …we…did not hesitate to employ the most destructive weapon of all times indiscriminately against men, women and children. … Surely we cannot be proud of what we have done. If we state our inner thoughts honestly, we are ashamed of it.”

If shame is the natural response to Hiroshima, how is one to respond to Nagasaki, especially in view of all the declassified government papers on the subject? According to Dr. Joseph Gerson’s With Hiroshima Eye, some 74,000 were killed instantly at Nagasaki, another 75,000 were injured and 120,000 were poisoned.

If Hiroshima was unnecessary, how to justify Nagasaki?

The saving of thousands of US lives is held up as the official justification for the two atomic bombings. Leaving aside the ethical and legal question of slaughtering civilians to protect soldiers, what can be made of the Nagasaki bomb if Hiroshima’s incineration was not necessary?

The most amazingly under-reported statement in this context is that of Truman’s Secretary of State James Byrnes, quoted on the front page of the August 29, 1945 New York Times with the headline, “Japan Beaten Before Atom Bomb, Byrnes Says, Citing Peace Bids.” Byrnes cited what he called “proof that the Japanese knew that they were beaten before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.”

On Sept. 20, 1945, Gen. Curtis LeMay, the famous bombing commander, told a press conference, “The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.”

According to Robert Lifton’s and Greg Mitchel’s Hiroshima in America: 50 Years of Denial (1995), only weeks after August 6 and 9, President Truman himself publicly declared that the bomb “did not win the war.”

The US Strategic Bombing Survey, conducted by Paul Nitze less than a year after the atom bombings, concluded that “certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and ever if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

Likewise, the Intelligence Group of the US War Department’s Military Intelligence Division conducted a study from January to April 1946 and declared that the bombs had not been needed to end the war, according to reports Gar Alperovitz in his massive The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. The IG said it is “almost a certainty that the Japanese would have capitulated upon the entry of Russia into the war.”

Russia did so, Aug. 8, 1945, and as Ward Wilson reports in his Five Myths about Nuclear Weapons, six hours after news of Russia’s invasion of Sakhalin Island reached Tokyo — and before Nagasaki was bombed — the Supreme Council met to discuss unconditional surrender.

Experiments with hell fire?

Nagasaki was attacked with a bomb made of plutonium, named after Pluto, god of the underworld earlier known as Hades, in what some believe to have been a ghastly trial. The most toxic substance known to science, developed for mass destruction, plutonium is so lethal it contaminates everything nearby forever, every isotope a little bit of hell fire.

According to Atomic Cover-Up, Hitoshi Motoshima, mayor of Nagasaki from 1979 to 1995, said, “The reason for Nagasaki was to experiment with the plutonium bomb.” Mitchell notes that “hard evidence to support this ‘experiment’ as the major reason for the bombing remains sketchy.” But according to a wire service report in Newsweek, Aug. 20, 1945, by a journalist traveling with the president aboard the USS Augusta, Truman reportedly announced to his shipmates, “The experiment has been an overwhelming success.”

US investigators visiting Hiroshima Sept. 8, 1945 met with Japan’s leading radiation expert, Professor Masao Tsuzuki. One was given a 1926 paper on Tsuzuki’s famous radiation experiments on rabbits. “Ah, but the Americans, they are wonderful,” Tsuzuki told the group. “It has remained for them to conduct the human experiment!”
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John LaForge is a Co-director of Nukewatch, a nuclear watchdog and environmental justice group in Wisconsin, edits its quarterly newsletter, and writes for PeaceVoice.

August 16, 2025 Posted by | history, Japan, Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

The Bombs Still Ticking

Eighty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the trauma of nuclear warfare lingers for thousands of survivors in Japan.

Progressive Magazine, by Jim Carrier ,August 6, 2025

n the cryogenic silence of frozen biological material stored in her radiation lab, Dr. Ayumi Hida hears a lesson for the nuclear age: “The atom bomb must not be used ever again.”

Hida is the Nagasaki chief of clinical studies for the longest continuous health survey in history, a remarkable effort begun days after the destruction of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Her work has helped to establish that Japanese people still suffer—physically, mentally, and socially—from two atomic bombs dropped, as of August 2025, eighty years ago.

As Japan marks these anniversaries on August 6 and 9, decades of medical exams by Hida and her colleagues at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), along with evidence from its massive collection of preserved blood and tissue, have revealed that the nuclear genie unleashed in 1945 is still at work.

RERF has found in Japan’s bomb survivors new cancers, heart and immune problems, strokes, inflammation, leukemia, and even a form of cataracts—atop the usual maladies of old age. With a mean age of eighty-five, their ranks dropping by some 6,000 a year, 106,825 Japanese atomic bomb survivors—known as hibakusha, a term meaning “bomb-affected people”—also suffer from post-traumatic stress.

“They say, ‘I have an atomic bomb nest in my body,’ ” Dr. Masao Tomonaga tells The Progressive. Tomonaga, eighty-two, a hibakusha himself, cares for 400 survivors in a nursing home.

“The human consequences of the atomic bombs have not ceased,” he has written. “Many people are still dying of radiation-induced malignant disease. Therefore, it is too early to finalize the total death toll. Hibakusha have faced a never-ending struggle to regenerate their lives and families under the fear of disease.”

Honored for their anti-nuclear activism—the national Japanese hibakusha group known as Nihon Hidankyo won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2024—their unique stories describe what it was like to live through the only nuclear attacks in history. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where peace is a subject taught in schools, hibakusha speak regularly, so much so that students sometimes complain that they’ve heard it before.

