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UK’s Planning & Infrastructure Bill 2 – worse, and by stealth. 

I was wondering why there was no PIB2 in the Budget. Now I understand why. It’s far worse (from an environmental perspective) than I could have imagined.

In his speech yesterday, (1/12/25) Starmer said, “in addition to accepting the Fingleton recommendations… I am asking the Business Secretary to apply these lessons across the entire industrial strategy.”

There are some VERY far-reaching proposals within the Fingleton recommendations. These include,
but are not limited to: modifying the Habitat Regulations, – allowing developers to comply with the Habitats Regulations requirements by paying a substantial fixed contribution to Natural England; – reversing Finch; – reversing the LURA’s enhanced protection for National Landscapes; – increasing Aarhus cost caps. Those are just SOME!

 Community Planning Alliance 2nd Dec 2025, https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7401614251934654464/

December 9, 2025 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Severn Estuary Interests Group responds to Nuclear Review (Fingleton Report) challenging misleading environmental narrative

Friday 5 December 2025, https://www.somersetwildlife.org/news/severn-estuary-interests-group-responds-nuclear-review-fingleton-report-challenging-misleading

The Nuclear Review, or Fingleton Report, calls for a radical reset of Britain’s approach to nuclear regulation and potentially to National Strategic Infrastructure Projects as a whole.

The report and surrounding reporting and commentary perpetuates the damaging government narrative that environmental protections are preventing development. 

The original government decision was to build a power station on one of the most highly protected ecological sites in the UK and Europe. The Severn Estuary is both a Special Area of Conservation and a Special Protection Area – a globally significant habitat supporting vast populations of migratory fish, internationally important bird species, and diverse invertebrate communities.

The impact of the nuclear power station on these important and vulnerable habitats and species will be immense and will continue for 70 years. HPC will extract the equivalent of one Olympic-sized swimming pool every 12 seconds, force it through the reactor system at high velocity, and then discharge it back into the estuary significantly heated. The idea that these impacts are trivial is pure misinformation. 

The data cited in the Nuclear (Fingleton) Report is inaccurate. It is data collected in relation to Hinkley Point B, an older and now decommissioned nuclear power station, and extrapolated for HPC. The designs of these power stations are not the same.


The data ignore fish behaviour in the estuary resulting in assumptions that much lower numbers will be impacted than the reality. The importance of the estuary for fish spawning is largely ignored and juveniles that can’t be counted but will be sucked through the cooling system. The impact on species and habitats will be extremely damaging in a Special Protection Area and Special Area of Conservation.

It is also important to place current claims about cost increases in a proper context. Hinkley Point C was originally expected to be operational in 2017 at a cost of £18 billion. It is now projected for 2031 at a cost of £46 billion. EDF itself has attributed these enormous delays and overruns to inflation, Brexit, Covid, civil-engineering challenges, and an extended electromechanical phase. Given the scale of these industry-driven issues, it is frankly unworthy to mock those seeking to uphold the legal requirement for EDF to install an acoustic fish deterrent on the enormous cooling-water intakes. 

The real issue here is the developer’s approach, not the environmental regulations that function to protect nature. EDF devised the mitigation measures themselves, rejecting offers of collaboration from local experts. This, as with the notorious HS2 bat-tunnel debacle – has inflated costs precisely because expert ecological advice was not incorporated early enough. The continuing narrative that environmental safeguards are the “blocker”, or that only “a few individual animals” benefit from mitigation or compensation, is a deliberate and politically convenient distortion of the evidence. 

Simon Hunter, CEO of Bristol Avon Rivers Trust said: “When developers fail to consult meaningfully, ignore local expertise, and attempt to sidestep environmental safeguards, costs rise and nature pays the price. Many countries would never have permitted a development of this scale in such a sensitive location in the first place. The situation at HPC is not an indictment of environmental protection, but of poor planning, weak accountability, and a persistent willingness to blame nature for the consequences of human decisions.” 
 
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. To reduce destruction of protected and vulnerable marine habitat to the concept of a ‘fish disco’ is deliberately misleading and part of a propaganda drive from government. Nature in the UK is currently 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. A failing natural world is a problem not just for environmental organisations but for our health, our wellbeing, our food, our businesses and our economy. There is no choice to be made; in order for us to have developments and economic growth we must protect and restore our natural world. As we have said all along in relation to HPC, how developers interpret and deliver these environmental regulations is something that can improve, especially if they have genuine, meaningful and – most importantly – early collaboration with local experts.” 

