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  High Court challenge to Sizewell C ‘cannot be right’, court told.

Lawyers representing the developers and government suggest the challenge could set a precedent for major infrastructure.

A High Court will decide on Friday whether to grant a judicial review of safety changes to nuclear project Sizewell C that could force developers to reapply for consent. The
project’s defence team claimed in court on Tuesday that the judgment will have an impact on how large-scale infrastructure adaptations are challenged in future. “It simply cannot be right for major infrastructure projects like this to face challenge every time it becomes possible that some
additional adaptation measure might be needed at some point into the distant future,” a defence lawyer on the side of developers and government said during a court hearing on Tuesday.

The hearing was held atthe Royal Courts of Justice to determine whether the nuclear plant, scheduled to be developed in Suffolk, can go ahead without a proper review
of two new overland flood barriers. Campaigners previously argued that the project lacked proper sea defences, and at the behest of the UK’s nuclear regulator, French developer EDF has since included plans for two new overland flood barriers, without releasing the details for public review through a formal assessment. At stake is whether the development consent
order would need to be revisited to accommodate the changes.

 Energy Voice 12th Dec 2025, https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/586858/high-court-challenge-to-sizewell-c-cannot-be-right-court-told/

December 16, 2025 Posted by | Legal, UK | Leave a comment

What to do with Britain’s radioactive waste?

    by Ian Fairlea,  beyondnuclearinternational

“………………………………………………………………………………… Radioactive nuclear waste is produced by all nuclear activities. For example, uranium mining produces a great deal of waste in the form of ore spoil like all mining. Since uranium is radioactive, so are its ore wastes. So also are all the processes of refining the ore, enriching the uranium, turning it into fuel for reactors, transportation, burning it in nuclear power stations, processing the used fuel, and its handling and storage. They all create more nuclear waste.

The reason is that everything that comes into contact with radioactive materials, including the containers in which they are stored or moved and even the buildings in which they are handled, become contaminated with radioactivity or are activated by radiation.

All radioactive waste is dangerous to human life as exposure to it can cause leukaemia and other cancers. It is usually categorised as low, intermediate or high-level waste. As the radioactivity level increases, so does the danger. Extremely high levels of radioactivity can kill anyone coming into contact with it – or just getting too close to it – within a matter of days or weeks.

Radioactive materials slowly lose their radioactivity and so can become in theory safe to handle but in most cases this is a very slow process. Plutonium-239, for instance, has a half-life of over 24,000 years which means it will remain lethal for over 240,000 years. Other radio-isotopes remain radioactive for millions or even billions of years.

The safe, long-term storage of nuclear waste is a problem that is reaching crisis point for both the civil nuclear industry and for the military.

During the Cold War years of the 1950s and 1960s, the development of the British atomic bomb was seen as a matter of urgency. Dealing with the mess caused by the production, operating and even testing of nuclear weapons was something to be worried about later, if at all.

For example, the Ministry of Defence does not really have a proper solution for dealing with the highly radioactive hulls of decommissioned nuclear submarines, apart from storing them for many decades. As a result, 19 nuclear-powered retired submarines are still waiting to be dismantled, with more expected each year. Yet Britain goes on building these submarines.

This callous disregard for the future has spilled over to the nuclear power industry. For example, at Dounreay, in the north of Scotland, nuclear waste and scrap from the experimental reactor and reprocessing plants were simply tipped down a disused shaft for over 20 years. No proper records of what was dumped were kept and eventually, in 1977, an explosion showered the area with radioactive debris. In April 1998, it was finally announced that excavation and safe removal of the debris had cost £355 million.

The problems of long term, secure storage of nuclear waste are unsolved and growing more acute year by year. Earlier attempts by the nuclear industry to get rid of it by dumping it in the sea were stopped by environmental direct action, trades union protests and now by law.

All details concerning military nuclear waste are regarded as official secrets. However, large and growing quantities of radioactive waste exist at the Rosyth and Devonport dockyards and in particular at the Aldermaston and Burghfield Atomic Weapons Establishments.

One feature of Aldermaston and Sellafield in particular is that they are old sites, and have grown up in an unplanned, haphazard way. New buildings are fitted in between old, sometimes abandoned, buildings. Some areas and buildings are sealed off and polluted by radioactivity. Local streams, and in the case of Sellafield the sea shore, are polluted. The demolition of old radioactive buildings is a delicate, slow and dangerous process. In the circumstances it is hardly surprising that the amount of nuclear waste can only be estimated.

Civil intermediate level solid waste is mainly stored at Sellafield awaiting a decision on a national storage facility.

Military intermediate level solid waste is stored where it is created: dockyards, AWE plants etc. Both civil and military high level solid waste is generally moved to Sellafield for temporary storage.

The major problems are with the long-term storage of intermediate and in particular high-level wastes. Since these are very dangerous and very long-lived, any storage facility has to be very secure (i.e. well-guarded) and safer over a longer period – some tens of thousands of years – than anything yet designed and built by humanity.

Because of this very long time scale, it can never be sealed up and forgotten. Containers corrode with time. There are earth movements. Water seeps through rocks. The waste will have to be stored in such a form that it cannot be stolen and misused and in such a way that it can be inspected and if necessary retrieved and moved.

Plans to dig a trial deep storage facility under the Sellafield site were thrown out in 1997. Geological evidence suggested that the local rock is too fissured and liable to be affected by water seepage.

This threw all the nuclear industry’s plans into confusion. Instead of having a storage site ready by 2010, the date has been put back more or less indefinitely. No alternative site has even been identified.

