Russian atomic energy agency claim that drone strike damaged Europe’s largest nuclear plant just a ‘propaganda ploy’, Ukraine military says. What we know on day 1,558
Russia’s state nuclear energy company Rosatom said on Saturday a Ukrainian drone had struck the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, but had not caused damage to key equipment. Rosatom’s head Alexei Likhachev called the incident “deliberate” and said it left a hole in the wall of a turbine hall. “This afternoon, a Ukrainian kamikaze combat drone struck the turbine hall building of Power Unit No. 6, resulting in a subsequent detonation,” Likhachev said in a statement.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was captured by Russia in March 2022 and remains close to the frontline in the south-eastern Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia region. Kyiv military have denied Russian claims as “yet another propaganda ploy”, saying its troops did not strike power unit No. 6 at the plant. “Ukrainian servicemen act strictly within the international humanitarian law and are fully aware of the consequences of any actions targeting nuclear facilities,” the military said in a statement. “At the relevant section of the frontline, there was no active fighting during the incident, and no weapons were used.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Saturday said it has been informed by the Zaporizhzhia plant that a drone had struck a turbine building at the site. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi expressed serious concern about the reported incident. “Attacking nuclear sites is like playing with fire,” he said. The IAEA’s team has requested access to examine the affected turbine building first-hand, the agency said in an X post.
Ukrainian drone strikes caused fires at more Russian oil facilities overnight into Saturday, Russian officials said, in what appeared to be the latest attack on Moscow’s oil industry. Authorities in Russia’s Rostov region said falling drone debris sparked a fire that damaged an oil depot and tanker in the port of Taganrog, while officials in the neighbouring Krasnodar region reported a fire breaking out at an oil depot in Armavir for the same reason.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on X noted the Krasnodar attack and said: “We are rightfully bringing the war back to where it came from.”
Russian tennis players at the French Open about their stance on the war, after her third-round exit at the French Open. Oliynykova lost in straight sets to Russia’s Diana Shnaider. The Ukrainian said players from Russia were allowed to participate in international tournaments even though they openly took part in events sponsored by Russian companies linked to the war effort or even after what she said was promoting the positions of Russia in relation to the war on social media.
This is disturbingly similar to what Donald Trump did earlier this year when he gutted the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the US Environmental Protection Agency
This is disturbingly similar to what Donald Trump did earlier this year when he gutted the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the US Environmental Protection Agency
Plans by the Labour Government to make it harder for communities to oppose infrastructure projects near them, such as nuclear power plants, have been criticised by campaigners and a legal expert.
The Treasury announced on 20 May that the chancellor was expected to:
use Parliament to drive through power plants and infrastructure [by giving] Parliament the authority to approve critical energy schemes and better protect infrastructure projects from judicial review.
People with concerns about major infrastructure projects – sometimes called nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs), which includes nuclear power plants – are able to request that judges review applications for building NSIPs.
Those judicial reviews have the potential to bring an end to projects if judges agree with arguments put forward by people pursuing the reviews.
Now, the government is proposing to give government proposals for some major projects “the same status as laws passed by elected decision makers,” according to one legal expert who spoke to the Canary, which appears to “have significant constitutional implications”.
Treasury announcement
The announcement by the Treasury said:
The headline proposal would allow Parliament to designate and approve the most important clean energy projects as being of ‘Critical National Importance’ (CNI), reducing the exposure from judicial review on all but human rights grounds.
This would help deliver the government’s commitment to accelerate new infrastructure development and drive growth, including much-needed projects like new power stations and offshore wind farms.
For all other nationally significant infrastructure – including transport and water projects – the government will introduce a fixed legal challenge window, at the end of which the planning consent could be updated to address any legitimate issues.
Plans to give government proposals same status as acts of parliament ‘concerning’ – lawyer
Leigh Day is a law firm “established to combat injustice,” its website says.
The firm has represented a variety of clients who have used judicial reviews to oppose major infrastructure projects.
Leigh Day partner Ricardo Gama told the Canary:
The government appears to be introducing further limits on communities’ ability to have large infrastructure decisions examined by the courts.
The suggestion that projects with political backing should enjoy the same status as acts of parliament, but be spared parliamentary scrutiny, is concerning.
It appears to have significant constitutional implications because it would alter the relationship between government, parliament and judges, giving government proposals the same status as laws passed by elected decision makers.
Limiting legal challenges ‘harms democracy’ and reduces ‘oversight of the nuclear industry’
The government is cynically using the crisis in the Middle East to justify limiting transparency and the ability of local communities and campaign groups to appeal the railroading of costly and dirty nuclear power projects.
Limiting the appeals process harms democracy and much needed oversight of the nuclear industry – but will not change the fact that nuclear power relies on the dirty process of extracting and processing uranium for fuel and leaves a legacy of toxic waste that lasts for generations.
The government’s plan to cut regulations and limit the scope for judicial reviews essentially means this industry will be more dangerous.
This is disturbingly similar to what Donald Trump did earlier this year when he gutted the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Anti-Sizewell C campaigners rail against notion that Sizewell C was delayed by judicial reviews
If Sizewell C was genuinely delayed by judicial reviews, why did the National Audit Office (NAO), who would have spoken at length to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and Sizewell C during their enquiries, not say so?
Backing the builders not the blockers, the government will work with the judiciary to cut the amount of time it takes for a judicial review to move through the court system for nationally critical infrastructure projects by around half a year, like Sizewell C.
Then, in May 2026, a National Audit Office (NAO) report about Sizewell C poured cold water on the idea that judicial reviews had delayed the project. It explained reasons for delays and judicial reviews were notably absent from the list.
The NAO report said:
DESNZ started formal negotiations with EDF for SZC in 2021 and initially expected to reach ’financial close’, when contracts take effect, by the end of March 2023. DESNZ and HM Treasury made a final investment decision (FID) in July 2025, having agreed terms with EDF and other private investors.
This was 4.5 years after negotiations started and at least 28 months later than originally planned. The project was delayed several times, including by the 2024 General Election; responding to feedback from potential investors and the government’s internal assurance processes; and longer than expected negotiations with EDF and the other investors. Financial close was reached in November 2025.
The Stop Sizewell C spokesperson continued:
If the Chancellor is going to persist in using such offensive language, she really ought to get her facts right.
Labour still doesn’t get it – we cannot build a sustainable future by weakening our environmental safeguards and legal rights.
Reeves’ draconian policy change is built on the false premise promoted by the nuclear industry and right wing lobbyists that Sizewell C was excessively delayed by judicial review challenges – this does not stand up to scrutiny.
Reeves’ plans will need to be scrutinised by MPs and peers, and the challenge to the Prime Minister’s leadership means it is unclear whether the government will be able to command the confidence of the House of Commons to enable the Chancellor’s plans to make it harder to judicially review some major projects.
Europe could source half its critical materials from waste by 2050, study finds. Recovery systems could help the region reclaim up to 5.7 million tonnes of critical raw materials (CRMs) that are currently thrown away, reducing European reliance on imported materials and strengthen supply chain resilience.
The findings were published as part of the Future Availability of Secondary Raw Materials (FutuRaM) project, which seeks to map Europe’s ‘urban mine’ of unused or wasted metals and minerals lost in discarded products, industrial residues and demolished infrastructure across the EU27+4 (EU, UK, Switzerland, Iceland and Norway).
