The role of nuclear in the UK’s energy mix.
In 2022, nuclear power provided 13.9% of total electricity supplied in the UK. However, as the table below [on original] illustrates, its contribution has fallen significantly since
the 1990s, when it provided around a quarter of the UK’s total
electricity supply.
Since 1995 there have been eight nuclear plant
closures, with no new plants coming online, reducing installed nuclear
capacity reducing by more than a quarter.
Declining nuclear capacity has
been (more than) compensated for by the rise of renewable energy, whose
share of electricity generation rose from 3% in 2000 to 42% in 2022.
The chief scientist of Greenpeace UK, Dr Doug Parr, said that the nuclear
industry was making “speculative claims” regarding the proposed
benefits of SMRs relative to conventional nuclear power. He said that
“SMRs have no track record, but initial indications are that the familiar
problems of cost overruns and delays will be repeated”.
In addition to these concerns, Steve Thomas, an emeritus professor of energy policy at the
University of Greenwich, suggests that the focus on SMRs will divert time
and resources away from energy efficiency and renewables which he believes
are the “answers” to net zero electricity generation.
Professor Thomas’s position is in line with that of the Green Party, the Liberal
Democrats, and the Scottish National Party. The co-leader of the Green
Party Adrian Ramsey has described nuclear as an “expensive
distraction”, arguing that renewable energy technologies and energy
efficiency are “cleaner and cheaper solutions that can be delivered far
quicker than nuclear ever can”.
Wera Hobhouse, the Liberal Democrat
energy and climate change spokesperson, has also criticised the expense of
nuclear power relative to renewables. Referring to the Nuclear Energy
(Financing) Act 2022, she argued it was “madness” that the government
had “recently passed a new law that will allow them to add levies to
energy bills to fund new nuclear plants”.
Scotland’s last remaining
nuclear power plant in Torness is due to close in 2028 and SNP energy
spokesperson Alan Brown has said that the UK government should be focussing
its efforts on Scotland’s “renewable energy potential” rather than
attempting to build more nuclear power stations.
House of Lords Library 23rd Aug 2023
French nuclear watchdog ASN issues first lifespan extension to 40-year-old reactor
French nuclear watchdog ASN issued a decision allowing for the continued
operation of state-owned utility EDF’s Tricastin 1 nuclear reactor in
southern France, the first lifetime extension granted to a French reactor
after 40 years of operation.
In a decision published on Aug. 10 and seen by
Reuters on Tuesday, ASN granted the reactor an extension until its next
review, so for another ten years. Some 32 of France’s fleet of 56 reactors
are up for their fourth ten-yearly inspection this decade, leaving French
energy production reliant on securing a swathe of reactor extensions for
another ten years.
Reuters 22nd Aug 2023
Ukraine likely to fail in key counteroffensive aim, says US intelligence
Roland Oliphant, Telegraph, Fri, 18 Aug 2023, https://www.sott.net/article/483699-Ukraine-likely-to-fail-in-key-counteroffensive-aim-says-US-intelligence
Ukraine’s counter-offensive will likely fail in its key objective to cut Russia’s land bridge to Crimea this year, according to a US intelligence assessment briefed to members of Congress.
Instead, Ukraine’s attack is expected to stop some way short of the key city of Melitopol, the Washington Post reported, citing anonymous officials familiar with the assessment.
The reported assessment, which The Telegraph could not immediately verify, could foreshadow mutual recriminations between members of the pro-Ukraine alliance over the offensive’s slow progress.
Ukraine launched a long-planned counter-offensive in June. Its main objective was to reach the sea of Azov and sever Russia’s land bridge to the annexed Black Sea Crimean peninsula.
Ukraine and its allies hoped newly supplied Western equipment such as Leopard tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles would help achieve a breakthrough. But the assault immediately ran into stronger than anticipated Russian resistance and has struggled to make progress.
In an effort to reduce losses, analysts said Ukraine has now switched back to the strategy of smaller assaults and strikes on supply lines that eventually led to success in the southern Kherson region last year.
Melitopol, about 50 miles south of the current front line, is often called the “gateway” to Crimea and sits astride two roads and a railway controlling access to the peninsula. To reach it, the Ukrainians would have to puncture three layers of reinforced defensive lines and minefields, and bypass or capture several heavily fortified towns and villages en route.
Playing down tensions
In public, Ukrainian and Western officials generally seek to play down tensions over the slow progress of the fighting.
Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said on Thursday that Ukraine does not feel under pressure from Western allies to deliver quicker results.
But mutual recriminations have begun.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, said in July that the operation was originally planned for spring but delayed for months because of insufficient weapons systems and munitions. That delay in turn gave the Russians time to dig in and sow minefields, he said.
Other critics have accused Western governments of hypocrisy for expecting Ukraine to achieve a combined-arms-style breakthrough without air superiority or long-range precision missiles to hit supply lines, minimum requirements for any similar Nato operation.
No ‘panaceas’
US and other Western officials have denied decisions on arms supplies have hampered the offensive.
A senior official in Joe Biden’s administration told the Washington Post the main issue remains piercing the Russian defensive lines and that there was “no evidence” F-16 fighters or longer-range missile systems such as ATACMS would have been a “panacea” to that problem.
Late last month, a German military intelligence report blamed slow progress on Ukraine’s generals splitting Western-trained brigades into small units to assault objectives, which it said negated advantages in force and firepower.
It said an “operational doctrine” particularly entrenched in senior officers with combat experience meant Nato training was not being put into practice.
The Biden administration gave the green light to European countries to provide F16 fighters and associated training to Ukrainian pilots and crews in May, following months of Ukrainian lobbying.
The United States on Friday formally assured Denmark and the Netherlands that it would give permission for F-16s to be exported to Ukraine when training is complete, but that is not expected to be until early next year.