Apart from the technical, geological problems, few communities seek a huge, long-term nuclear waste storage site in their neighbourhood. Indeed the original choice of Sellafield was as much political as technical. With most local jobs depending on nuclear industry already, there would have been less local opposition than elsewhere.

Nuclear waste is a problem that the nuclear industry has failed to consider seriously for over sixty years but one that can no longer be put off for future generations to cope with.

The effects of any nuclear accidents, such as those at Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011, are also very long-lasting and will affect future generations. The problems of nuclear waste are nowhere near solution. The history of the nuclear industry does not inspire confidence………………………………………………………. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/12/14/does-britain-really-need-nuclear-power/

December 15, 2025 Posted by | Reference, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Sizewell C — the last of its kind

Policy Brief,

The deal to build the Sizewell C, two reactors using the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) design, using the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) finance model was inevitably a bad one for the UK public. It gives guaranteed profits to investors by placing the risks on consumers while the EPR has an unenviable record of huge cost and time overruns. It requires consumers to pay the finance charges in the construction period – of the same order as the construction cost – as a surcharge on their bills. However, the additional subsidies and risk removal that were necessary to persuade private investors to take stakes are shocking.

The new finance deal for Sizewell C

RAB financing deal, developed from 2018, was announced in 2021 and legislated for in 2021-2022 when Kwasi Kwarteng was Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and completed under Ed Miliband at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) in July 2025. The Regulated Asset Base (RAB) finance model for nuclear power plants was sold to the public on the basis that it would provide cheaper power than using the fixed power price financial model under which the Hinkley Point C reactors1 are being built.

It was claimed the model would bring in new sources of investment, particularly institutional investors such as pension funds. The power price reduction would be achieved if the public shared the economic risks with the investors and offered limited subsidies and guarantees. Reducing the risk borne by investors would reduce the cost of capital, a major element in the cost of power from a nuclear power plant, and hence the price of electricity. The subsidies were portrayed not so much as paying costs that would be expected to have been borne by investors, as is normal for subsidies, but as giving the investors guarantees they were not at risk from the consequences of low-probability, high-consequence events and from volatile wholesale electricity market prices.

After five years of effort by government to complete the deal, a Final Investment Decision (FID) for Sizewell C was finally taken on July 22, 2025. The contracts were finalised on November 4, 20252. The largest investor is the UK government (44.9%). The other investors are the Canadian pension fund, La Caisse (20%), Centrica (15%), EDF (12.5%) and Amber Infrastructure (7.6%). Amber Infrastructure is acting on behalf of the UK’s Nuclear Liabilities Fund, NLF, (4.6%), arguably public funds, and International Public Partnerships Limited 3.0%. So only 23% of the investment will come from institutional investors, 27.5% from energy companies and about half (if we include the NLF) from public sources.

An analysis of the Sizewell C deal shows that balance of risks is one-sided with the risks falling almost entirely on taxpayers and consumers, with minimal penalties and generous incentives offered to investors. The subsidies offered are far more extensive than those acknowledged by government and represent large amounts of public money being given to the private investors for no public return. The price of power from Sizewell C is unknown and will vary unpredictably from year to year, but there can be little confidence the RAB model will produce a lower power price than Hinkley Point C even if the cost of the subsidies is not factored in. The incentives required to bring in private investors are so expensive and risky to consumers that the model should not be repeated, and, like the Hinkley Point C deal, it ought to be a one-off, not a door-opener for new nuclear investments.

The Risk/Reward balance

The plan to use the Hinkley Point C finance model for Sizewell C was abandoned by EDF in 2018. This was because it was not willing to accept the financial risks it had signed up to for Hinkley by agreeing a fixed power purchase price with all construction cost and time risks falling on itself. Costs have escalated dramatically at Hinkley since the deal was signed in 2016, by up to 90% but cannot be passed through to the power purchase price: and this commitment led to EDF writing off €12.9bn of its investment in Hinkley Point C in 20233.

The investors in the Sizewell project frequently talk about the project being ‘derisked’4 by which they mean not that the risk has been reduced, but that it falls on others………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Subsidies…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… “The acknowledgement that ‘Difference’ payments will be substantial demonstrates that it is expected that consumers will be forced to buy power from Sizewell C that will cost more than alternatives in the market.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………….. Will the power be cheaper than for Hinkley?……………………………………………………………………….

Is the Sizewell deal repeatable?………………………………………………………………………………. If the deal proves not to be repeatable, the huge amount of government time and cost that has gone into completing the deal will, as with Hinkley Point C, have been a costly diversion of more than a decade from pursuing the cheaper, quicker and more reliable ways of meeting the government’s promises of net zero…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Is Sizewell the last large reactor for the UK?…………………………………………………………………………………

Endnotes -……… [copious] https://policybrief.org/briefs/sizewell-c-the-last-of-its-kind/

December 15, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Could armed robots be the future of nuclear site security?

experiments to test the military potential of near-identical quadrupeds being carried out by the US armed forces, with Spot’s cousin converted into an armed platform by the addition of an artificial intelligence-enabled gun turret

16th October 2024, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/spot-to-robocop-could-armed-robots-be-the-future-of-nuclear-site-security/

Robots are becoming increasingly employed in decommissioning operations at Sellafield and Dounreay. Whilst the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities welcome their use in hazardous environments which are too radioactive and otherwise contaminated for human operators, we have concerns that in the long-term their use might expand into on-site security.

The Atomic Energy Authority Special Constable Act 1976 first permitted the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority to raise an armed private police force. In 2005, the UKAEA Constabulary was replaced by the Civil Nuclear Constabulary. CNC officers are routinely armed with sub machine guns and authorised to use deadly force – in extremis – whilst guarding nuclear facilities, but also whilst engaged in hot pursuit outside.