CRMs – including rare earth metals, lithium and cobalt – underpin a host of modern technologies, from smartphones and electric vehicles (EVs) to solar panels and wind turbines. But currently, when these technologies reach the end of their usable lives, many of these important materials are discarded, too.
Norway on Wednesday became the ninth country to join the France-led nuclear deterrence scheme, the leaders of both countries said. President Emmanuel Macron announced in March that France – the only nuclear-armed country in the EU – would extend its nuclear deterrence scheme to willing European partners.
“In the past six months, we have entered into defence agreements with both Germany and the UK, and I am pleased that we have signed a comprehensive defence agreement with France today,” Macron said.
In March, Macron unveiled a programme under which France, the European Union‘s only nuclear-armed country, would use its atomic stockpile to boost security on the continent.
Under the so-called “forward” nuclear deterrence scheme, those who join will be able to temporarily host French “strategic air forces”, which will be able to “spread out across the European continent” to “complicate the calculations of our adversaries”, Macron said at the time…..
“The agreement also provides a framework for closer cooperation on hybrid warfare, maritime security, space cooperation, cybersecurity, support to Ukraine and defence industrial cooperation.”
France has an estimated 290 nuclear warheads, according to the latest figures released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). More than 80 percent of France’s warheads are submarine-launched, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
An anti-nuclear group has successfully raised £20,000 for legal fees to take on Sellafield and the Environment Agency (EA) for a second time.
The Lakes Against Nuclear Dump (LAND) group previously failed a High Court attempt for a judicial review into the EA decision to award Sellafield a licence to extract water from the decommissioning site in Lancashire.
After the failed attempt in 2025, the new funds will look to overturn the development of a new radioactive waste storage facility.
Its leader, Marriane Birkby, fears the construction of a tunnel underground as part of the work will lead to the discharge of contaminated water into the River Ehen and River Calder, respectively.
Sellafield plans to pump water taken from the construction site to on-site storage tanks for testing prior to being discharged directly into the sea.
It has no plans to discharge into either River Ehen or Calder.
Toads, Salmon and water leaks
Birkby had previously taken issue with the length of time taken for a judge to dismiss the group’s previous attempt for a review.
If an appeal is approved, the group will argue the EA failed to conduct due diligence in assessing wildlife concerns, mainly Atlantic salmon and natterjack toads.
Natterjack toads are a protected species and reportedly inhabit a location less than a km south west of the site. Atlantic salmon, also protected, have a migration route along the River Ehen.
The group will use law firm Leigh Day to set out the grounds of appeal to overturn the original quashing of the judicial review.
High Court Judge Karen Ridge previously ruled that an assessment of the River Ehen special area of conservation wasn’t necessary “because it was considered unnecessary” as the extraction of water “was not likely to have a significant effect.”…………………..
Sellafield labelled ‘most hazardous’ UK building
Sellafield has previously been under fire from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The agency had told the public accounts committee (PAC) in the House of Commons that Sellafield’s Magnox swarf storage silo (MSSS) was “the most hazardous building in the UK”.
Economist and diplomat Jeffrey Sachs is calling on German Chancellor Merz to begin immediate talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin about peace in Europe.
Jeffrey D. Sachs | May 27, 2026 | Berliner Zeitung
When I wrote an open letter to you a half year ago, I urged Germany to pursue diplomacy with Russia rather than the normalization of war. Six months later, the situation in Europe is dramatically worse. Europe and Russia are slipping into open war. And in that drift, Chancellor, your responsibility is singular. No European leader — not in Paris, not in Warsaw, not in Rome — holds the position that Germany holds, or has the power that you personally hold, to interrupt this catastrophe. Will you try for peace?
You yourself, with Prime Minister Meloni and President Macron, called in January 2026 for Europe to restart relations with Russia and described Russia as „a European country.“ Yet you did not pursue diplomacy. With the future of Europe at stake, this is an extraordinary abdication of leadership. Have you, in your months as Chancellor, attempted one substantive dialogue with President Putin? Has your foreign minister attempted one substantive dialogue with Foreign Minister Lavrov? Real conversations, the kind that ended the Cold War. The answer, as far as the public record reveals, is no. Not once. And not for want of recognizing the urgency.
The past days have brought a dangerous acceleration that should focus every European mind. Both capitals are now under sustained attack: Ukrainian long-range drones have struck deep into Moscow, including civilian sites; Russian missile and drone strikes against Kyiv have greatly intensified. Ukrainian drones have crossed into the airspace of the Baltic states, raising the immediate prospect of an incident that could pull Europe directly into the war. A horrific Ukrainian strike on a boys’ school in Lugansk has further eroded what little remains of restraint. And on May 25, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, acting on instructions from President Putin, formally notified the United States Secretary of State that the Russian Armed Forces are now launching „systematic and sustained strikes“ on facilities and decision-making centers in Kyiv, and the Russian Foreign Ministry has advised that the United States and other countries „ensure the evacuation of their diplomatic personnel and other citizens from the capital of Ukraine.“ That message is the prologue to a major escalation. Diplomacy is more urgent than ever.
The way to defend Ukraine is not continued slaughter, but peace on terms that are agreeable to all parties. Instead, we face escalation, with more deaths, more destruction, and the real prospect of a war that expands beyond Ukraine. By calling for ever more weapons, ever greater war-fighting capacity, and ever louder demonstrations of „resolve,“ and by signaling that Germany is preparing for war rather than working to end it, you have allowed Berlin to become an accelerant rather than a brake to a European-wide war.
Germany’s Responsibility: Six Particulars Germany bears profound responsibility for the situation it now confronts. Before German policy can be reset toward peace, Germany’s record must be confronted honestly. I set out below six serious failures of German foreign policy vis-à-vis Russia since German reunification in 1990.
First — the 2+4 Treaty and NATO’s eastward expansion. On 12 September 1990, in Moscow, Germany signed the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany — the „2+4 Treaty“ — that completed German reunification. That treaty was secured because Mikhail Gorbachev was given solemn assurances, by Hans-Dietrich Genscher, by Helmut Kohl, by James Baker, and by other Western leaders, that NATO would not move eastward. The declassified record — including the now-public memoranda assembled by the National Security Archive of George Washington University — is unambiguous: those assurances were given and were clearly meant at the time to apply beyond the territory of the former GDR to Eastern Europe. These assurances were reaffirmed through 1990 and 1991.
The 2+4 Treaty restricts the placement of NATO troops in the former GDR, and recalls the principles of the Helsinki Final Act, which emphasizes that no nation’s security should come at the expense of another’s. Does any serious person believe that the Soviet Union cared about Western troops on the territory of the former GDR but was indifferent to NATO armies in Warsaw, Vilnius, or Kyiv? Of course not.
The matter of NATO enlargement was discussed in detail and explicit assurances of non-enlargement to the East were given by Germany to the Soviet leaders — and then were broken. Germany was the principal beneficiary of those assurances, which were the quid pro quo for Germany’s reunification. Yet as early as 1993, German leaders began to promote the violation of those assurances.
Second — Chancellor Merkel’s own testimony. In her memoirs, Angela Merkel writes with striking candor that she understood at the time of the 2008 Bucharest Summit that inviting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO would be tantamount to a declaration of war on Russia. She knew Russia’s red line. And yet she gave in to American pressure, accepting the compromise communiqué that Ukraine and Georgia „will become“ NATO members. That single sentence set in motion the catastrophes of 2014 and 2022. Merkel’s later candor is a gift to her successors: she has told you, plainly and in her own words, what was understood at the time. Germany should not now pretend otherwise.