It has so far rebuffed Ukrainian requests for ATACMS precision missiles.
EDF Warns of French Nuclear Output Cuts in Weekend Heat Wave
Bloomberg, By Francois De Beaupuy, August 22, 2023
Electricite de France SA will probably have to reduce nuclear output over the coming weekend as a heat wave affecting a large part of the country warms rivers used for cooling some of its reactors.
Due to the high temperatures forecast on Rhone river, production restrictions are likely to affect production at its Tricastin power plant — where two of its four 900-megawatt reactors are already………….(Subscribers only) more https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-21/edf-warns-of-french-nuclear-output-cuts-in-weekend-heat-wave#xj4y7vzkg
Biden’s rival, Robert F. Kennedy Junior, labels F-16s for Ukraine ‘a disaster for humanity’
21vAug 23 , https://www.rt.com/news/581543-kennedy-ukraine-f16-delivery/1
Supplying US-made fighter jets to Kiev would only benefit the defense industry, RFK Jr. says
The looming delivery of US-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will not prevent the “collapse” of the country’s military and will only benefit the military-industrial complex, Democrat presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Junior has claimed.
The Ukrainian conflict should be resolved through negotiations, RFK Jr. argued in a thread on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), stating that supplying F-16s to Kiev was a “great decision for the defense industry, but a disaster for Ukraine and humanity.”
“F-16s won’t stop the collapse of the Ukrainian military (which some experts say is imminent). These planes require a lot of training and maintenance. This isn’t the movies,” Kennedy stressed.
The presidential hopeful has long-opposed the enduring Western aid to Ukraine, spearheaded by Washington, arguing that the US should admit its “failure” in the country and focus on domestic issues instead. Kennedy’s criticism of the fighter-jet delivery comes after Washington enabled its European allies to re-export older planes to Ukraine, and hours before the move was officially announced by Denmark and the Netherlands.
The upcoming delivery was heralded by Dutch PM Mark Rutte on Sunday as he hosted Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky at a military airbase in Eindhoven.
“Today we can announce that the Netherlands and Denmark commit to the transfer of F-16 aircraft to Ukraine and the Ukrainian Air Force, including cooperation with the United States and other partners once the conditions for such a transfer have been met,” Rutte said at a press conference.
Simultaneously, the Danish Ministry of Defence released a statement confirming its pledge to provide Kiev with F-16s from its inventory, once certain “conditions” are met. The conditions “include, but are not limited to, successfully selected, tested and trained Ukrainian F-16 personnel as well as necessary authorizations, infrastructure and logistics,” it said.
Kiev has long-demanded modern aircraft, as well as other, increasingly sophisticated weaponry, from its Western backers, arguing the planes would help it turn the tide of the conflict with Russia, which has been going on since February 2022. Moscow has repeatedly urged the collective West to stop the military deliveries, arguing they would only prolong the hostilities rather than change their ultimate outcome.
French cruise ship makes rendezvous with Russian nuclear icebreaker near North Pole
Barents Observer, By Atle Staalesen August 20, 2023
The meeting between the two vessels took place in remote Arctic waters not far from the North Pole.
Video made by passengers onboard the 50 Let Pobedy and shared on social media shows the two vessels trading greetings and sailing side by side through thick sea-ice.
The Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker is on the way to the North Pole as part of an expedition for students. Shortly after its meeting with the tourist ship, it encountered also two other ships currently sailing in the area. According to ship operator Rosatom, the 50 Let Pobedy met with Arctic research station Severny Polyus, as well as research ship Akademik Tryoshnikov.
The latter ship had sailed all the way from St.Petersburg with new crew and equipment for the drifting station that is on a two-year expedition across the ice.
The Le Commandant Charcot is the new vessel built for cruise ship operator Ponant. It is classified as icebreaker and can make independent voyages to the North Pole. In 2021, it was first hybrid-electric luxury cruise ship to make it to the North Pole.
The ship set out on a 16-days expedition from Reykjavik in early August. It sails to the geographic North Pole and ends up in Longyearbyen, Svalbard.
It is not a voyage for the regular man and woman. The starting price per person is €31,485…………………………………………… https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2023/08/french-cruise-ship-makes-rendezvous-russian-nuclear-icebreaker-near-north-pole
France and Russia co-operate on developing a plant in Russia for processing depleted uranium
The installation of equipment has begun at TVEL’s JSC Electrochemical Plant
(ECP) in Zelenogorsk in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk Region for W2-ECP, the
country’s second plant for the processing of depleted uranium hexafluoride.
The plant is part of a long-term project to manage and make use of depleted
uranium stocks in Russia. The plant, with a processing capacity of 10,000
tonnes per year, is being supplied by Orano Projets – the engineering arm
of France’s nuclear fuel cycle specialist Orano – under a EUR40 million
(USD44 million) contract signed in December 2019.
Under the terms of the contract, Orano will supply the equipment for the construction of the
deconversion facility, as well as providing technical assistance in its
installation and commissioning. The first equipment for the plant arrived
at the construction site in eastern Siberia from France in December 2021.
The project was originally expected to be completed in 2022. The W2-ECP
plant will accept deliveries of depleted uranium hexafluoride gas (DUF6 –
sometimes called DUHF) and deconvert these to uranium tetrafluoride, with
anhydrous hydrofluoric acid being produced as a by-product. Deconversion
transforms the toxic and somewhat corrosive gaseous DUF6 enrichment
tailings into a stable powdered oxide form fit for long-term storage,
transport or final disposal.