However last month, seemingly to counter possible threats from sabotage or terrorism and the greater incidence of climate change protests, the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband instructed the CNC to redeploy officers from their traditional duties to protecting coastal gas plants with effect from April 2025[i]. It is likely that this role may further expand to cover oil depots.

In 2021, the NFLAs objected to planned legislation to widen the CNC’s remit to guarding non-nuclear sites. In our response to a consultation, we said that the ‘CNC’s role should continue to be explicitly confined to policing nuclear sites and facilities’ and that ‘protection of critical national infrastructure should be carried out by an adequately funded democratically controlled local police force’ rather than an unaccountable paramilitary police force.

If CNC numbers at nuclear sites are diluted, there could be pressure to employ robots on security duties in their stead, and in the long-term it is not inconceivable that they may even become armed and autonomous.

The ‘poster child’ of the robots is the quadruped first developed by Boston Dynamics in the United States, affectionately known as Spot the Dog. This variant is now routinely used in decommissioning operations in environments that are unsafe for human operators. The robot uses a specialist scanning system to create a 3D moveable image of its environment, allowing engineers to carry out remote inspections in support of clean-up operations[ii].

Spot can though operate entirely autonomously. Last month, it was reported that such a robot had completed a 35-day autonomous operation to inspect the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s Joint European Torus (JET) facility. Tasks successfully completed included ‘mapping the facility, taking sensor readings, avoiding obstacles and personnel involved in the decommissioning process, and collecting essential data on JET’s environment and overall status twice a day. The robot also knew when to dock and undock with its charging station, to ensure it could complete the task without humans having to intervene’.[iii]

So far, so benign, but a disturbing report appeared around the same time about experiments to test the military potential of near-identical quadrupeds being carried out by the US armed forces, with Spot’s cousin converted into an armed platform by the addition of an artificial intelligence-enabled gun turret to participate in exercises in Saudi Arabia. The flexible turret enabled ground fire, but also aerial fire against drones, which are also an increasing threat to civil nuclear facilities. The article in Military.Com records that robot dogs have already been engaged by the US Defence Department in several roles, including ‘boosting perimeter security at sensitive installations’, a task in which they excel as they can ‘patrol’ ‘without need to rest’.[iv]

The NFLAs cannot help thinking that in a dystopian nuclear future, in which the CNC increasingly overstretched and renamed the Civil Infrastructure Constabulary to reflect its ever-expanded role in providing armed protection to a wide range of critical sites, security forces might engage a force of armed Robocops to supplement the dwindling number of armed human officers, each charged with patrolling the perimeters of civil nuclear facilities, and granted autonomous decision-making to engage trespassers, protestors, and drones with deadly force.

The concept of Spot the Dog becoming SWAT the Dog, however unlikely, is truly terrifying.

Concerns about so-called killer robots animated the world community late last year. The Stop Killer Robots campaign, founded in October 2012, continues to work for a new international law to regulate autonomy in weapons systems. The coalition of over 250 civil society organisations in 70 countries successfully lobbied states to adopt the first ever resolution on autonomous weapons at the United Nations on December 22, 2023. 152 countries supported General Assembly Resolution 78/241 which acknowledged the ‘serious challenges and concerns’ raised by ‘new technological applications in the military domain, including those related to artificial intelligence and autonomy in weapons systems.’

Stop Killer Robots was recently awarded Archivio Disarmo’s Golden Dove for Peace Award at a ceremony in Rome on Saturday, 12 October. The award is given to an international figure or organisation which has made ‘a significant contribution to the cause of peace’.

More details of the campaign can be found at https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/

December 15, 2025 Posted by | employment, safety, UK | Leave a comment

THE EUROPEANS: BLIND TO REALITY, DEAF TO ALL WARNINGS & HEADED FOR DISASTER

Will Merz, Macron and Starmer finally open their eyes on Ukraine before their war juggernaut hits the wall of hard reality? Can the future EVER forgive them for their endlessly fatal delaying tactics?

Aearnur, Dec 13, 2025, https://aearnur.substack.com/p/the-europeans-blind-to-reality-deaf?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=312403&post_id=181444169&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

When one side cannot reconcile themselves to a relationship being over and refuses to accept this reality an entirely different scenario presents itself to one where both sides agree to part. Someone determined to pursue the relationship at all costs will blindly employ ever more radical measures, measures that worsen an already bad situation, toward potentially dangerous, even fatal levels.

The current crop of European leaders, primarily those of Germany, France and the UK cannot reconcile themselves to the fact of the Ukrainian regime losing the conflict with Russia. They cannot bear this reality and, until the last 24 hours have appeared ready to take ever more ultimately self-harming measures in an utterly futile quest to create an unattainable reality from pure fantasy.

Without the sanctions upon Russia working, without Russia’s trading partners turning their backs upon it, without the West’s so-called gamechanger weapons being effective and without NATO becoming directly involved, the Ukrainian regime in Kiev and its western sponsors were ALWAYS going to lose this conflict. Everything the West tried has failed. Everything the West could now try (which is extremely little) would also fail. Since the USA finally grasped the reality on the ground of the conflict in Ukraine the big question was then always going to be just how long the suicidally deluded Europeans would continue to futilely escalate matters. How long would the Europeans delay while Ukraine lost more men and more land before they finally bowed to reality and convinced the Kiev regime to settle?