Third — the betrayal of the February 21, 2014 agreement. On 21 February 2014, in Kyiv, Germany’s then–Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, together with his Polish and French counterparts, brokered an agreement between President Yanukovych and the opposition. The agreement provided for a return to the 2004 constitution, the formation of a national-unity government, and early presidential elections. President Putin was consulted; the agreement was confirmed. It was a serious diplomatic achievement under conditions of intense violence. Yet within twenty-four hours Yanukovych was forcibly overthrown by a violent coup. Germany did not insist on the agreement it had just guaranteed. Instead, following the U.S. lead, Germany backed the new government, as if there had been no agreement in place. That decision persuaded Moscow that Western signatures could not be trusted.
Fourth — Minsk II. In February 2015, Chancellor Merkel personally negotiated Minsk II in the Normandy Format and pledged Germany’s political backing through the Declaration of Support adopted in Minsk on 12 February 2015. For seven years, the key political provision — autonomy for the Donbas regions within a sovereign Ukraine — was never implemented by Kyiv. Germany did not press Kyiv to implement the autonomy provision it had championed — and Merkel later acknowledged that the agreement had been used as a holding action to allow Ukraine to rearm. President Hollande said the same. The guarantee, in other words, was not a guarantee at all. It was a stratagem — once again at Washington’s behest. Once again, the message to Moscow was that Western signatures cannot be trusted
Fifth — Nord Stream. On 7 February 2022, in the East Room of the White House, President Biden announced — with then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz standing beside him — that „if Russia invades… then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.“ Asked how, he replied, „I promise you, we will be able to do that.“ The pipelines were destroyed seven months later in an act of sabotage in the Baltic Sea. The available evidence — investigative reporting in the United States and Germany, the trail followed by the German federal prosecutor, and the public statements of former officials — points overwhelmingly to a joint Ukrainian-American operation. The German government has long known this. And yet Germany has permitted the public blame to fall on Russia, against the direct evidence, while an act of industrial sabotage against the German economy has gone unprosecuted and unanswered.
Sixth — the April 2022 Istanbul agreement that was within reach. Just weeks after Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators converged in Istanbul on the terms of a peace agreement: Ukrainian neutrality outside NATO, multilateral security guarantees, agreed troop limits, and the political resolution of the Donbas and Crimea questions over time. The agreement was within days of signature. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, one of the mediators, has confirmed publicly that the deal was close and that the West — the United States and the United Kingdom in particular — moved to block it. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s mission to Kyiv in April 2022 to instruct Ukraine not to sign is a matter of public record. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian lives, and the wider European order, have paid the price for that US–UK intervention. Germany has not raised its voice on this — even though Germany, more than any other European state has borne the economic consequences.
The Second Catastrophe: Germany’s Economic Self-Destruction Your first concern must be peace. Yesterday’s message from Moscow tells us how late the hour is. But there is a second catastrophe unfolding alongside the first: the willful destruction of the German economy, with Berlin as both author and victim.
Germany’s industrial economy was built on trade with Russia. The destruction of Nord Stream and the subsequent severance of Germany’s trade relations with Russia have left Germany buying natural gas from the United States at prices several times higher than the Russian pipeline gas it replaced. This is industrial suicide. Germany’s chemical sector, its steel sector, its glass industry, its energy-intensive manufacturers — the very foundations of the Mittelstand — are losing international competitiveness day by day. Skilled jobs are draining out of the German economy. And the German taxpayer and the German consumer are making a transfer of national wealth from Germany to American gas producers at a scale unprecedented in postwar Europe.
On top of this, the German government is now pledging an enormous defence build-up — hundreds of billions of euros over the coming decade — to arm for a war that diplomacy can easily prevent. This is a profound misallocation of national resources. The fundamental challenge facing Germany in this decade is competitiveness in the digital age. Every euro spent on tanks, missiles, and artillery shells is a euro not spent on Germany’s AI capacity, its chip-design and chip-fabrication capability, its energy infrastructure, and the high-speed digital networks that Germany needs to remain a top global economy.
The hard reality, Mr. Chancellor, is that there is no security to be bought with these arms that diplomacy cannot buy at a tiny fraction of the cost, and there is no prosperity to be had without the digital and energy investments that this arms buildup will crowd out.
My Appeal Chancellor Merz, more than any other European leader, the question of whether Europe descends into general war, or returns to negotiation, and to economic sanity, rests with you. The hour is very late. Yesterday’s formal message from Moscow to Washington says so explicitly. Please open a dialogue with President Putin. Please send your foreign minister to Moscow or invite Russia’s Foreign Minister to Berlin. Please reopen the OSCE channels that Germany has allowed to atrophy. Please tell Kyiv to cease its strikes on civilian targets.
Most importantly, please tell the German public the truth: that a negotiated peace based on Ukrainian neutrality is the realistic path out of catastrophe, and that restoring a normal economic relationship with Russia is the realistic path out of Germany’s industrial decline.
The terms of an acceptable agreement that Germany could propose are clear. The fighting would stop on an armistice line. All sides would renounce any future resort to violence on the question of borders. Ukraine would restore its neutrality, and NATO would permanently renounce further eastward enlargement.
Europe and Russia would restore economic relations and would stop the warmongering. The OSCE would once again become the central forum for European security, with the fundamental precept that European security is indivisible, not based on military blocs dividing Europe. Alongside this peace, Germany would redirect its national resources toward the digital, AI, semiconductor, and energy investments that Germany’s economic future demands.
History will record what you do in the weeks ahead, and what you fail to do. So will the German public. So will the peoples of Russia, Ukraine, and Europe generally. It’s time for diplomacy, Mr. Chancellor. The choice is yours to make. Respectfully,Jeffrey D. SachsUniversity Professor of Columbia University
Just before the 40th anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster, Scottish CND host 3 excellent guests to discuss the risks, false promises and opportunity costs of nuclear power.
Linda Pentz-Gunter is an environmental campaigner who founded the advocacy organisation “Beyond Nuclear” in 2007. In her advocacy, she is primarily concerned with the environmental costs of nuclear power and its false promise as a climate change solution. She also campaigns for nuclear weapons abolition. As the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear, she edits and curates the Beyond Nuclear International website, an essential resource for information and updates on world nuclear news.
Pete Roche is also an environmental campaigner who has recently revived the civic campaign SCRAM (Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace), which organised extensive demonstrations against the construction of Torness nuclear plant in the 1980s. Pete is also a professional energy consultant and proprietor of the website No2NuclearPower, another key resource for information and updates on nuclear power in the UK.
Dylan Morgan is spokesperson for the People Against Wylfa B campaign, and is strongly involved in the recently-relaunched Welsh Anti-Nuclear Alliance, also originally launched in the 1980s and is composed of several important civic organisations in Wales including CND Cymru.
“In 2014, Barrow-in-Furness was named the unhappiest place in the UK. “Since then, the much-maligned former industrial powerhouse has received a potentially transformative boost in the form of a huge injection of public money to build nuclear subs there. “
To discuss the prospects of this crucial part of Britain’s defence and industrial capability, and the 56,000 people who call it home, Lord Simon Case, the former cabinet secretary deputed by Sir Keir Starmer to lead the town’s revival, heads a panel moderated by Christopher de Bellaigue.”
The talk will also include Sam Plum, the former Chief Executive of Westmorland and Furness Council. They will be joined by Jean McSorley, a policy analyst for the government on public health and nuclear safety and a key figure for Greenpeace.