World Nuclear News 16th Aug 2023
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Construction-of-second-Russian-deconversion-plant
UK ‘s Minister for Nuclear and Networks very upbeat about nuclear energy’s future
In February, Andrew Bowie
became the UK’s first-ever
Minister for Nuclear and Networks
2 Andrew Bowie
became the country’s first-ever U.K.,”
Minister for Nuclear and Networks nuclear minister in February,
TOKYO — The U.K. government is “absolutely committed” to boosting nuclear power as a key energy source, but national security is paramount as Chinese investment in new plants raises concerns, the minister in charge of the sector told Nikkei Asia.
Most of the U.K.’s existing nuclear plants are to be retired by the end of this decade, while a new generation of reactors is still under construction………
“The British government is absolutely committed to new nuclear, after about three decades of underinvestment. We are reinvesting and reinvigorating an industry which has not had the attention that it should in the U.K.,” Minister for Nuclear and Networks Andrew Bowie said in a recent interview. “On the whole, we are open to investors from overseas,” he added……………….
The UK government has announced plans to build as many as eight new reactors. However, major projects already underway are mired in controversy over funding from Chinese investors, given tense relations between London and Beijing……………
Now uncertainty looms for Hinkley Point C, which broke ground in 2016 under a joint investment by EDF and CGN as the first new nuclear power station built in the U.K. in nearly 30 years. The plant is home to the only two reactors now under construction, according to data from the International Atomic Energy Agency……….
“The pendulum has swung” on British nuclear policy, the minister said, but the pronuclear plans could fall victim to politics, with a general election due within 15 months………… https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Energy/U.K.-committed-to-nuclear-power-despite-China-funding-concerns2
Big Brave Western Proxy Warriors Keep Whining That Ukrainian Troops Are Cowards
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, AUG 19, 2023
Amid continuous news that the Ukrainian counteroffensive which began in June is not going as hoped, The New York Times has published an article titled “Troop Deaths and Injuries in Ukraine War Near 500,000, U.S. Officials Say.”
Reporting that Ukrainian efforts to retake Russia-occupied territory have been “bogged down in dense Russian minefields under constant fire from artillery and helicopter gunships,” The New York Times reports that Ukrainian forces have switched tactics to using “artillery and long-range missiles instead of plunging into minefields under fire.”
Then the article gets really freaky:
“American officials are worried that Ukraine’s adjustments will race through precious ammunition supplies, which could benefit President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and disadvantage Ukraine in a war of attrition. But Ukrainian commanders decided the pivot reduced casualties and preserved their frontline fighting force.
“American officials say they fear that Ukraine has become casualty averse, one reason it has been cautious about pressing ahead with the counteroffensive. Almost any big push against dug-in Russian defenders protected by minefields would result in huge numbers of losses.”
I’m sorry, US officials “fear” that Ukraine is becoming “casualty averse”? Because safer battlefield tactics that burn through a lot of ammunition don’t chew through lives like charging through a minefield under heavy artillery fire?
What are the Ukrainians supposed to be? Casualty amenable? If Ukraine was more casualty amenable, would it be more willing to throw young bodies into the gears of this proxy war that the US empire actively provoked and killed peace deals to maintain?
Something tells me that the US officials speaking to The New York Times about their “fear” of Ukrainian casualty aversiveness do not know what real fear is. Something tells me that if you marched these US officials through Russian minefields under constant fire from artillery and helicopter gunships, then they would understand fear.
Western officials have been spending the last few weeks whining to the media that Ukraine’s inability to gain ground is due to an irrational aversion to being killed. They’ve been decrying Ukrainian cowardice to the press under cover of anonymity, from behind the safety of their office desks.
In an article published Thursday titled “U.S. intelligence says Ukraine will fail to meet offensive’s key goal,” The Washington Post cited anonymous “U.S. and Western officials” to report that the massive losses Ukraine has been suffering in this counteroffensive had been “anticipated” in war games ahead of time, but that they had “envisioned Kyiv accepting the casualties as the cost of piercing through Russia’s main defensive line.”
The same article quotes Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba telling critics of the counteroffensive to “go and join the foreign legion” if they don’t like the results so far, adding, “It’s easy to say that you want everything to be faster when you are not there.”
In an article published last month titled “U.S. Cluster Munitions Arrive in Ukraine, but Impact on Battlefield Remains Unclear,” The New York Times reported unnamed senior US officials had “privately expressed frustration” that Ukrainian commanders “fearing increased casualties among their ranks” were switching to artillery barrages, “rather than sticking with the Western tactics and pressing harder to breach the Russian defenses.”
“Why don’t they come and do it themselves?” a former Ukrainian defense minister told The New York Times in response to the American criticism.
In an article last month titled “Ukraine’s Lack of Weaponry and Training Risks Stalemate in Fight With Russia,” The Wall Street Journal reported that unnamed western military officials “knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons” needed to dislodge Russia, but that they had “hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day” anyway.
“It didn’t,” Wall Street Journal added.
In the same article, The Wall Street Journal cited a US Army War College professor named John Nagle admitting that the US itself would never attempt the kind of counteroffensive it’s been pushing Ukrainians into attempting.
“America would never attempt to defeat a prepared defense without air superiority, but they [Ukrainians] don’t have air superiority,” Nagl said, adding, “It’s impossible to overstate how important air superiority is for fighting a ground fight at a reasonable cost in casualties.”
And now we’re seeing reports in the mass media that US officials — still under cover of anonymity of course — are beginning to wonder if perhaps it might have been better to try to negotiate peace instead of launching this counteroffensive that they knew was doomed from the beginning.
In an article titled “Milley had a point,” Politico cites multiple anonymous US officials saying that as “the realities of the counteroffensive are sinking in around Washington,” empire managers are beginning to wonder if they should have heeded outgoing Joint Chiefs chair Mark Milley’s suggestion back in November that it was a good time to consider peace talks.
“We may have missed a window to push for earlier talks,” one anonymous official says, adding, “Milley had a point.”