Over the next few days we may finally see the Europeans finally accepting the inevitable. Their delay in doing this by not lending their pressure along with that of the U.S. on Zelensky has already cost tens of thousands, arguably hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives. By late-2023 it had become clear that Russia would prevail. Nothing on anything remotely approaching a fundamental level was working against an unassailable Russian ability to fight, destroy resistance or attacks from the enemy and to advance. The political, media, financial and military might of the West had completely failed. This was obvious to anyone who knew anything about the comparison of Russian material resources, manpower availability and industrial capacity to that of Ukraine and indeed by comparison with those of the entire collective west.

The inability of western politicians to confront the realities described above has brought them into massive disrepute across the global majority while at the same time vastly enhancing the status of the Russian nation and its endlessly insightful president.

The incompetence, general self-willed blindness and recklessness of western political elites over the question of Ukraine will go down in history as the conclusive ending of a multi-generational blight upon the world. Being unable to extricate themselves from unearned, self-awarded levels of entitlement led them to sacrifice at least a million Ukrainians on the alter of their overweening arrogance.

And for this they will never be forgiven.

December 15, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Submarines in for repairs at Rosyth could contain nuclear weapons

Dunfermline Press, 11th December, By Clare Buchanan, Local Democracy Reporter – Clackmannanshire and Fife

The Ministry of Defence says it will not reveal if nuclear weapons will be aboard submarines being repaired at Rosyth in future, and confirmed residents would be given potassium iodate tablets to block radiation in the event of an emergency.

The revelations came as members of Fife Council’s South and West Fife area committee were given an update on plans for Rosyth to be the temporary repair base for the UK’s new fleet of nuclear deterrent submarines.

While it was explained that “non-nuclear” repairs would be carried out from the dockyard when required, some vessels at the Fife yard could be carrying nuclear weapons – but an MoD spokesperson told councillors that they would not reveal whether or not they were.

Rosyth has been earmarked as a temporary contingent for the UK Government’s Dreadnought class of submarines – the first of which is expected to launch towards the end of the decade.

The proposals also include setting up an emergency planning zone, which could stretch more than a kilometre and includes a residential area…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….When probed, Mr Brown also told councillors that policy would mean there would be no confirmation of if nuclear weapons were on board.

“My position is we do not comment on the condition of the boat whether it is armed or not,” he added…………………………………

Rosyth councillor Andrew Verrachia welcomed the plans…………………….“I don’t want to think about the public being frightened. If any more communication can be put out to the wider public because the last thing anyone wants is frightened, worried members of the public. This should be a good news story.”

Committee convener David Barratt was less pleased with the plans.

“Morally, and as a CND member, I find the existence of nuclear weapons abhorrent,” he said………… https://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/25689904.submarines-repairs-rosyth-contain-nuclear-weapons/

December 15, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Revelation that UK’s Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) could be robotic prompts question over employment.

11 Dec 25 https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/revelation-that-gdf-could-be-robotic-prompts-question-over-employment/

Where are the jobs? A question surely prompted by the revelation by New CivilEngineeri that NWS chief technical officer John Corderoy recently claimed that the organisation might build a future Geological Disposal Facility operated solely by an army of robots.

Due to become operational by the late 2050s, but this is a moveable feast, the GDF will be the final repository for Britain’s high-level legacy and future radioactive waste. Three Areas of
Focus in West Cumbria are currently being examined by Nuclear Waste Services as prospective locations for an approximately 1km2 surface facility to receive waste shipments prior to their being taken below ground and out through tunnels to engineered vaults deep under the Irish Sea bed.

Advocates for the GDF have raised as an economic benefit the generational employment that the facility might provide for local people over its (possibly) 150-year lifespan, but in his speech to the Nuclear Industry Association annual conference last week, Mr Corderoy conceded that with the advancement in robotics it might be possible to build a facility ‘that’s fully automated and run by robots on the ground’.

This also makes the NFLAs wonder if that would include dispensing with a human armed police force to patrol the perimeter and check entrants in favour of an AI version, as we presaged in our article of 16 October 2024:

Although, as Mr Corderoy rightly indicated, such a plan would mean ‘we don’t have to put humans in harm’s way deep underground’, for Nuclear Waste Services it would also mean a
workforce which toils without payment and without any expectation of a workplace pension, and which does not require catering, medical or welfare facilities, carparking, protective clothing, lit or heated workspaces, holidays, maternity or paternity leave, or time off for
sickness (aside from an occasional recharge, oil or parts change, or annual MOT). All representing significant cost savings for NWS.

Nor would robots be discovered leaving work
early or engaging in toxic workplace behaviour, nor would they become embroiled in an industrial dispute with their employer; things that cannot be said about some of the human
workforce at Sellafield in recent years.

The industry trades unions will also be horrified; for not only would it mean that their members, facing redundancy after the closure of storage facilities at Sellafield, would not be
able to access alternate operational jobs at the GDF site, but it would mean a loss of income to help sustain the salaries of officials as robots do not pay union subs.

December 14, 2025 Posted by | employment, UK | Leave a comment

Disappointing news from the High Court, to Together Against Sizewell C (TASC)

Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) are extremely disappointed to advise of today’s decision by the judge, to refuse permission for a judicial review in relation to Sizewell C’s secret additional sea defences. In TASC’s view, it is immoral to proceed with Sizewell C in the knowledge that the project, as approved in the development consent order, is not resilient to an extreme sea level rise scenario. This will result in future generations having to pick up the pieces from ill-thought out decisions made today.
Future generations need government to move forward with sustainable development, not questionable climate change solutions, such as Sizewell C, which come with hidden risks that have been denied public scrutiny, assessment and full consideration of alternatives.