Every living hibakusha is a walking laboratory, an experiment in the human effects of nuclear war. It is this story that is now emerging from long-term studies. “Fat Man,” the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, killed 73,000 of the city’s 240,000 citizens, either instantaneously or by the end of 1945, with a combination of blast wind, thermal burns, and radiation—or, in some cases, all three. Fat Man’s twenty-one-kiloton yield surpassed the Hiroshima uranium bomb’s fifteen kilotons, but its effect was partially shielded by Nagasaki’s hilly Urakami River canyon over which it exploded.

Six hundred yards from ground zero on the day of the blast, Nagasaki’s medical college and hospital lost half of its staff and students, but the survivors set up first-aid stations within days. The injuries they saw ranged from embedded glass to ruptured intestines to carbonized skin flash-burned by the radiation. Tomonaga wrote that “according to the saddest memory of some survivors, the blast wind tore off the heads of babies who were being carried on their mothers’ backs in the traditional Japanese way. Most of the mothers also died.”

By that September, U.S. Army, Navy, and Manhattan District teams, with doctors, pathologists, and physicists, arrived together with occupying forces. Their mission was driven, largely, by a desire to understand the bomb’s effects and how the United States could protect itself from a nuclear bomb in the future. At the time, radiation was a new and mysterious force, and discoveries were mostly classified. Information about radiation and anything related to the bombings would be censored in the Japanese media until 1952.

Within weeks, however, the effects of the radiation began to show up in individuals—loss of hair, bloody diarrhea, peeling skin. Autopsies were performed and organs—such as hearts, lungs, eyes, brains—from hundreds of victims were taken to the U.S. military’s Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C., where, in a secret, bomb-proof laboratory, the effects of high radiation were studied, analysis that helped create the guidelines and warnings for radiation exposure used worldwide today. The last organs, slides, and tissues were returned to Japan in 1973.

n October 12, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur ordered the merger of Japanese and American medical studies on the bombings under the leadership of sixty American and more than ninety Japanese physicians and scientists. The Joint Commission for the Investigation of the Effects of the Atomic Bombs evolved, in 1975, into RERF, with labs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It is supported by the Japanese government and with $14 million annually from the U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Environment, Health, Safety and Security.

In 1950, Japan identified 94,000 bomb survivors and a control group of 27,000 people who were not exposed to the bomb, and began a lifetime epidemiological study of cancer and causes of death. Of that initial group of survivors, 25,000 adults are still being followed closely as they age for signs of any effects of radiation.

Every day at the RERF lab in Nagasaki, five of these patients arrive for their two-year screening. Blood is drawn, urine is collected, they are given a physical, and quizzed about their medical history and lifestyle. Living cells are stored in liquid nitrogen tanks—to date 2.3 million tubes of blood are stored there, Hida reports. Serum, plasma, and urine are put in freezers. The lab also holds half a million paraffin blocks of tissue and nearly one million autopsy and surgical slides, some dating back to 1945, she tells The Progressive. RERF is also following 77,000 children of bomb survivors and 3,600 people who were in their mothers’ wombs at the time when the bombs exploded. These efforts have helped RERF to identify three chronological phases of atomic bomb casualties.

By 1949, 210,000 survivors thought to be in relatively good health began to encounter the first signs of malignancy—leukemia, caused by radiation’s damage to blood cells. Cases in children and adults four-to-five times greater than those not exposed rose until 1955, and leveled out for a decade after that.

Around 1960, solid cancers began to appear, their numbers peaking in 2000 and remaining at that level since, Tomonaga reports. They included lung, breast, thyroid, stomach, colon, liver, skin, and bladder cancers. Some patients had three to five different cancers—all originating independently, rather than metastasizing from a source organ.

The third phase, evident now, includes a second wave of leukemia called myelodysplastic syndrome. This development, which occurs in the elderly at a rate of four times that of the general population, indicates that damaged cells in the bone marrow of children in 1945 have survived for more than seventy years in their bodies. Tomonaga’s hypothesis is that stem cells, which are designed to generate replacement cells in their host organ, “eventually transform to malignant cells” when gene abnormalities accumulate. In essence, they become tiny cancer factories, Tomonaga tells The Progressive. “It can be said that the atomic bomb is still killing some hibakusha.”

Statistically, 46 percent of leukemia deaths and 10 percent of solid cancer cases in Japan between 1950 and 2000 are attributable to the bomb’s radiation.

It is also known that Nagasaki’s plutonium bomb was inefficient—only one of the six kilograms of plutonium exploded—leaving most of its atoms intact. Plutonium particles, with a half-life of 24,000 years, have been discovered in lake bottoms, in spots where black rain fell ten to fifty miles from the hypocenter, and in the lungs and bones of people who died soon after the bombing. It’s possible, Tomonaga has written that the plutonium particles “continue to emit alpha rays intermittently and injure lung cells nearby, causing lung cancer.” This potential has yet to be studied.

As Japan recovered from World War II, hibakusha were shunned and discriminated against by non-bomb-affected families who feared that the hibakusha’s exposure to radiation would be harmful to them and their offspring. This belief arose from the many cases of miscarriage, deformities, and stillbirths of babies who were in utero when the bomb exploded, amid a long-held cultural embrace of purity and distaste for pollution.

This stigma remains today. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://progressive.org/magazine/the-bombs-still-ticking-carrier-20250806/

August 12, 2025 Posted by | health, Japan | Leave a comment

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