Oops. Oops they made a little oopsie poopsie. Oh well, it’s only Ukrainian lives.
Imagine reading through all this as a Ukrainian, especially a Ukrainian who’s lost a home or a loved one to this war. I imagine white hot tears pouring down my face. I imagine rage, and I imagine overwhelming frustration.
This whole war could have been avoided with a little diplomacy and a few mild concessions to Moscow. It could have been stopped in the early weeks of the conflict back when a tentative peace agreement had been struck. It could have been stopped back in November before this catastrophic counteroffensive.
But it wasn’t. The US had an agenda to lock Moscow into a costly military quagmire with the goal of weakening Russia, and to this day US officials openly boast about all this war is doing to advance US interests. So they’ve kept it going, using Ukrainian bodies as a giant sponge to soak up as many expensive military explosives as possible to drain Russian coffers while advancing US energy interests in Europe and keeping Moscow preoccupied while the empire orchestrates its next move against China.
Last month The Washington Post’s David Ignatius wrote an article explaining why westerners shouldn’t “feel gloomy” about how things are going in Ukraine, writing the following about how much this war is doing to benefit US interests overseas:
“Meanwhile, for the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians). The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked. NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values. NATO squabbles make headlines, but overall, this has been a triumphal summer for the alliance.”
Other than for the Ukrainians” he says, as a parenthetical aside.
Everyone who supported this horrifying proxy war should have that paragraph tattooed on their fucking forehead.
General Mark Milley had a point – USA should have pushed for peace talks on Ukraine
Politico, By ALEXANDER WARD, LARA SELIGMAN, MATT BERG and ERIC BAZAIL-EIMIL 08/18/2023
The conversation about Ukraine’s counteroffensive has shifted from one of excitement to disappointment, as Kyiv’s slow gains lead some U.S. officials and insiders alike to whisper: Should we have listened to Gen. MARK MILLEY?
In November, the Joint Chiefs chair said Ukraine’s strong military position and upcoming winter season combined to make a good time to consider peace talks. Plus, operations to expel Russian forces out of the whole of Ukraine –— which VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY demands — had a slim chance of success. Administration officials immediately scrambled to assure their counterparts in Kyiv that Milley was riffing and not reflecting a secret sentiment in the White House.
But listen to Milley lately, and you can hear the implicit “I told you so.”
“If the end state is Ukraine is a free, independent, sovereign country with its territory intact, that will take a considerable level of effort yet to come,” he told The Washington Post this week. “That’s gonna take a long, long time, but you can also achieve those objectives — maybe, possibly — through some sort of diplomatic means.”
One U.S. official, who didn’t want to run afoul of the administration by offering real views on the record, said the realities of the counteroffensive are sinking in around Washington. Ukraine’s tactics to preserve troops and equipment, Russia’s dug-in positions and the fight on multiple fronts have led to slow advances, shifting a possible breakthrough further into the future.
While the U.S. still backs Ukraine’s fight, the official said, “We may have missed a window to push for earlier talks………………………………… more https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2023/08/18/milley-had-a-point-00111878
Lukashenko shares thoughts on future of Ukraine
https://www.rt.com/russia/581437-lukashenko-ukraine-interview-recap/— 18 Aug 23
Kiev should sue for peace before it loses the remnants of its sovereignty, the leader of Belarus said in an interview
Ukraine needs to stop the war and start rebuilding its statehood on a healthier foundation before it ceases to exist completely, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko on Thursday.
1 Ukraine could lose everything
Ukraine could lose all of its territory if it chooses to continue fighting, Lukashenko said, insisting that Kiev should first “end the war” in order to preserve its statehood. “Yes, you can continue to struggle for these territories,” he said, pointing to Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye on the map. “I’m not telling you to give them up or anything. But choose another method. If you fight for these territories, you will lose those,” he added, pointing to the areas further west.
2 Conflict was avoidable
“The war was avoidable… at any point in time. It can be stopped now and it could have been avoided then,” Lukashenko said, noting that in 2015, he was at the heart of events and facilitated communication between then-President of Ukraine Pyotr Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The Minsk agreements should have been implemented. We agreed on everything… But they were ignored,” he said, adding that Putin was “100% ready” to implement the agreements, but Poroshenko was “afraid that the wrong people would have been elected” if Donbass returned to Ukraine as an autonomous region.
3 Belarus will go to war if Ukrainians cross the border
Lukashenko stated that Minsk will “keep helping our ally Russia,” but if “Ukrainians do not cross our border, we will never get involved in this hot war.” He went on to say that dozens of NATO and other countries are backing Ukraine with military coordination, intelligence, and training, as well as ammunition and weapons supplies, while “only Belarus is openly helping Russia.”
4 Russia has enough firepower
Lukashenko also rejected as “complete nonsense” the notion that Putin is pressing him to become more involved in the conflict. He observed that Russia has more than enough manpower and firepower to reach its goals, saying, “an additional 70,000 troops will change nothing.”
5 Putin withdrew troops from Kiev to avoid civilian casualties
The Belarusian leader dismissed suggestions that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky protected Kiev and that the Ukrainian army repulsed the early Russian invasion, calling the idea a “fairy tale… cooked up by mass media and Zelensky himself, in order to present him as a hero.” Lukashenko claimed that, at the time, Putin told him Kiev could be captured “right away, instantaneously, but a huge number of people will die.”
Lukashenko noted that Ukrainian forces had deployed not only tanks but multiple-launch rocket systems in the streets of Kiev, near “kindergartens, schools, hospitals,” and other public buildings. “You probably know that the Russian troops, who were on the outskirts of Kiev, withdrew from there. Did [Zelensky] destroy the Russian army there? No… He was sitting in a root cellar at the time,” Lukashenko said.