 TASC 12th Dec 2025, https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/sizewell-c-legal-challenge/

December 14, 2025 Posted by | Legal, UK | Leave a comment

Fire safety failings hit Hinkley Point.

Nuclear Engineering International 10th Dec 2025

Improvements must be in place by June 2026, ahead of bulk installation of mechanical and electrical systems at unit 1.

The UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has served a fire enforcement notice on Bylor JV (a joint venture of Laing O’Rourke and Bouygues Travaux Publics) after identifying significant fire safety shortfalls at the Hinkley Point C (HPC) nuclear construction site in Somerset.

ONR inspectors identified that Bylor had failed to implement appropriate arrangements for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of preventive and protective measures following a focused fire safety intervention.

Bylor is delivering HPC’s main civil engineering works. ONR said many of the Bylor buildings on the site are currently at an advanced stage of construction and these shortfalls resulted in inadequate general fire precautions, including a lack of an adequate emergency lighting system………………….https://www.neimagazine.com/news/fire-safety-failings-hit-hinkley-point/?cf-view

December 14, 2025 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

US should exit lost Ukraine war, obsolete NATO

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL, substack.com/@waltzlotow  12 Dec 25
President Trump appears to relish killing innocents worldwide. He’s still enabling the Israeli genocide in Gaza that has killed over 100,000. He’s obliterated 20 little unarmed boats in the Caribbean killing over 80 hapless innocents. He’s bombed imagined bad guys in Somalia 111 times in 10 months. Why? Because he wants to and can.

But one killing field Trump wants out of is Ukraine. His predecessor Biden provoked the war there 4 years ago. It has largely destroyed Ukraine as a viable state with millions fled, dead, injured, with a shattered economy propped up by US, NATO treasure.

Trump is working with Russia to end the war largely on Russia’s sensible terms. No NATO for Ukraine which will remain neutral between Europe and Russia. No return of the seized territory containing the Russian speaking Ukrainians their government was systematically destroying. End of sanctions allowing reintegration of Russia into the European political economy.

This is good for Ukraine, good for Russia, good for Europe.
 
For Ukraine it ends further destruction which will alas, now be a rump state of its former self. Had Ukraine not allowed the US and NATO to sabotage the April, 2022 Istanbul peace agreement, Ukraine could have achieved peace then with no loss of territory and its economy largely intact.

For Russia, its security concerns regarding NATO encroachment allowing NATO nukes on its borders, and further destruction of Russian leaning Donbas Ukrainians will achieved be.
 
For Europe, peace will allow redirection of squandered treasure to the commons, ward off right wing political movements likely to topple pro war leaders, and buy cheap energy from Russia to revitalize their stagnant economies.

 
While Russia is on board, neither Ukraine nor Europe will have any of this sanity. Ukraine wants to fight on to regain lost territory that will forever be part of Russia. Hurling teens and grandfathers into the cauldron of lost war further cements Ukraine’s destruction.

European NATO pretends defeating Russia in Ukraine is critical to preventing Russia from attacking NATO countries in their imagined obsession Russia is recreating the Soviet Union.

Ukraine and Europe continue in their delusions in spite of Trump’s clear message that the war is lost and must be ended to prevent further disintegration of Ukraine. Neither Ukraine nor Europe has anywhere near the military resources to continue the war largely financed by the Russophobic Biden administration.

Trump must not weaver in his efforts to exit the money pit of senseless war in Ukraine. But he should go further and exit NATO, allowing Europe to provide for their own defense. No US Sugar Daddy might be just the tonic to dissuade foolish European leaders like UK’s Starmer, France’s Macron and Germany’s Merz from endlessly screaming ‘The Russians are coming, the Russian’s are coming.’

Congress is starting to recognize the need to exit NATO. House Republican Thomas Massie and Senate Republican Mike Lee have both introduced legislation to end US membership in NATO.

Their common sense justification is long overdue fresh air. Massie noted, “NATO was created to counter the Soviet Union, which collapsed over thirty years ago. Since then, U.S. participation has cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and continues to risk US involvement in foreign wars. Our Constitution did not authorize permanent foreign entanglements, something our Founding Fathers explicitly warned us against. America should not be the world’s security blanket—especially when wealthy countries refuse to pay for their own defense.”

Lee observed, “America’s withdrawal from NATO is long overdue. NATO has run its course – the threats that existed at its inception are no longer relevant 76 years later “If they were, Europe would be paying their fair share instead of making American taxpayers pick up the check for decades. My legislation will put America first by withdrawing us from the raw deal NATO has become.”

 Trump must support this legislation as he works with Russia to end the carnage that addresses Russia’s valid security concerns. Ending this war and exiting NATO will bring peace to Europe and revitalize the economies of all combatants. It might also avert something infinitely more ominous…nuclear war.

December 13, 2025 Posted by | Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear Notebook: The changing nuclear landscape in Europe

Bulletin, By Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, Mackenzie Knight-Boyle | December 10, 2025

Evolving nuclear weapons postures in Europe

Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and invaded Ukraine in 2022, the rhetoric, prominence, operations, and infrastructures of nuclear weapons in Europe have changed considerably and, in many cases, increased. This trend is in sharp contrast with the two decades prior that—despite modernization programs—were dominated by efforts to reduce the numbers and role of nuclear weapons.

During this period, Russia has fielded several new nonstrategic nuclear weapons systems, increased military exercises, issued a long list of nuclear signals and threats, and upgraded its nuclear doctrine in a way that gives the impression that it has broadened the role of nuclear weapons and potentially lowered its nuclear threshold.