The Severn Estuary Interests Group, a collaboration of organisations that prioritise the health and resilience of the estuary for nature and people, is able to say based on decades of experience, that the environmental rules and regulations are not the reason EDF have found themselves spending an alleged £700m on fish protection measures. The Fingleton Report and subsequent reporting has failed to acknowledge some important points with regard to the building of Hinkley Point C: 

December 9, 2025 Posted by | spinbuster, UK | Leave a comment

French navy shoots at 5 drones buzzing nuclear submarine base, AFP reports

The incident follows a string of recent drone incursions in NATO airspace

December 5, 2025 , By Marion Solletty, https://www.politico.eu/article/drones-france-nuclear-submarine-base-reports/

PARIS — The French navy opened fire at drones that were detected over a highly-sensitive military site harboring French nuclear submarines, according to newswire Agence France-Presse.

Five drones were detected Thursday night over the submarine base of Île Longue, in Brittany, western France, a strategic military site home to ballistic missile submarines, the AFP reported, citing the the French gendarmerie, which is part of the military. The submarines harbored at the base carry nuclear weapons and are a key part of France’s nuclear deterrent.

French navy troops in charge of protecting the base opened fire, the report said. It was unclear whether the drones were shot down.

Local authorities told the AFP a legal investigation had been launched and that the base wasn’t affected in its operations.

Drones had already been spotted in the area last month, albeit not directly above the base, per reports in French media. The site had been buzzed by drones long before the invasion of Ukraine.

The incident follows a string of recent drone incursions in NATO airspace, with unmanned aircrafts seen buzzing around sensitive military sites and civil infrastructures in recent months across Europe, including in Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Norway.

In Poland, fighter jets were scrambled in September to shoot down drones of Russian origin, an incident widely seen as an escalation of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hybrid war on Europe.

French authorities haven’t yet commented on the suspected origin of the drone incident Thursday at the well-known military site.

December 8, 2025 Posted by | France, incidents | Leave a comment

Von der Leyen pushes ahead with reparations loan for Ukraine as Belgium maintains its opposition.

Euro News, By Jorge Liboreiro, 03/12/2025 

Ursula von der Leyen has offered sweeping guarantees for Belgium to agree to an unprecedented reparations loan for Ukraine. Belgian authorities say risks could be fatal. EU leaders will gather on 18 December to make a final decision. If no deal is found, the EU will resort to joint debt.

The European Commission will provide Belgium with sweeping guarantees to unblock a controversial reparations loan for Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen has said, forging ahead with the plan despite risks deemed “disastrous” by Belgian authorities.

The guarantees, outlined in legal texts presented on Wednesday, consist of bilateral contributions by member states, a backstop by the EU budget, legal safeguards against retaliation and a new prohibition on transferring sovereign assets back to Russia.

It is the boldest and most comprehensive attempt by the Commission to overcome Belgium’s resistance before a crucial EU summit on 18 December. Ukraine has said it would need a fresh injection of foreign funding as early as spring next year…………………………………………..

An untested scheme

The reparations loan is von der Leyen’s preferred option to cover Ukraine’s financial and military needs for the next two years, estimated at €135 billion. The EU is meant to contribute at least €90 billion, with the rest backed by other Western allies, which do not include the United States, as it no longer provides external support.

Under the untested scheme, the Commission would channel the immobilised assets of the Russian Central Bank into a zero-interest line of credit for Ukraine.

Kyiv would be asked to repay the loan only after Moscow agreed to compensate for the damages caused by its war of aggression – a virtually unthinkable scenario.

The bulk of the assets, about €185 billion, are held at Euroclear, a central securities depository in Brussels. There are €25 billion in other locations across the bloc.

This means Belgium holds the cardinal vote in negotiations.

Since the start of discussions in September, Belgium has firmly demanded bulletproof and all-encompassing guarantees from other member states to shield itself against Moscow’s scorched-earth retaliation and prevent multi-billion-euro losses.