6 Main Russian objective already achieved
Moscow has already reached the principal aim of its military operation in Ukraine, the Belarusian president continued, explaining that “Ukraine will never be so aggressive towards Russia after this war ends, as it was before. Ukraine will be different. People in power [there] will be more cautious, smart – more cunning if you will.”
7 Zelensky ready to surrender western Ukraine to Poland
Lukashenko believes that in order to get Ukraine into NATO, Zelensky might go as far as to surrender part of the country’s territory under a Polish protectorate. However, he said “Ukrainians themselves will not let it happen.”
If they come in, they will not go away, because Americans are standing behind Poland. Well, this will be Polish territory. Why would NATO not accept them in this case? It will already be Polish territory,” Lukashenko said.
“This is unacceptable for us and for Russians. It is necessary to preserve Ukraine’s integrity, so that the country will not be sliced up and divided by other countries. Negotiations come next,” he added.
8 Ukraine is not Zelensky, and Zelensky is not Ukraine
Lukashenko claimed that Ukrainians are increasingly disenchanted with Zelensky, who is not a “national hero,” but an image created for international audiences by the Western propaganda machine, drawing parallels to how, before the Soviet Union’s collapse, the West “went into raptures about Gorbachev” in a similar fashion.
“People in Ukraine are beginning to see things clearly. And millions of people who fled the country are raising their voices saying that they want to return home and asking why the war is still going on,” he said. “There is a growing understanding that Zelensky should find a way out of this situation, to put it mildly.”
9 Only the United States benefits from the war
The Belarusian leader said the US-led forces seek to weaken Russia with the help of Ukraine. “It does not bother them that the Slavic peoples are fighting with each other, and killing each other. It is beneficial for them. Thus, having weakened Russia, they will get closer to China from this side. That’s their rationale. Zelensky is playing along. But in the end, Ukraine – a flourishing, beautiful country blessed with natural resources – will cease to exist.”
Finland’s OL2 nuclear reactor off grid; power prices rise
Reuters, August 18, 2023
OSLO, Aug 18 (Reuters) – Finland’s OL2 nuclear power reactor was shut down early on Friday and will remain offline until Aug. 28 due to problems caused by increased moisture in the facility’s turbine, operator TVO said, helping to pushing up electricity prices.
There was no impact on nuclear safety, TVO added.
The outage comes at a time of low wind power generation that has already lifted Finnish prices, according to Refinitiv analyst Petter Engblom Nordby.
Electricity prices for Friday soared up to 270 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) for hours where demand is typically highest, far exceeding prices in other parts of the Nordics and continental Europe, data from power exchange Nord Pool showed……………….. Reporting by Nora Buli in Oslo and Louise Rasmussen in Copenhagen, editing by Terje Solsvik https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/finlands-ol2-nuclear-reactor-off-grid-power-prices-rise-2023-08-18/
Zelensky holds court with Ukraine’s most notorious neo-Nazi
ALEXANDER RUBINSTEIN·AUGUST 16, 2023, https://thegrayzone.com/2023/08/16/zelensky-ukraines-notorious-neo-nazi/—
Western media has dismissed evidence of neo-Nazi influence in Ukraine by citing President Zelensky’s Jewish heritage. But new footage published by Zelensky shows the leader openly collaborating with a fascist ideologue who once pledged to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen.”
Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky has uploaded a video to his Telegram channel showing him holding court with one of the most notorious neo-Nazis in modern Ukrainian history: Azov Battalion founder Andriy Biletsky.
On August 14, just over an hour after Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced another $200 million in military aid to Kiev, Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelensky published the video depicting what he called an “open conversation” with Ukraine’s 3rd Separate Assault Brigade.
“I am grateful to everyone who defends our country and people, who brings our victory closer,” Zelensky wrote, following his encounter with the unit on the outskirts of Bakhmut.
While casual Western observers might not have realized it, the brigade Zelensky was addressing is actually the newest iteration of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.
“The 3rd separate assault brigade, excellent fighters,” Zelensky wrote days after the consultation, in a Twitter post which also alluded to a separate meeting with the Aidar Battalion, another neo-fascist outfit that has been accused of war crimes by Amnesty International. “They have stopped the enemy from advancing towards Kostiantynivka and pushed the occupiers back up to 8 kilometers.”
But the group’s origins are no secret. Describing their most recent rebrand in a YouTube video released in January, the unit explained: “Today we officially announce that the SSO AZOV is expanding to a brigade. From now on, we are the 3rd separate assault brigade of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
Like its predecessor, the unit is led by Andriy Biletsky, who founded the Azov Battalion and has long served as a figurehead for the closely-aligned National Corps political movement.
But in spite of Biletsky’s rich Nazi pedigree, the video Zelensky published shows him sharing a moment of bonhomie with a white nationalist militant who has described Jews as “our enemy,” or as the “real masters” of the oligarchs and craven politicians that have corrupted Ukraine.
“How could I be a Nazi?” Zelensky asked on the eve of Russia’s invasion, pointing to his Jewish heritage. “How could a people who lost eight million lives fighting Nazis support Nazism?”
Perhaps the question needs to be asked again of the Ukrainian president following the tribute he paid to his country’s top neo-Nazi ideologue.
Ukraine’s Jewish leader meets “The White Leader”
Since Russia’s military operations in Ukraine kicked off in 2022, Biletsky had taken pains to distance himself from his fascist past. He now claims that an infamous promise he made to rid the world of “Semite-led untermenschen” was actually fabricated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
But Biletsky’s most notorious screed against Jews was not an isolated outburst. Indeed, his record of Nazi-inspired tirades is extensive, and has been a matter of public record for decades.