NATO, for its part, is also modernizing its nuclear forces and has further reacted by increasing its strategic bomber operations and nonstrategic nuclear posture, changing its strategic nuclear ballistic missile submarine operations, and talking more openly and assertively about the role and value of nuclear weapons.

Each side believes it has good reasons for beefing up the nuclear posture, but the combined effect is that the role and presence of nuclear weapons in Europe are increasing again after decades of efforts to curtail them. Unless the governments and parliaments of European countries increase efforts to halt this trend, the region is likely to descend further into growing nuclear weapons competition and posturing over the next decade.

In this Nuclear Notebook, we provide an overview with examples of how the nuclear postures in Europe are evolving, especially the infrastructures and operations. The overview is focused on nonstrategic nuclear weapons but also includes examples of how strategic nuclear forces are operated. The intention is to provide a factual resource for the public debate about the evolving role of nuclear weapons in Europe. As such, this notebook is not intended to be comprehensive but informative.

Nine countries currently operate nuclear forces in Europe: Belarus, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The latter has announced plans to acquire nonstrategic nuclear weapons (see Figure 1), and a tenth country (Türkiye) hosts nuclear weapons on its territory.

Nuclear developments involving the Russian Federation…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Nuclear developments involving NATO………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The United Kingdom…………………………………………………………………………………..

France…………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………….. copious references……………..https://thebulletin.org/premium/2025-12/the-changing-nuclear-landscape-in-europe/

December 13, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, politics | Leave a comment

Nuclear Free Local Authorities Policy Briefing 330: NFLA Progress Report, October – December 2025.

NFLA, Richard Outram, NFLA / Mayors for Peace Secretary 11 December 2025

Key Developments:
UK Government: EN-7
The UK Government’s revised National Policy Statement for Nuclear Energy Generation (EN-7) was
finalised and published in November 2025 introducing a developer led, criteria-based approach for siting new fission gigawatt, SMR and AMR nuclear plants (but not fusion – this will be covered by EN-8 in development). The previous policy EN-6 was Government led, with a strategic assessment leading to the listing of specific sites for redevelopment.

The NFLAs have been critical of this approach as it provides for new nuclear power stations to be built at sites that have not previously hosted such infrastructure, raising the prospect of a market led free-for-all. Energy Minister Michael Shanks described the new policy as ‘agile’ meaning there is
much not to like as very few criteria in the new policy explicitly rule out development; the emphasis is more upon facilitation with the caveat that there shall be a ‘mitigation of impacts on the host community’.

Two silver linings are that the Government has:

1. (For now) Retained the Semi-Urban Population Density Criterion (SUPDC), much to the chagrin of developers, meaning that reactors cannot be built near populated areas; developers, claiming their unproven, unbuilt reactor designs, are safer would much prefer this be lifted as it would permit them to co-locate new plants near to large industrial consumers.

2. Placed a focus upon developments being designed to be resilient to climate change. These are both issues the NGO community, and NFLAs, have made representations to Government upon.

Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce
John Fingleton’s Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce , mostly comprising nuclear industry representatives, has just published its final report (unsurprisingly) calling for a radical reset of the ‘overly complex’ nuclear regulatory system. The report makes 47 recommendations to speed up nuclear projects at a lower cost. It says the UK has become the “most expensive place in the world” to build nuclear plants.

Shockingly, contrary to the commitment in EN-7, the NRT recommended that nuclear plants should be built closer to urban areas and should be allowed to harm the local environment.

This confirms the fears of the NFLAs and NGO community that the Taskforce was charged with dispensing with regulation in the industry to make it cheaper and quicker for developers to build new nuclear plants with the risk that safety and environmental and human protection will be compromised. (A similar approach contributed to the accident at Three Mile Island)………………….

The Office for Nuclear Regulation has previously rigorously contested the claims of EDF and others like Britain Remade that over regulation led to a significant increase in costs at the Hinkley Point C development. And Nuclear Consult Chair, Dr Paul Dorfman, writing in The National said the report
does not provide any evidence that regulation is responsible for huge delays and ballooning costs, rather these can be attributed to the incompetence of the builders and the issues with designs.

However, at the recent ONR NGO Forum we were informed that the government intends to establish one overarching regulatory commission with the ultimate power to make determinations upon nuclear projects. At its head will be the Chief Nuclear Inspector as Chair of this prestigious new body. In response to the report, the ONR issued a statement casting its former criticism to the winds and instead warmly welcoming the recommendations; coincidence, surely?

Worryingly, the report also recommends limiting legal challenges to a ‘single bite of the cherry’ and talks of ‘indemnifying’ nuclear developers from ‘damages’ incurred because of judicial reviews.

And, in another move by the Labour Government to curtail the rights of lawful protestors, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has ordered courts to open hearings on judicial review processes which could threaten to block critical infrastructure projects within four months of an application being made.

Nuclear can access green finance
The Treasury has published an updated Green Financing Framework which adds nuclear energy-related expenditures to the list of Eligible Green Expenditures.
Worryingly it permits the employment of public money invested from November 2025 in the Government’s Green Bonds scheme into nuclear power; this is something we need to raise public awareness of…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/briefings/nfla-policy-briefing-330-nfla-progress-report-october-december-2025/

December 13, 2025 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

The Authoritarian Stack – How Tech Billionaires Are Building a Post-Democratic America — And Why Europe Is Next

[Superb graphics on original]

The Authoritarian Stack
A project led by Prof. Francesca Bria with xof-research.org, 12 December 2025. https://www.authoritarian-stack.info/

Research and editorial team: Francesca Bria, José Bautista
Data analysis: Autonomy Institute
Map development and design: xof-research.org
Web development: José Núñez
Supported by: Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung
Funded by: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Future of Work

The Contract That Changed Everything

In late July 2025, deep within the Pentagon’s bureaucratic machinery, the U.S. Army quietly signed away a piece of its sovereignty.