In the first days of May 2026, the Pentagon announced the withdrawal of approximately 5,000 American troops from Germany over the next six to twelve months — with explicit threats of further cuts directed at Italy and Spain.
President Donald Trump stated the reason with characteristic bluntness: these countries had failed to provide meaningful support during the joint U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.
This is not a strategic recalibration. It is a punitive act by a declining hegemon that launched a dangerous conflict, triggered a global energy shock, and is now lashing out at Europe for refusing to bleed alongside it.
U.S.-Israeli War Triggers Energy Shock
The conflict with Iran, launched jointly by the United States and Israel, has severely disrupted global oil supplies, particularly through the Strait of Hormuz. Crude oil prices have surged, driving up the cost of gasoline, diesel, and all forms of transportation fuel. Logistics costs have skyrocketed, inflation is accelerating, and entire industries dependent on cheap transport and energy are slowing down. The ripple effects are hitting every sector of the European economy.
Europe — far more dependent on imported hydrocarbons than the United States — has been hit hardest by this self-inflicted crisis. Yet when Washington and Tel Aviv demanded active European participation in their war, most European capitals offered only minimal or symbolic help.
Trump’s response was simple and crude: you didn’t help us enough, so we’re pulling our troops out.
This is the classic behaviour of a fading empire: drag others into your reckless adventures, force them to bear the economic consequences, and then punish them when they refuse to pay the full price in blood and treasure.
Europe’s Angry Backlash
The announcement triggered sharp reactions across the continent. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who had publicly stated that the United States was being “humiliated” by Iranian leadership and lacked any coherent exit strategy, tried to downplay any direct link between his remarks and the troop withdrawal — but the timing was unmistakable. Washington had made its point.
In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez faced renewed pressure after refusing to allow U.S. military planes to use Spanish bases for Iran-related operations. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, long cultivated as one of Trump’s closest European allies, also found herself in the crosshairs. Trump singled both countries out by name, saying he would “probably” reduce troop presence there too.
What makes the decision particularly revealing is that even within the United States, Republican lawmakers expressed alarm. The withdrawal has not been universally welcomed in Washington — which tells you everything about how impulsive and transactional this decision actually is.
The message from the White House was unmistakable: loyalty is no longer a relationship. It is a service to be paid for on demand.
Poland’s Eager Servility
While much of Europe reacted with concern or restrained anger, Polish President Karol Nawrocki once again demonstrated the depth of his country’s strategic dependence. Instead of reading Trump’s withdrawal as a warning signal about the nature of American commitments, he immediately volunteered to absorb the displaced forces.
“If President Donald Trump decides to reduce the American military presence in Germany, then we in Poland are ready to receive American soldiers. We have the necessary infrastructure,”Nawrocki declared.
This is not strategic wisdom. This is the behaviour of a client state. While Germany, Italy, and Spain push back — imperfectly, inconsistently, but at least instinctively — Warsaw rushes to fill the gap left by countries that finally said no.
Poland is not strengthening its security. It is deepening its exposure — on behalf of a partner that has just demonstrated it will withdraw forces the moment European governments exercise independent judgment.
The Unravelling of American Hegemony in Europe
Even after this withdrawal, more than 30,000 American troops will remain stationed in Germany alone. The point is not that American power has collapsed overnight. It is that the terms of that power are changing — openly, transactionally, and with diminishing pretence of shared values or mutual obligation.
What we are witnessing is the visible erosion of the post-1945 European security model. An arrangement that was never genuinely about partnership — only about power, dependence, and the management of European compliance.
The withdrawals are only the beginning. The real question is how long it will take for European elites to acknowledge that the old order was never built on solidarity. It was built on hierarchy, and hierarchy that no longer finds Europe sufficiently useful is beginning to look elsewhere.
The age of automatic American commitment to European security is ending. Not with a dramatic rupture but with punitive withdrawals, transactional threats, and the slow realisation that decades of unconditional loyalty purchased nothing permanent.
Bucharest appears to have understood. Rome and Madrid are beginning to understand. Berlin understood reluctantly — and Warsaw still volunteers for more.
The National Energy System Operator estimates that up to 4.1GW of nuclear will be needed to deliver a clean power system in the UK by 2030, with scope for further capacity to be delivered if new small modular reactor (SMR) technology can be developed. Overall, the government’s aim seems to be to ramp up nuclear capacity to 24GW by 2050 – though that is still to be confirmed, with new ‘roadmap’ review underway.
It certainly would be hard. And expensive. But the money seems to be there for things like this. For example, Rolls Royce’s Small Modular Reactor design has been backed by up to £599m from the National Wealth Fund in a partnership deal with Great British Energy – Nuclear (GBE-N). This, it is said, will enable work to begin on the delivery of the UK’s first SMR on Anglesey in North Wales, with £2.5bn having been allocated to SMR development. And over £14bn has been provided for the next large reactor at Sizewell. With, presumably, more to come
However, major projects like this do tax the UKs technology development capacity and there are moves to integrate civil & military nuclear expertise infrastructure to share the load and get more value by joint funding. In a new report, the right of centre Policy Exchange notes that ‘civil and defence nuclear are two distinct yet related aspects of the UK state and draw on many of the same national assets’. So it calls for ‘a more disciplined nuclear state,’ presumably with both aspects strengthened. But not everyone wants both or either to be strengthened. Most greens especially. Though, in these troubled times globally, it may be hard to be ‘anti deterrent.’ CND however has no problem with opposing both.
It is undeniable that there are links between civil and military nuclear. So, arguably it’s hard to back/or oppose one but not the other, with, for example, some nuclear technologies being suited to dual use. That can open up some big political issues, although some see it a bit differently: ‘Civil & military nuclear can enmesh’ says Paul Dorfman, but ‘one must ask whether one inevitably leads to the other…It’s not that nuclear military interests are the sole drivers of support for civil nuclear power, but for some states dual-use technology may comprise a significant complementary factor.’
Be that as it may, the UK state does keep going with both, and is now also pushing fusion, with another £2.5bn allocation. And, despite the long history of false hopes, dating back to ZETA at Harwell in the late 1950s, there is even talk of a prototype in the mid 2030s. Although more likely the 2040s, in the case of the STEP project planned for Nottinghamshire.
Some see all of this nuclear pushing as vital or at least unstoppable. But not all. For example, in a powerful new book Linda Pentz Gunter says that amongst its many problems, nuclear power is too slow, too expensive, too dangerous and too integrally connected to the nuclear weapons complex, to serve as a rational energy choice. And US energy guru Amory Lovins agrees: ‘A kilowatt of nuclear power capacity produces several times the annual output of a kilowatt of solar or wind capacity, but at many times higher cost per kilowatt-hour. Capital markets therefore shun nuclear investments but invest one or two orders of magnitude more in solar & wind power. Those renewables therefore add two orders of magnitude more net capacity per year than nuclear, which remains a less-than-one-percent contributor to global electricity growth.’
It is sometimes argued that nuclear is needed to balance variable renewables, but large costly inflexible nuclear plants are not able to vary their output quickly and safely to meet rapid supply and demand variations. Some new SMR technology may make them more flexible. But do you like the sound of molten-flouride salt heat reservoirs? Apart from the risks, adding capacity like that is likely to make the system more expensive and, since they would only need to work part time, overall less economically efficient. Why bother when renewables are accelerating ahead, with load factors rising and costs mostly falling? They will need balancing, but newly emerging low-cost storage and smart grid systems can help balance supply and demand, so we can meet our energy needs reliably: see my last post on IRENA’s new study.