Another key worry is that the sanctions behind the assets, which are subject to renewal by unanimity, might be derailed by a single country’s veto. A premature lifting of the restrictions would release the Russian funds and precipitate the collapse of the loan.

The European Central Bank has declined to provide an emergency liquidity backstop to help governments raise the necessary cash to protect Euroclear.

Belgium’s unwavering resistance

Even before von der Leyen took the stage, Belgium dug its heels in.

Earlier on Wednesday, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot said the reparations loan was “the worst” of the three available financial options to support Ukraine.

“Our door has always remained open and still is. However, we have the frustrating feeling of not having been heard. Our concerns are being downplayed,” Prévot said before heading into a ministerial meeting of NATO.

The Commission’s proposals “do not address our concerns in a satisfactory manner. It is not acceptable to use the money and leave us alone facing the risks,” he added, suggesting that he was aware of the content of the legal documents before they were made public by the head of the Commission.

Prévot said that for the loan to move ahead, his country would require guarantees that “go beyond” Euroclear and Belgium, easily exceeding €185 billion of the assets.

“We are not seeking to antagonise our partners or Ukraine,” he said. “We are simply seeking to avoid potentially disastrous consequences for a member state that is being asked to show solidarity without being offered the same solidarity in return.”

In her presentation, von der Leyen sought to address the Belgian reservations with broader guarantees – backed by both member states and the EU budget – that Euroclear will have liquidity at all times to honour the claim of the Russian Central Bank.

The guarantees will also cover any potential awards from arbitration and be complemented by safeguards to nullify retaliation against European property.

Additionally, the EU will introduce a novel measure to prohibit the return of sovereign assets to Russia. The law will be based on Article 122 of the treaties, which has been used only for economic emergencies, and approved by a qualified majority. In practice, it will defang individual vetoes and prevent a sudden removal of sanctions.

In yet another overture to Belgium, von der Leyen opened the door to using the entire pool of €210 billion in Russian sovereign assets across the bloc and invited other G7 allies, like Canada, the UK and Japan, to mimic the instrument.

However, it is unclear if the offering will be enough to convince Belgium.

However, it is unclear if the offering will be enough to convince Belgium.

Last week, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said that prolonging the sanctions by a qualified majority would “enhance the practical appearance that sanctions are open-ended, effectively permanent and thus expropriatory in character”.

“These risks are unfortunately not academic but real,” De Wever said.

If no deal is found on the reparations loan, the EU will resort to joint borrowing, as it did during the COVID-19 pandemic, von der Leyen said on Wednesday.

The issuance would amount to about €45 billion for 2026 alone.

The option of common debt, advocated by Belgium, would leave the Russian assets untouched and avoid any legal pitfalls. But the idea is opposed by the vast majority of member states because of the immediate impact it would have on national treasuries……………………………………………

In his scathing letter to von der Leyen, De Wever warned that moving forward with the reparations loan at this stage “would have, as collateral damage, that we, as the EU, are effectively preventing reaching an eventual peace deal”…………………….

Ambassadors will begin discussions on the legal texts later on Wednesday, following von der Leyen’s anticipated presentation. The goal is to have a deal when EU leaders meet in mid-December for a make-or-break summit, which means a very tight timeframe.

Adding to the pressure is an $8.1 billion programme that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is meant to grant Ukraine. For the IMF to make a final decision, it will need firm commitments by European allies to ensure Kyiv’s macro-economic stability.

Strictly speaking, the main text of the reparations loan can be approved by a qualified majority, which means that, in theory, Belgium could be overruled. But officials and diplomats admit that such a scenario would be politically untenable.https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/12/03/von-der-leyen-pushes-ahead-with-reparations-loan-for-ukraine-as-belgium-maintains-its-oppo

December 8, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Theft of Russian wealth is tying the entire EU bloc to a sinking ship, or worse, all-out war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any confiscation of Russian assets by the EU leadership – regardless of financial rhetorical packaging – will be viewed by Moscow as theft of sovereign wealth. Russia has vowed it will respond robustly with legal challenges under existing treaties to exact compensation. This is what Belgium is fearful of and why it is resisting von der Leyen’s loan reparation scheme.

In trying to get Belgium onboard, von der Leyen has written legal guarantees that all EU members will share any legal and financial repercussions.