Biletsky’s college thesis was a defense of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a group of paramilitary Nazi collaborators founded by Stepan Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists that carried out ethnic cleansings of more than 100,000 Jews and Poles. After leaving university, Biletsky quickly embedded with multiple fascist outfits, including the “Stepan Bandera All-Ukrainian Organization ‘Tryzub’” and the Social-National Party — not to be confused with the National Socialist Party of 1940’s Germany.
Biletsky left the Social-National Party in protest in 2004 as the group began to rebrand and move away from overt neo-Nazi symbolism. Two years later, he led an organization called Patriots of Ukraine, which has been linked to numerous mob assaults. One Patriot of Ukraine member has claimed the group was behind the seizure and torching of the headquarters of a political party during the US-backed “Maidan” coup in 2014.
According to Ukraine’s Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, Patriots of Ukraine “espoused xenophobic and neo-Nazi ideas, and was engaged in violent attacks against migrants, foreign students in Kharkiv and those opposing its views.” What’s more, “Biletsky and some other members were suspected of violent seizures of newspaper kiosks and similar criminal activities.”
“For three years running, the organization has gained notoriety for its torch processions around student campuses in Kharkiv, Kyiv and Chernivtsi which fill foreign students studying in Ukraine with terror,” the human rights group noted in 2008.
During a Patriots of Ukraine general meeting in 2009, Biletsky raved: “How can we describe our enemy? The authorities and the oligarchs. Do they have anything in common? Yes, they have one thing in common: they are Jews, or behind them are their real masters — Jews.”
In 2011, Biletsky was arrested for allegedly ordering Patriot of Ukraine members to kill a fellow ultranationalist inside the group’s office following a dispute, and spent the following years in pre-trial detention. Thanks to a resolution passed by the Ukrainian parliament after the Western-backed overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych, he would ultimately be released in 2014. But during his three years in custody, Biletsky managed to have a number of his fascist screeds published in a collection titled “The Word of the White Leader.”
One essay in the collection, dated to 2007, rails against Jews and Black migrants, casually dropping the n- word in the process. “Ukraine is the light of Europe! Our Nation still has enough strength to withstand this influx of foreigners, to cleanse our land and light the fire of purification throughout Europe!” the essay concludes.
In another essay outlining the ideology of “Social-Nationalism,” Biletsky praised National Socialism as a “great idea,” but criticized the Nazis as having been insufficiently eugenicist in their family welfare programs. He complained they supported parents with multiple children “without considering the biological quality of each individual family.”
“The result,” he continued, was “a significant increase in the birth rate, [but] a significant decrease in the percentage of the Nordic type in the population.” Because “these social benefits are aimed at the masses, they encouraged the worst human material to give birth to a child in the first place,” the self-proclaimed “White Leader” lamented.
A subsequent Biletsky manifesto entitled “Language and Race – Primary Issues” expanded on the “social-nationalist” concept: “Ukrainian social-nationalism considers the Ukrainian Nation to be a blood-racial community… Race is everything for nation-building – Race is the basis on which the superstructure grows in the form of national culture, which again comes from the racial nature of the people, and not from language, religion, economy, etc.”
As for the Russian-speaking population of Eastern Ukraine, Biletsky wrote, “The issue of total Ukrainization in the future social nationalist state will be resolved within 3-6 months with the help of a tough and balanced state policy.”
Following his release from prison, Biletsky got his chance to carry out a campaign of violence against the ethnic Russians of eastern Ukraine. As war broke out in the country, with the Russian majority of the east seeking self-determination in the face of a nationalist post-coup government viewed as Western puppets, Biletsky dissolved the Patriot of Ukraine and formed the Azov Battalion to wage a war against the separatists. Around this time, he was also elected to the Ukrainian parliament, remaining in office until 2019.
The new paramilitary outfit set up shop in Mariupol, using the port city as a staging ground for attacks on the Donbas, and violently crushing forms of feminist and liberal political expression on the city’s streets.
Meanwhile, the National Corps, a political party founded by Biletsky in 2016, has been described as a “nationalist hate group” even by the US State Department. The party has repeatedly incited violence against the Kiev Pride march, in 2018 calling on “all concerned citizens of Ukraine” to prevent the march from being held. In 2019, one National Corps leader had a more direct message: “Stay home, and don’t show up in public. Ever. That will make our life easier and keep you safe ;).”
In 2019, it seemed almost as though Biletsky’s influence was waning. An electoral coalition he formed with several other prominent neo-Nazis in Ukraine failed to gain enough votes to pass the threshold to gain any seats in parliament. Meanwhile, Vlodomyr Zelensky won the presidential election on a platform of making peace with Russia.
But Biletsky still held on to a trump card as a nationally-recognized strongman. When a Ukrainian news channel announced a two-hour live studio “TV bridge” between Ukrainian and Russian civilians aimed at fostering a stronger mutual understanding, Biletsky seized the moment to issue a thinly-veiled threat against Zelensky if he did not have the event canceled in a day’s time. If Zelensky did not intervene, “the answer to the Kremlin’s ‘little green men’ will begin to be given by ‘little black men,’” Biletsky said, referring to the black garb of fascist elements like Azov.
Biletsky called on Zelensky to be “The leader of a state at war,” and, “Not a clown, not an artist from oligarchic corporations, but the President.”
Zelensky responded within the timeframe of the ultimatum by denouncing the dialogue and seemingly offering a jab back at Biletsky, arguing that Ukrainians were being “manipulated by politicians who really want to get into parliament.”
A few months later, the pair butted heads again after Zelensky ordered Ukrainian troops, including Azov fighters, to withdraw from a frontline town in the Donbas in an apparent effort to honor the terms of the Minsk Accords. Biletsky fired back with threats to dispatch thousands more troops in open defiance of the president’s orders.