While some countries do still see civil as well as military nuclear technology as vital, they are in a minority. Out of the 195 countries in the world, only 9 have nuclear weapons and only 31 have nuclear power plants. Some middle-eastern countries may see it differently, with weapons possibilities always being an option. But interestingly, in non-nuclear (bomb and power) Norway, a Government advisory committee looking at its energy options, recently said nuclear power would not be economic, and in any case it would ‘not come in time to help achieve the Paris Agreement’s 2050 goals’, unlike ‘upgrading hydropower plants and expanding wind and solar power’. Crucially, ‘the prospect of realising a Norwegian nuclear power programme with production starting in the mid 2040’s may crowd out other power plant investments that can be realised more quickly’. So, although nuclear might be looked at again as an option in the future, ‘offshore wind offers the greatest potential for new power generation in the long term’.
That does seem to be sensible. As other independent studies have also argued, the economic case for nuclear is poor – there are better options for decarbonisation, with no radioactive wastes left to deal with, or melt-down or local leakage risks and offering no terrorist or enemy targets for attack. Sadly, for now, in the UK, we will have to make do with the government’s view that all is well with its nuclear plans, policies and procedures. For example, on safety, it has adopted all the reforms to the nuclear regulation system proposed by the independent Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce led by John Fingleton. He had found it an ‘overly complex’ and ‘bureaucratic’ system that had held back the industry. So the aim is to speed up nuclear regulation and cut costs, with ‘safe, cost effective & rapid delivery’ across the entire civil and defence nuclear enterprise. The new streamlined system should be in place by 2027. What could possibly go wrong?
Next? The National Audit Office has just come out with an assessment of the funding arrangements for Sizewell C, the next big new UK project. It says maintaining ‘investor financial returns will cost consumers over £4 billion, but will be justified if they help the project to cut construction costs and speed up delivery times’. Phew!
Servicemen exposed to radioactive fallout in cold war weapons testing are using newly declassified documents to fight for a fair compensation scheme
In November 1957, thousands of servicemen on Christmas Island in the South Pacific watched the testing of Britain’s first megaton thermonuclear bomb. Witnesses compared it to seeing the end of the world.
Many viewed the explosion on the island while wearing shorts and short-sleeved shirts, with sunglasses handed out to protect their eyes. Veterans claim they were exposed to needless risk and were the victims of gross negligence. Large numbers later suffered blood disorders and cancers, which they believed were caused by exposure to radioactive fallout. Most were denied war pensions because of ill-health.
By contrast, those involved in the US nuclear testing programme, including the Manhattan Project led by J Robert Oppenheimer, benefited from a $2.6bn no-fault compensation fund. France agreed in 2008 that it would pay compensation to nuclear test veterans who suffered illness linked to radiation exposure.
British veterans now hope the release of thousands of previously classified documents from the Merlin files into the National Archives will help support their near-70-year battle for justice. Some of these newly released documents analysed by The Observer detail risks of radioactive fallout, health monitoring of military personnel and orders for blood samples to be taken from servicemen that could be used for evidence in any subsequent claims for damages.
The compromise reached between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on August 15 has still not materialized in Ukraine. The obstacles are not those the United States anticipated. Ukraine is not cooperating, while Germany and the United Kingdom want war.
President Donald Trump acknowledged to his counterpart Xi Jinping that he was his equal. Since World War II, every American president has considered himself superior to others because he was the most powerful and the richest.
Conversely, from a Chinese perspective, Xi Jinping considers himself the equal not only of Donald Trump, but of each of his counterparts. A Chinese person does not believe that having greater resources makes you superior.
This concept of a hierarchy between nations is purely Western. Therefore, the evolution of the US president should not be interpreted without considering the cultural context of the observer.
The following week, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in turn, visited Beijing. Western commentators asserted that the Russian was being held hostage by the Chinese. Again, this demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of their relationship. It is not the product of their respective interests, but of their shared history. From the sacking of the Summer Palace to the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Slavs, each has experienced how Westerners behave. They have concluded that they can only resist them by remaining united. It is therefore absurd to consider replicating what Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger did in 1972: decoupling the two states.
At the Anchorage summit on August 15, 2025, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin discussed doing business between their two countries and making peace in Ukraine. Despite several attempts, Washington failed because it wanted to sell weapons to the Europeans first. Today, it seems much more difficult, and the Europeans are beginning to manufacture their own.
President Trump has therefore begun withdrawing troops from Europe and abandoning the war that the Pentagon planned to extend to Transnistria and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He announced that he would withdraw at least 5,000 troops from Germany. Vladimir Putin, for his part, decreed that he would grant Russian citizenship to any adult Transnistrian who requested it. Finally, Donald Trump withdrew his support for the European Union High Commissioner who was administering Bosnia and Herzegovina in violation of the Dayton Agreement (1995). Simultaneously, his former Secretary of National Security, General Michael Flynn, is organizing US investments in the Serb-held area of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
These events suggest that the United States favors a peace in Ukraine that recognizes all of Novorossiya as Russian. This is historically and culturally justified, but it will only be possible by holding a referendum on self-determination. For the moment, Russian forces have no intention of liberating Odessa. The peace treaty could, however, acknowledge this.
Here again, contrary to what we believe, the difficulties do not lie where we perceive them.
The three main ones are now:
1) recognition of the Nazi ideology of the current government in Kyiv and the denazification of Ukraine;
2) recognition of the undemocratic nature of German reunification and the independence of East Germany;
3) recognition of the UK’s anti-Russian obsession and the dismantling of the European Defence Union before it is definitively formed.
Ukraine
Even though Western powers persist in believing that the Russian intervention in Ukraine is an attempt at annexation and the beginning of Russia’s westward expansion, Moscow never invaded its neighbor, but rather implemented Resolution 2202, which it had guaranteed before the Security Council.
To claim that Russia invaded Ukraine is as absurd as saying that France invaded Rwanda. We know that it intervened to end a genocide (for which it was partly responsible), in accordance with a Security Council resolution.
The current Ukrainian government is illegitimate. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s term expired long ago. Every three months, he extends martial law, which serves no other purpose than to prevent new elections. However, his latest decree on this matter extends martial law from May 2nd to August 4th. It would be possible to organize an election campaign and a vote during that time. However, the electoral lists will need to be cleaned up, as they still include soldiers killed in action and civilians who fled. No one knows their exact number, but they could represent between one and two-thirds of registered voters.
The Verkhovna Rada (parliament) is equally problematic. Only a third of the members participate. The laws it passes are therefore of dubious legitimacy. For example, it voted to destroy one hundred million books—on the grounds that they were signed by Russian authors or printed in Russia, without distinguishing between contemporary authors and literary classics. Similarly, this parliament banned the country’s main church and all opposition parties. Moreover, there is a CIA office within the Rada itself that drafts all the laws. The members present simply ratify them.
Russia’s primary demand is the denazification of Ukraine. This is what President Putin declared when launching his special military operation. From a Russian perspective, this is non-negotiable. Indeed, what defines the identity of the Russian Federation is not the memory of Catherine the Great, but that of the Soviet struggle against Nazism. This ideology aimed to annihilate the entire Slavic population (but neither the Jewish nor the Roma population), as explained in Mein Kampf. Even if we in the West are unaware of it, the Second World War was not waged to carry out the Holocaust, but to murder the Slavic population.