A ten-billion-dollar contract with Palantir Technologies—one of the largest in the Department of Defense’s history—was framed as a move toward “efficiency.”

It consolidated seventy-five procurement agreements into a single contract.

A strategic handover of core military functions to a private company whose founder, Peter Thiel, has declared that “freedom and democracy are no longer compatible.”

The Authoritarian Tech Network:
The Kingmakers

J.D. Vance, propelled to the vice-presidency by $15 million from Peter Thiel, became the face of tech-right governance. Behind him, Thiel’s network moved into the machinery of the state.

Under the banner of “patriotic tech“, this new bloc is building the infrastructure of control—clouds, AI, finance, drones, satellites—an integrated system we call the Authoritarian Stack. It is faster, ideological, and fully privatized: a regime where corporate boards, not public law, set the rules.

Our investigation shows how these firms now operate as state-like powers—writing the rules, winning the tenders, and exporting their model to Europe, where it poses a direct challenge to democratic governance.

Silicon Valley isn’t building apps anymore.
It’s building empires.

State Capture: Personnel Pipeline

To understand why this capture is happening so rapidly, follow the personnel. The revolving door no longer spins between government and industry—it locks them together into a new architecture of power.

Detachment 201: The Army’s Executive Innovation Corps

This goes further—commissioning Silicon Valley executives directly into military ranks. In June 2025, four tech executives were sworn in as lieutenant colonels:
The line between contractor and commander has been erased.

The Pipeline Made Visible

Unlike old authoritarianism built on fear and force, this new system rules through code, capital, and infrastructure — making resistance feel architecturally impossible.

It’s a self-reinforcing loop:
Ideology fuels venture capital → capital captures the state → the state feeds the same private systems that built it. A new model of power — privatized sovereignty.

Each layer reinforces the others. Ideology justifies investment. Investment captures state power. State power secures contracts. Contracts build infrastructure. Infrastructure becomes indispensable. Indispensability generates returns. Returns fund more ideology.

The Capital Machine: Financial Flows — From Taxpayers to Venture Capital

Follow the Money

Funding

Government

Tech Companies

Venture Capital

Founders Fund, Thiel’s $17 billion flagship, led Anduril’s $1 billion round at a $30.5 billion valuation. It was the first institutional investor in both Palantir and SpaceX. Palantir’s quarterly revenue now exceeds $1 billion—up 53 percent in government contracts. 1789 Capital epitomizes dynasty.

Founded by Thiel’s confidants and joined by Donald Trump Jr., it grew from $150 million to over $1 billion. It channels tens of millions into Musk’s empire—SpaceX for orbital dominance, xAI for military AI. 

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), through its “American Dynamism” fund, backs defense tech and what it calls builders of the American state. Andreessen rallied Silicon Valley’s billionaire class to Trump’s 2024 campaign.

Smaller giants like 8VC and General Catalyst reinforce the pattern. 8VC poured $450 million into Anduril; General Catalyst led a $1.48 billion round.

The Stack: Five Domains of Privatized Sovereignty

Critical state infrastructures are being privatized across five domains—data, defense, space, energy, and money—the foundations of democratic power. These domains form the architecture of privatized sovereignty: a technological regime where power flows through laws, infrastructure and automated platforms.

Crypto Sovereignty

The Nuclear AI Complex

SpaceX: Orbital Infrastructure

Anduril: Autonomous Warfare

Palantir: The Operating System of Government

Privatizing the state’s data and decision making.

Systems

  • Gotham (intelligence)
  • Foundry (DOGE budget automation)
  • ImmigrationOS (ICE tracking)
  • NHS Federated Data Platform

Contracts

ICE Immigration Platform (2025)

$10 B U.S. Army Enterprise Agreement

Europe’s Deepening Trap

y mid-2025, its reverberations were already felt across Europe. In Rome, Italian defense officials moved to integrate Elon Musk’s Starlink into military communications. In Berlin, Rheinmetall and Anduril expanded their joint venture to deploy autonomous drone swarms for NATO. The German variants of its drones still run on Californian code. Musk livestreams with the AfD’s Alice Weidel, endorsing the German far-right while supplying NATO infrastructure.

In London, the NHS scaled Palantir’s £330 million Federated Data Platform across tens of millions of patient records, By May 2025, the government had to pay KPMG £8 million just to encourage hospital adoption. Meanwhile, a £1.5 billion defense partnership binds Britain to Palantir’s AI systems.

None of these decisions provoked real debate. Few reached front pages. Together, they reveal the systematic outsourcing of European sovereignty to American oligarchs whose ideology openly undermines democracy.

It is a paradox with devastating implications: pursuing digital sovereignty while ceding control through every signed contract.

Each new contract deepens the trap. Once Palantir becomes indispensable, once Anduril’s drones are NATO standard, once nuclear facilities power AI that runs everything else— the transformation is irreversible.

Europe faces an existential choice: build genuine technological sovereignty now, or accept governance by platforms whose architects view democracy as an obsolete operating system.

The Infrastructure of Control

ilicon Valley’s Authoritarian Tech Right is not theorizing this world. They are already building it. The pipelines are operational. The feedback loops are functioning. The sovereignty transfers are completing.

Democracy persists as a legacy interface— maintained for stability, while being systematically hollowed out and replaced.

The question now is whether democratic societies can recognize this formation for what it is—and build alternatives before the infrastructure of control becomes too deeply embedded to dislodge.