Zelensky’s showdown with fighters refusing his orders culminated with the head of state nearly breaking down on camera and pleading to the militants: “I’m the president of this country. I’m 41 years old. I’m not a loser. I came to you and told you: remove the weapons.”
Just a few short years later, in the midst of a hot war with Russia, Ukraine’s Jewish president and Ukraine’s most famous living antisemite seem to have put aside their differences. As Shakespeare put it, “misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”
Why the Glut of ‘Wonder Weapons’ to Ukraine Won’t Make a Difference
The primary purpose of American and Western militarism is to make profits for private corporations, the military-industrial complex.
Typically, the weapons are vastly overpriced, overhyped and designed for perpetual consumption.
They are not for winning a war. They’re for being used up, so you have to replace them now, with yet new buying.”
Finian Cunningham, August 15, 2023, https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/08/15/us-capitalism-and-why-glut-of-wonder-weapons-ukraine-wont-make-difference/
It is slowly and reluctantly dawning on Western officials and their servile media that the Ukraine counteroffensive is failing. Not only the two-month-old counteroffensive but indeed the entire conflict. Ukraine hasn’t a chance of prevailing against Russia’s superior forces.
Still, the violence and killing go on. No diplomacy, peace, or sanity. Why?
Only a couple of months ago, the Western media were full of bravado claims that the United States’ and NATO’s weapons and training would turn the tide for a “stunning victory” against Russia. Today, those same media are meekly reporting on a “grinding counteroffensive” (Washington Post, New York Times, CNN) and “failed expectations” (London Times).
How to explain the glaring conundrum? The United States and its European NATO allies have supplied the Kiev regime with up to $100 billion worth of weaponry over the past year, ranging from battlefield tanks to Patriot missiles. And the military gifts keep coming, with the Biden administration requesting another $12 billion for Ukraine last week. In the coming months, the U.S. and its allies are planning to supply F-16 fighter jets.
And yet all this mind-boggling largesse won’t make a difference to the outcome of an eventual Russian victory. Tens of thousands more Ukrainian soldiers will be killed of course and a wider all-out nuclear war with Russia is a reprehensible risk. But why does the insanity continue? Why are Western politicians and media not exploring diplomatic alternatives to the endless slaughter?
A fundamental reason for this debacle and ultimate scandal is the inherent vice of U.S. militarism. American militarism and that of other Western capitalist states is not about the conventional understanding of “military” or “defense” for the purpose of defending nations, or indeed for actually winning wars. The primary purpose of American and Western militarism is to make profits for private corporations, the military-industrial complex.
Typically, the weapons are vastly overpriced, overhyped and designed for perpetual consumption. Take the U.S.-made Patriot air-defense system, or the Abrams tank, or the F-35 fighter jets. Independent military analysts will tell you these systems are overpriced junk that don’t really do the job they are supposed to do. Russian forces have been wiping out the Patriot and Western tanks with relative ease using superior hypersonic weapons.
Michael Hudson, the respected geopolitical commentator and author of the book ‘Superimperialism’, nails it when he observes that U.S. militarism is not about essentially defending that nation or its allies – it’s all about corporate profiteering. The weapons created by the U.S. military-industrial complex are not purposed for the conventional definition of military performance, that is to knock out the enemy and win battles.
“The arms are for creating huge profit for the U.S. military-industrial complex,” commented Hudson in a recent interview with Steven Grumbine.
In the case of Ukraine, he added, U.S. and NATO weapons “are for buying, and they’re for giving to the Ukrainians, to let Russia blow them up. But they’re not for fighting. They are not for winning a war. They’re for being used up, so you have to replace them now, with yet new buying.”
The conflict in Ukraine is exposing the long-held hype and charade attached to American and NATO weaponry. It’s being brutally outed as a paper tiger.
What Hudson is describing, in effect, is the utter scam and scandal of the U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. It’s on a level of Catch-22-style farce. It’s a racket for profiteering by U.S. and Western military industries. All paid for by taxpayers in the West and with the blood of Ukrainians blown to smithereens or maimed for life.
Fundamentally, this is what U.S. and Western capitalism is all about. The economic system for elite private profit is driven by militarism and global exports of arms. Western capitalism has long abandoned civilian industrial production and over the last few decades has become dominated by the military-industrial complex that owns politicians, media and lawmakers to do its bidding.
The war in Ukraine was instigated by NATO expansionism and strategic threat to Russia over many years. Moscow’s warnings were habitually dismissed. That was part of the showdown demanded by the U.S. executive of Western imperialism to subjugate Russia as a geopolitical rival, in the same way that China is also targeted. But in addition to that came the ultimate racket of funneling weapons to Ukraine. Not only that, but the European lackeys will now be obliged to stock up their depleted arsenals for decades to come by buying from Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and so on. It’s a perfectly rigged system.
By contrast, Russia’s military is designed to actually defend its nation. Russian weapons are outperforming NATO’s junk in Ukraine because the former are not manufactured for private profit and Wall Street investors but for the purpose of actually winning wars.
That’s why Ukraine is losing this conflict, disastrously and despicably. The weapons funneled to the Kiev regime were never meant to “defend a nation from Russian aggression”. That was just the laughable public relations hype to sell expensive weapons funded by Western taxpayers. Of course, the Nazi Kiev regime has milked the cash cow with corruption, but the bigger problem is the war racket at the rotten heart of U.S. capitalism and its military-industrial complex.
The Ukrainian puppet president Vladimir Zelensky is crying for more weapons. Of course, the corrupt Kiev regime is. Biden and Western politicians are calling for more weapons. Of course, they are. Their political funding depends on lobbyists from the weapons companies. The Western media distort the obscenity as “grinding counteroffensive”. Of course, they do because they are locked into their own self-serving lies about the war in Ukraine.