The Verkhovna Rada (parliament) is equally problematic. Only a third of the members participate. The laws it passes are therefore of dubious legitimacy. For example, it voted to destroy one hundred million books—on the grounds that they were signed by Russian authors or printed in Russia, without distinguishing between contemporary authors and literary classics. Similarly, this parliament banned the country’s main church and all opposition parties. Moreover, there is a CIA office within the Rada itself that drafts all the laws. The members present simply ratify them.
Yet, the illegitimate administration of the unelected president Zelensky refuses any denazification measures. There are currently numerous monuments glorifying the Nazis and their collaborators, the “fundamental nationalists.” The history of Ukraine was entirely rewritten by them, with the help of British MI6 and the American CIA, after the Second World War. This propaganda aims to make people believe that the “Banderists” fought the Nazis, which is absolutely false. No: the Banderites were Nazis.
Convinced that there will never be denazification, the “fundamental nationalists” are planning the construction of a Pantheon in their honor. General Kyrylo Budanov, head of the presidential administration, organized the repatriation of the remains of perpetrators of crimes against humanity, buried around the world during the Cold War, on March 28. Rob Jetten and Luc Frieden, the Dutch and Luxembourgish prime ministers, have already agreed to the transfer of the bodies of the fascist Yevhen Konovalets and the Nazi Andriy Melnyk.
Germany
In our minds, Germany is a democratic state that successfully reunified in 1990. However, as Dmitry Medvedev, Vice Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, recently stated, reunification is merely an illusion. West Germans never consulted East Germans. Under international law, reunification is invalid.
The 2025 federal elections produced different and opposing results in the former West and East Germany. West Germans voted for the CDU or SPD, while East Germans voted for the AfD. This is the sole reason why the first two parties are classified as “democratic” and the third as “far-right.”
Yet, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (a Christian Democrat) has pursued a widespread crackdown on all those who challenge his authority, labeling them “conspiracy theorists.” Relying on the Munich Office for the Protection of the Constitution (a branch of the federal body which housed many of the Reich police officials after the war), he banned several media outlets and imprisoned journalists. Simultaneously, Germany is gradually rebuilding its army with financial assistance from the United Kingdom, just as its predecessor, Chancellor Adolf Hitler, rebuilt the German army with the help of the Governor of the Bank of England, Lord Montagu Norman. He has reinstated conscription for men and requires every volunteer to notify Berlin before going on holiday abroad.
Germany is also rebuilding its military-industrial complex, this time with European funds. It is preparing for a war like the one in Ukraine, even though a war against Russia would be of a completely different nature. Regardless, the entire German industry is now producing Ukrainian drones and selling them in the Gulf against Iran. Following this logic, Berlin wants to bring Ukraine into the European Union, even though it does not meet the accession criteria set by the treaties: it would simply be a matter of creating a new status, that of “associate member,” and the trick would be done. Having ignored the negative results of the 2005 French and Dutch referendums, this would be just another decision made against the will of the people.
Friedrich Merz, grandson of a Nazi dignitary, cannot imagine his country not being allied with the Ukrainian “fundamental nationalists,” nor holding accountable those who sabotaged the Nord Stream gas pipeline and caused the collapse of German industry.
The United Kingdom
Since the 19th century, the United Kingdom has perceived Russia as its sole rival, not only in Europe, but in the world. Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, conceived the “Great Game,” the colonization of Central Asia, in order to neutralize the Russian Empire. Today, British strategy remains unchanged.
London continues to portray Moscow as an obscurantist power. It is no longer a matter of fabricating the Zinoviev telegram (which allowed the Soviets to be accused of wanting to interfere in the UK elections), but of making people believe that the Kremlin’s occupant is a madman who has a passenger plane shot down in Ukraine and poisoned Sergei and Yulia Skripal or Alexei Navalny.
Its latest invention is the attack on European airports by unidentified drones. Regardless of the truth, London is using this to convince the North Sea states to join its Joint Expeditionary Force, which it has just transformed into a military alliance, the “Northern Marines,” under its command. It hopes to bring all the member states of the European Union and Turkey into the alliance.
This is why the hereditary Lords—and there are still some—are doing everything they can to keep Keir Starmer in Downing Street. The Prime Minister is, in fact, a Labour member who is, in secret, an agent of big business: unbeknownst to his own party and the media, he attended meetings of the Rockefeller Trilateral Commission. Also unbeknownst to everyone, he appointed Peter Mandelson—an accomplice of the criminal Jeffrey Epstein—as Her Majesty’s ambassador to Washington.
The important thing is to maintain the illusion that the United Kingdom has no dealings with either the State of Israel or Hamas; to continue concealing the fact that Israeli chiefs of staff have been secretly visiting Whitehall throughout the Gaza genocide, in which the British army actively participated. It is better to claim, like Christian Turner, Peter Mendelson’s successor, that only one state has a “special relationship” with Washington: Israel.
risks surrounding the project “could easily turn Sizewell C into a financial disaster” while the funding model meant its investors were “the only ones who can’t lose”.
National Audit Office says potential benefits are ‘considerable but uncertain’ while risks are ‘immediate and substantial’
The cost of the government’s £38bn nuclear plant in Suffolk is subject to “significant uncertainty” and may outweigh the benefits for UK households until at least 2064, according to the government’s spending watchdog.
The National Audit Office (NAO) has warned that although the potential benefits of the Sizewell C nuclear plant are considerable, they remain uncertain. The risks, however, are “immediate, substantial and borne by the public”.
The government claims the nuclear reactor, expected to generate the equivalent of enough low-carbon electricity to power 6m homes when it begins operations in the late 2030s, could save £2bn a year from the electricity system compared with using other low-carbon technologies.
However, for households the overall savings could be outstripped by the cost of supporting its construction until almost halfway through its 60-year operational life. The project could take even longer to “break even” if there are cost overruns or delays, the NAO warned.
“Sizewell C is a project of exceptional scale, complexity and significance for taxpayers,” said Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the chair of the public accounts committee, which oversees the work of the NAO. “Experience from comparable nuclear projects in the UK and overseas highlights their vulnerability to delays and cost overruns.”
Sizewell C is being developed by French state nuclear company EDF as a successor project to the Hinkley Point C reactor in Somerset, the first nuclear plant to be built in the UK in a decade. It has invested £1.1bn to take a 12.5% stake in the project alongside the UK government, which has invested £14.2bn as the majority stakeholder.
British Gas’s parent company, Centrica, owns 15% of Sizewell C while the Canadian pension fund La Caisse and the investment fund Amber Infrastructure own 20% and 7.6%, respectively……………………………………………….
Households began paying for the Sizewell C project via home energy bills at the start of the year to help fund construction. This financial framework, known as a regulated asset base model, is a marked change from the Hinkley Point deal, which will begin to earn a guaranteed stream of revenues from home energy bills only once it begins generating in the early 2030s.
Critics of the regulated asset base model, including the campaign group Stop Sizewell C, have warned that any construction delays could mean that bill payers support Sizewell without receiving power for longer than expected, while the government would be on the hook for the project’s financial risk.
Stop Sizewell C said the risks surrounding the project “could easily turn Sizewell C into a financial disaster” while the funding model meant its investors were “the only ones who can’t lose”.
Any aliens who have been monitoring radio and television transmissions streaming outwards into space from Planet Earth over the past few decades will likely be intrigued, bemused or simply horrified at humanity’s headlong drive towards climate catastrophe. No matter the urgent warnings from climate scientists, the power of billionaires, financial speculators and corporations maintains a death-like grip on governments around the world. Amid the occasional flurry of big business greenwashing and government rhetoric about ‘climate protection’ and ‘eco-friendly’ initiatives, billions of people are being held hostage by the forces that are dragging everyone to the edge of the climate abyss.