The Authoritarian Tech Complex

Explore the Map [by clicking on graphic on original]

December 13, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Rosyth earmarked as temporary repair base for new fleet of UK submarines

Herald, 11th December

Work is underway to design an emergency planning zone as plans progress for Rosyth to be the temporary repair base for the UK’s new fleet of nuclear deterrent submarines.

Rosyth has been earmarked as a temporary contingent for the UK Government’s Dreadnought class of submarines – the first of which is expected to launch towards the end of the decade.

Members of Fife Council’s South and West Fife area committee were given an update on the proposals at their meeting on Wednesday where it was explained that “non-nuclear” repairs would be carried out from the dockyard when required.

Grant Reekie, head of radioactive waste and health physics at Babcock International in Rosyth, told councillors: “The next generation of submarines is going to be launched from Barrow towards the end of this decade.

“The intention is these will be maintained at the HM Naval base Clyde however the Clyde facilities will not be available until mid 2030s.

“We have been asked to provide a contingent facility by the MoD to bridge a gap of submarines coming into service in late 2020s from 2029 through to mid 2030s when they will no longer be required as it will be done in Faslane.

“Rosyth is the only location in the UK where this can be done due to the facilities, the expertise and the availability of the dock in Rosyth.”……………………..

Mr Reekie said the next step would be defining a “detailed emergency planning zone” which would then be sent to Fife Council.

“As soon as we have done the consequence assessment, which we are looking at the middle of next year, we need to go to the local authority and need to offer engagement to the local authority,” he said………………….

Rosyth councillor Brian Goodall questioned why there was no public consultation.

“For something as significant as this, something that would lead to a significant percentage of the population of Rosyth being told there will be Potassium iodate tablets available in the event of an emergency, why is there no public consultation on this?”………………………….

When probed, Ian Brown, from the MoD, also told councillors that policy would mean there would be no confirmation of if nuclear weapons were on board.

“My position is we do not comment on the condition of the boat whether it is armed or not,” he added.

………………….. Committee convener David Barratt was less pleased with the plans.

“Morally, and as a CND member, I find the existence of nuclear weapons abhorrent,” he said.

“I was going to ask if there is anything in the powers of council to frustrate, delay or in any way stop nuclear weapon activities and I take it from the answers the answer to that is an absolute no.

“Yes this will create jobs but war tends to do that. I don’t think we would advocate for war and job creation doesn’t lead me to advocate for nuclear weapons.” https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25689769.rosyth-earmarked-temporary-repair-base-new-fleet-submarines/

December 13, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

As the UK looks to invest in nuclear, here’s what it could mean for Britain’s environment

In this week’s newsletter:​ The government’s bid to speed up nuclear construction could usher in sweeping deregulation, with experts warning of profound consequences for nature.

Helena Horton, Guardian, 12 Dec 25

When UK prime minister Keir Starmer announced last week that he was “implementing the Fingleton review”, you can forgive the pulse of most Britons for failing to quicken.

But behind the uninspiring statement lies potentially the biggest deregulation for decades, posing peril for endangered species, if wildlife experts are to be believed, and a likely huge row with the EU.

Earlier this year, John Fingleton, a lively, intelligent Irish economist, was commissioned by the government to lead a “taskforce” with a mission to come up with a way to build nuclear power faster and cheaper. It’s accepted by experts that we need more nuclear if we are to meet net zero, and that Britain is the most expensive place in the world to build it. In the end, Fingleton turned in a review with 47 recommendations aimed at speeding up the process. So far, so snoozeworthy.

However, his recommendations, if adopted, could well lead to the biggest divergence from retained EU habitat and environment law since Brexit. Changes could be made to the habitats directive, which Britain helped write when we were in the EU, and which protect rare species and the places they live. The government could also make it more costly for individuals and charities to take judicial reviews against infrastructure projects……………

Legal advice is that removing these rules for nuclear power will inevitably lead for other infrastructure projects to be subject to the same, weaker regulatory system. Expert planning lawyer Alexa Culver said: “It’s a clever move to sneak broadbrush environmental deregulation, as the government can point to ‘net zero’ as being the ultimate driver. In reality, though, if you don’t protect ecosystems while reducing emissions, you’ve lost the battle. We’re gone anyway.”

It’s not surprising Starmer is clinging to anything which might increase economic growth……..  OBR has predicted an anticipated average GDP growth of 1.5% over the next five years. This is despite the controversial Planning and Infrastructure Bill which Starmer introduced in order to “get Britain building” and experts say it will weaken environmental protections.

Nature also continues to decline. The recently released biodiversity indicators show species numbers continue to decrease in the UK, which is extremely concerning when you consider just how much wildlife has dropped off since the 1970s. Some species, including one-fifth of mammals, are facing extinction, and recent figures show wild bird numbers are in freefall.

Of the review, Georgia Dent, CEO of Somerset Wildlife Trust said: “The government seems to have adopted a simple, reductive narrative that nature regulations are blocking development, and this is simply wrong. Nature in the UK is now in steep decline and the government has legally binding targets for nature’s recovery, and is failing massively in this at the moment. To reduce the hard-won protections that are allowing small, vulnerable populations of species to cling on for dear life is absolutely the wrong direction to take.”

…………………………. the UK is negotiating an energy deal with the EU. There are competition and non-regression clauses in the newest free trade agreement, which prevent either side from weakening environmental law. Government sources tell me their legal advice has been that implementing the Fingleton review could put the free trade agreement at risk……………

………..When MPs, environmental experts and the EU look past the boring title and read the detail, Starmer may have a fight on his hands. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/series/down-to-earth

December 13, 2025 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

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