The corrupt Kiev regime rounds up civilians to be sent to a slaughterhouse while U.S. corporations and Wall Street feast on profits. And Western workers and the public are bled white from austerity. This war in Ukraine is the ghoulish epitome of Western capitalism.
Tussle in Europe as France succeeds in getting nuclear energy accepted as a ‘”transitional” technology for EU’s green taxonomy .
This article is part of our special report EU’s final stretch before June 2024.
Nuclear power is making a comeback on the EU energy scene after an eventful 2022-2023 year, which according to Paris, reflects an “excellent diplomatic record” for France in defending atomic energy. EURACTIV looks at the bigger picture.
After three years of intense negotiations, nuclear energy officially joined the list of “transitional” energies in the EU’s green taxonomy on 1 January 2023.
Following the vote confirming the European Parliament’s position on the issue in July 2022, the co-chair of the United Left group, Manon Aubry, warned that this decision is “fraught with meaning […] for future deadlines and votes on climate issues”………………….
In France and eastern EU countries in particular, nuclear power is increasingly being viewed as a viable solution for achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.
Renewables at EU level
Yet, the development of renewable energies remains the top priority at the EU level.
On 18 May 2022, three months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Commission proposed raising the EU’s renewable energy target to 45% by 2030, a target later endorsed by the European Parliament in September of that year.
In the Council, France adopted a rather unusual stance, backing the 45% target but only if countries with low-carbon electricity mixes – code for nuclear – are awarded a lower target.
The idea was rejected, and the target was consequently lowered to 42.5% in a political agreement reached with the European Parliament on the third revision of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED III).
While none are particularly happy with the solution, the discussions showcased the newfound influence of pro-nuclear countries on institutional negotiations at the EU level.
Nuclear-derived hydrogen
This newfound influence of pro-nuclear countries was also reflected in discussions about low-carbon hydrogen, which took an unexpected political dimension.
Since September 2022, French Energy Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher appeared on the offensive.
In a letter revealed by EURACTIV France, Pannier-Runacher urged the European Commission to recognise the contribution of nuclear-derived hydrogen in the targets set out in RED III. For Paris, the aim was to prevent renewable hydrogen targets from jeopardising low-carbon hydrogen production from nuclear sources.
At the end of March 2023, after months of battles between EU countries and within the European Parliament, the political agreement on RED III recognised the principle of non-cannibalisation between renewable and low-carbon hydrogen.
But while this seemed like a victory for France, the conditions imposed for nuclear-derived hydrogen to contribute to achieving the EU’s objectives were so strict that they were practically unattainable.
……………………………………. On 16 June, France finally obtained an official declaration from the European Commission recognising the role of nuclear energy in achieving the objectives of decarbonising the EU economy – fruits of an intense year of lobbying, aided by France’s setup of a pro-nuclear alliance of 14 EU countries and (possibly) counting.
The “nuclear alliance”
On the fringes of an informal EU Energy Council in Stockholm at the end of February, France rallied 10 other EU countries around a new concept: a meeting to defend the interests of nuclear power in the EU.
The same group met in Brussels at the end of March, joined by Belgium and Italy as observers.
Though the meeting triggered countries advocating against nuclear power, forming a rival group called the “Friends of Renewables”, this did not stop France’s mission – Pannier-Runacher reconvened the group in Paris in mid-May, joined by three other EU states and the UK. Together, they agreed to build “30 to 45 new large reactors” and small modular reactors known as SMRs.
EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson, who attended the meeting, was asked to support the development of “joint initiatives” to bring these projects to fruition.
The group met again in Valladolid in mid-July. The meeting resulted in a new declaration, calling on the European Commission to treat nuclear and renewables equally when presenting future climate law proposals.
Net-Zero Industry Act
However, in the meantime, two other fronts have opened up in Brussels.
The first concerns the proposal for a Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), which was presented by the Commission in mid-March, setting out a list of preferred technologies for developing a low-carbon industry across the bloc.
At first, nuclear was not included in the list of so-called “strategic” technologies like wind, solar, or electrolysers, that are eligible for regulatory perks under the NZIA, including a 40% for manufacturing on European soil.
In mid-July, following lobbying by many MEPs from across the political spectrum (socialists, centrists and conservatives), the rapporteur on the NZIA regulation in the European Parliament offered nuclear power equal treatment as other technologies.
For now, the report by German conservative lawmaker Christian Ehler (EPP) has not yet been voted on, and EU countries have not yet given their opinion. Some countries may oppose Ehler’s conclusions, such as Germany, which is reluctant to accept the financing of nuclear power from EU funds.
EU electricity market reform
The second text under negotiation concerns the reform of the EU electricity market, on which an agreement is expected before the end of the year.
With no apparent problems, the financing of future nuclear capacity could benefit from financing mechanisms currently being negotiated under the reformed electricity market rules.
But France also wants this mechanism to cover existing assets, a move resited by many other countries, including some in the “nuclear alliance”, who are opposed to the idea, saying it would infringe EU competition rules.
For the EDF management, the solution is not optimal. The leading energy and nuclear company in Europe must be able to invest in funds generated by its sales, said its CEO………….
What to expect for 2024
…………. while the current European Commission has acknowledged the contribution of nuclear to decarbonisation, the 2024 EU elections could reshuffle the cards in Brussels.
By that time, perhaps the Energy Commissioner’s tasks will no longer refer to “further nuclear decommissioning”, as is still the case.
At the same time, “some ‘nuclear-friendly’ member states have become ‘nuclear believers’. In the Netherlands, there is now a consensus on nuclear power, while Sweden, which was neutral in the first half of 2023, is openly defending the revival of nuclear power”, a French official close to the dossier has said.
This is why “the assessment for 2022-2023 is excellent”, Pannier-Runacher’s office told EURACTIV. https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/is-nuclear-power-set-for-a-european-renaissance/
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