New warnings about climate change do, of course, occasionally appear in the press. But rarely, if ever, are there prominent and sustained front-page headlines and news-leading television coverage. Rarer still are impassioned editorials, high-profile presenters and commentators demanding the substantive, radical changes that are needed to avoid the most damaging predicted impacts of business as usual.
Earlier this month, the Royal Albert Hall hosted a 100th birthday party for naturalist David Attenborough, Britain’s most beloved broadcaster. Celebrities showered him with love and praise: Leonardo DiCaprio, Judi Dench, Olivia Colman, Emily Eavis, Chris Martin, Ben Fogle, Raye, Kate Winslet. And Paddington Bear. Attenborough sat in the royal box, alongside Prince William. King Charles delivered a handwritten message from Balmoral Castle via a ‘cavalcade of creature couriers’, including eagles, a red squirrel, a hedgehog, otters, ducks, a fox and deer, thanks to the wonders of CGI. All very nice; all very Disneyfied.
For many years now, Attenborough has been warning about the dangers of mass consumption, pollution, worldwide species loss and global warming. These subjects are clearly of great concern to him, although he started ringing the alarm bell very late.
But the evening gave a wide berth to such uncomfortable topics. ‘Life on Earth’? The climate crisis must be happening on a different planet entirely.
As Jonathan Liew, a Guardian sports journalist and columnist, pointed out:
‘This is, of course, the Attenborough with which our public discourse is most comfortable: depoliticised, universally adored, a man-sized Paddington Bear fit only for our veneration. Who teaches us about tree frogs and seal cubs and stick insects and asks for nothing in return.’
Of course, what Liew called ‘public discourse’ is the tightly constrained media space permitted by state and corporate power.
Liew continued:
‘And perhaps there are more difficult questions to negotiate here: the extent to which he has been a force for the meaningful and revolutionary change he seeks, and the extent to which his broad, inoffensive appeal has been more hindrance than help, allowing the powerful to feign concern for the planet while shirking the tough and bloody compromises required to secure it.’
To his credit, Attenborough has been eloquent and impassioned in recent years about the climate crisis. He addressed the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, saying that:
‘We are already in trouble. The stability we all depend on is breaking. This story is one of inequality, as well as instability. Today, those who’ve done the least to cause this problem, are being the hardest hit. Ultimately, all of us will feel the impact, some of which are now unavoidable.’
But, even five years on, as the climate crisis worsens, the topic was deemed unmentionable by the organisers of Attenborough’s 100th birthday party.
‘Hothouse Earth’ And Collapsing Currents
In February, a new scientific report warned that runaway global warming is closer than had previously been thought. We are heading for the ‘point of no return’ after which we would be locked into a hellish ‘hothouse Earth’. Climate ‘tipping points’ would be triggered, producing rapid heating, which would lead to a domino effect of yet more tipping points and feedback loops. These include the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, drastic dieback of the Amazon rainforest and the weakening, and possible shutdown, of the Atlantic ocean conveyor belt known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).The scientists stated that:
‘Earth’s climate is now departing from the stable conditions that supported human civilization for millennia.’
The world has already experienced a global average temperature rise of over 1.3C since pre-industrial times and is likely to surpass the Paris Agreement ‘limit’ of long-term average heating of 1.5C in the next few years. Current government and business policies are pushing us towards 2-3C of global warming, if not more, by 2100.
But, if trigger points are breached and runaway global warming occurs, we are talking about much higher temperature rises, perhaps 10C or more. This would mean almost unimaginable catastrophic effects on the climate system, global agriculture and societal infrastructure; not to mention the extinction of humans. Scientists have warned that even a rise of 3-4C means that ‘the economy and society will cease to function as we know it’.
Bill McGuire, Professor Emeritus of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London, put things in grim perspective via X:
‘We are already locked-in to a return to Pliocene [around 2.6 to 5.3 million years ago] conditions (3C hotter and (eventually) ~ 20m sea-level rise)
‘Keep going as we are, and hotter Miocene [5.3 to 23 million years ago] conditions will result
‘Beyond this a return to early Eocene [around 48 to 56 million years ago] hothouse beckons – and potential oblivion’
During the Eocene, the global average temperature was well over 10C higher than present. Oblivion would hit humanity long before such a temperature rise occurred.
Earlier this month, yet another deeply disturbing scientific studyrevealed that the risk of AMOC reaching a tipping point by 2100, after which its shutdown would be inevitable, is as high as 50 per cent. Previously, this was considered ‘a low likelihood event’ of around five per cent. But even this should be held in perspective. How many of us would board a plane knowing that there was a five per cent chance that it would crash?
AMOC, of which the Gulf Stream is the best-known component, is a vital carrier of warm water from the tropics to high latitudes in the North Atlantic, returning cold water southwards. It is a primary source of heat for western and northern Europe, leading to the temperate climate here. AMOC connects with other ocean current systems in a global network that transports heat, water, nutrients and carbon around the planet. Any disturbance to AMOC, far less its collapse, would have devastating global consequences for climate, agriculture, infrastructure and even for the habitability of Earth.
Professor Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who has studied AMOC for 35 years, said:
‘This is an important and very concerning result. It shows that the “pessimistic” models, which show a strong weakening of the AMOC by 2100, are, unfortunately, the realistic ones, in that they agree better with observational data.’
He added:
‘I now am increasingly worried that we may well pass that AMOC shutdown tipping point, where it becomes inevitable, in the middle of this century, which is quite close.’
To emphasise: the tipping point may be much earlier than 2100; it could happen by 2050, or even sooner. The vital point here is that scientists increasingly agree that the ‘safe window’ to stabilise the current by halting emissions is closing far faster than previously thought. And the public likely does not even realise it.
Rahmstorf had previously said that a collapse must be avoided ‘at all costs’. Now he added:
‘I argued this when we thought the chance of an AMOC shutdown was maybe 5%, and even then we were saying that risk is too high, given the massive impacts. Now it looks like it’s more than 50%. The most dramatic and drastic climate changes we see in the last 100,000 years of Earth history have been when the AMOC switched to a different state.’
In an English-language video for the German DW news channel, Rahmstorf explained the importance of AMOC for European and global climate, and the significance of the latest alarming results. He warned that we should expect more climate extremes in heat, cold, drought, floods and storms.
If and when the AMOC collapses, the impact on agriculture in the northern hemisphere will be devastating. The drop in harvest yields for key crops could be as high as 50 per cent. Mass starvation is a very real possibility.
Climate Shocks
……………………………………………………………………………………………………. The fact that deeply disturbing findings about a likely collapse of a vital component of the climate system were not given wider, extensive and sustained coverage is a devastating indictment of ‘mainstream’ journalism.
……………………….Scientists are warning, as loudly as they possibly can, that the present economic system of rampant capitalism is destroying the very life-support systems that made Planet Earth a habitable environment for humans to evolve and flourish.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Look at the daily, hour-by-hour obsessing over the endless maneuvering within the Labour government; every single statement from ministers and their allies scrutinised by the Westminster bubble of political correspondents.
Imagine that, instead of focusing on short-term melodramas, leading news organisations rigorously probed politicians, day in and day out, about the climate crisis.
Imagine that news editors and journalists relentlessly challenged the government about current policies that are bringing us closer to the brink of climate chaos.
Imagine that reporters investigated and exposed the deep reluctance and state-corporate obstacles, including the establishment media, that are blocking alternatives to climate Armageddon.
The financing of Sizewell C has been scrutinised by the National Audit Office (NAO), which found it “places more risks on taxpayers and consumers than other electricity projects” and that benefits to consumers will only outweigh costs after 2060.
In July 2022, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) announced it had secured the final investment decision (FID) for the project on the Suffolk coast, which is expected to produce 3.2GW of electricity.
Achieving the FID meant that investors and the government had agreed the terms on which investment would be put into the project, how returns on investment would work, and what this meant for consumers.
The government confirmed that the project would cost “around £38bn”, nearly double the original £20bn estimate stated by EDF in 2020.
Today’s [20 May] NAO report, simply titled Sizewell C, assessed “the implications of the deal for taxpayers, electricity consumers, and investors, and provides a baseline against which progress can be measured.”
A statement from the NAO, announcing the report, said DESNZ’s “delivery model for Sizewell C places more risks on taxpayers and consumers than other electricity projects, but the Department believes this model has reduced finance costs and will allow the project to be delivered on time and to budget.”
It added that the “novel approach has costs and relies on big assumptions
Once construction at the plant has been completed, the government’s modelling “predicts that the net benefits for consumers could be up to £18bn, primarily delivered through energy bill savings and reduced electricity costs compared to other ways of reaching net zero,” the NAO said.
“However, as a large infrastructure project, DESNZ’s modelling of these benefits shows they will not outweigh the costs to consumers until after 2060.”
The report also assessed the claims by Sizewell C that it will be easier to build because it is largely copying the designs of Hinkley Point C.
The NAO pointed out that Hinkley Point C “is currently expected to cost double its initial projected cost, with a seven-year delay”, and that this “has sparked concerns that these problems may be mirrored in Sizewell C”.
The spending watchdog said DESNZ hoped to avoid repetition of mistakes by “applying the lessons and final designs from Hinkley Point C”, and, as such, “Sizewell C’s plans are already at a much more advanced stage than Hinkley’s were at the equivalent point”.
NAO head Gareth Davies said: “Sizewell C forms a significant part of the government’s plan for a secure and affordable clean energy supply. There has been a concerted attempt to learn from the problems of previous nuclear power construction projects and other large infrastructure schemes.
“This has resulted in a novel financing structure and DESNZ will need to monitor the risks to taxpayers and billpayers closely.”
Public Accounts Committee chair Geoffrey Clifton-Brown commented on the report, raising concerns about the “substantial” risks of Sizewell C, which are being borne by the public.
“Sizewell C is a project of exceptional scale, complexity and significance for taxpayers. Costs are estimated to be £38.2bn, largely financed by government”, he said.
“While the potential benefits are considerable, they remain uncertain; by contrast, the risks are immediate, substantial and borne by the public. Consumers are already contributing through their electricity bills, and the government has assumed most of the project’s financial risk.”
He added: “Experience from comparable nuclear projects in the UK and overseas highlights their vulnerability to delays and cost overruns.
“Although the government has introduced a new delivery and financing model to mitigate these risks, it must now ensure it works in practice through close monitoring, greater transparency to Parliament, and by securing value for money from the significant public and private investment.”
Reaction to the report..…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
University of Greenwich emeritus professor of energy policy Steve Thomas gave NCE his reaction to the NAO report, asking, “Is this the best NAO can do after a year of effort?”
He pointed to a line from the NAO press release about the report, which said: “Sharing risk between the investors and taxpayers and consumers appears to have reduced the cost of financing Sizewell C, but the rewards for investors still appear high.”
He said the statement that financing costs had been reduced was “rubbish on two grounds”.
“First, the finance costs are being paid by consumers in the construction period under the RAB (Regulated Asset Base) surcharge. Getting someone else to pay does not reduce them, it just shifts them.
“Second, the finance is being provided by the government National Wealth Fund and the interest rate will be whatever the government tells it to charge, so if finance charges are lower because the interest rate is reduced, that is because the government has imposed the interest rate.”
The press release also said: “Investor financial returns will cost consumers over £4bn but will be justified if they help the project to cut construction costs and speed up delivery times.” Thomas described this as “unclear”.
He said: “If it refers to the 4.8% of the 10.8% real rate of return investors will be given, that will be a gift from consumers to investors, it is an underestimate. Centrica says that of its £3bn equity contribution, only £1.3bn will come from itself, the rest will come from this 4.8% which investors are required to use as equity contribution.
“Centrica euphemistically describes this as ‘RAB Growth’.”
The NAO statement adds that DESNZ assumes “the involvement of private investors is justified, as their expertise will reduce construction costs and speed up delivery.”
In response, University of Greenwich academic Thomas asks: “What expertise does La Caisse, Centrica, NLF have on building nuclear projects? EDF has expertise but that didn’t stop Hinkley, Flamanville, and even Taishan going horribly wrong.”
He also questions the government’s use of £38.2bn as a baseline cost for Sizewell C, describing it as “wrong”, because the lower regulatory threshold cost is £40.5bn, which the government is using as its central estimate.
“£38.2bn is clearly the lower end of the range. A very basic element of project appraisal is to use central estimates, not bottom of the range ones,” he added.
A Stop Sizewell C spokesperson told NCE that the campaign group shares a lot of the NAO’s concerns, and asked for the government to commit to a public, “realistic” completion date for the project.
“The NAO’s report confirms what we already suspected – that ‘big assumptions’ and the ‘significant uncertainty’ of factors underpinning DESNZ’s claimed benefits could easily turn Sizewell C into a financial disaster, with its investors – thanks to RAB – being the only ones who can’t lose,” the spokesperson said.
“As the NAO confirms, households are relying on those investors to produce significant savings and reduce Sizewell C’s construction time to justify the nuclear tax on our energy bills, but we share the NAO’s questions about whether investors can or have the incentives to do this.”
They added: “We had asked the NAO to look at Sizewell C before it reached Final Investment Decision and are dismayed it did not do so, but at least some critical information withheld by the government is now in the public domain.
“We agree with the NAO that DESNZ must provide transparency of forecast cost and schedule for Sizewell C. We call for the government’s promised Sizewell C Strategy and Delivery plan, containing a public, realistic completion date, to be laid before parliament immediately.”
TASC spokesperson Chris Wilson told NCE: “The NAO report regarding the Sizewell C project confirms that this government’s ideological pursuit of nuclear power is based on hope and belief rather than objective judgement.
“Ignoring all the warnings and project risks, the usual optimism bias regularly expounded by the nuclear industry is there in spades, at the same time negative assumptions are made about the cost of renewables
“That DESNZ went ahead with the Sizewell C investment decision on the basis that consumers would not benefit until 2064 beggars belief.
“The NAO report highlights a stark imbalance in DESNZ’s Sizewell C funding model: the investors are shielded from risk while reaping massive profits, leaving the public purse and electricity consumers to shoulder an unfair and excessive financial burden.”
Wilson added: “A major concern highlighted by the NAO is the lack of incentive for EDF to complete Sizewell C on time and budget – they will get paid to develop and supply major components while receiving a guaranteed return on their investment.
“EDF have been involved in every previous EPR reactor project and all of them have gone woefully over time and budget – they now have the added distraction and priority of building the new EPR2 reactor programme in France. What could possibly go wrong?”
nuclear-news 