The criminal, irresponsible Euro elites like von der Leyen, Kallas, Merz, Macron, and NATO’s Rutte, are lashing the EU financially to a sinking ship.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is pushing ahead with a reckless plan to confiscate over €200 billion in Russia’s sovereign wealth for the purpose of propping up the corrupt NeoNazi Kiev regime and prolonging a futile proxy war.

It is hard to imagine a more crass course of action. Yet the so-called European leadership around Von der Leyen is zealously steering towards disaster. At least the hapless captain of the Titanic tried to avert collision with an iceberg. The Euro captains are heading full steam ahead.

Von der Leyen’s proposed scheme is fancifully called a “reparations loan” and pretends, through legalistic rhetoric, not to be a confiscation of Russia’s assets. But it boils down to theft. Theft to continue the bloodiest war in Europe since the Second World War, which marked the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Von der Leyen, a former German defense minister, is supported by other obsessively Russophobic Euro elites. The EU’s foreign minister Kaja Kallas, a former Estonian prime minister, asserts that the seizure of Russian money and pumping it into the Kiev regime is aimed at forcing Moscow to negotiate a peaceful end to the nearly four-year conflict. Such twisted logic is an Orwellian distortion of reality.

Belgium and other European states are extremely wary of the unprecedented and audacious move. Belgium, which holds the majority of frozen Russian wealth – some €185 bn – in its Euroclear depository, is anxious that it will be financially ruined if Moscow holds the EU liable for illegal seizure of wealth. Other EU members, like Hungary and Slovakia, are concerned that the Russophobic leadership is undermining any diplomatic initiatives by the U.S. Trump administration and the Kremlin to negotiate a peace settlement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any confiscation of Russian assets by the EU leadership – regardless of financial rhetorical packaging – will be viewed by Moscow as theft of sovereign wealth. Russia has vowed it will respond robustly with legal challenges under existing treaties to exact compensation. This is what Belgium is fearful of and why it is resisting von der Leyen’s loan reparation scheme.

The European leaders are to hold a summit on December 18-19 to decide on the proposal. So desperate are the Russophobic elites that they have been assiduously piling political pressure on the Belgian government to relent in its opposition to go along with the scheme. In trying to get Belgium onboard, von der Leyen has written legal guarantees that all EU members will share any legal and financial repercussions. Thus, the unelected European Commission president is taking it upon herself to write a suicide note for the whole of Europe.

Essentially, the proposed loan reparation scheme is based on using Russian immobilized investments in EU banks as a guarantee to give €140 bn in an interest-free hand-out to Ukraine. The financial life-line is necessary because Ukraine is bankrupt after four years of fighting a proxy war on behalf of NATO against Russia.

Ukraine and its NATO sponsors have lost this conflict as Russian forces gather momentum with superior military force. But rather than meeting Russia’s terms for peace, the Euro elites want to keep on “fighting to the last Ukrainian”. To sue for peace would be an admission of complicity in a proxy war and would be politically disastrous for the European warmongers. In covering up their criminal enterprise and lies, they are compelled to keep the “defense of Ukraine” charade going.

Given the rampant graft and embezzlement at the core of the Kiev regime as indicated by the recent firing of top ministers and aides, it is certain that much of the next EU loan will end up in offshore bank accounts, foreign properties and being snorted up the noses of the corrupt regime.

Von der Leyen’s artful deception of theft claims that the Russian assets are not confiscated permanently but rather will be released when Moscow eventually pays “war damages” to Ukraine. In other words, the scheme is a blackmail operation, one that Russia will never comply with because it is premised on Russia as a guilty aggressor, rather than, as Moscow and many others see it, as acting in self-defense to years of NATO fueled hostility culminating in the CIA coup in Kiev in 2014 and weaponizing of a NeoNazi regime to provoke Russia. Therefore, under von der Leyen’s scheme, Russia’s frozen funds will, in effect, never be returned and, to add insult to injury, will have been routed through to the benefit of Kiev mafia.

Such a criminal move is highly provocative and dangerous. It could be interpreted by Moscow as an act of war given the huge scale of plunder of the Russian nation. At the very least, Russia will pursue compensation under international treaties and laws that could end up destroying Belgium and other EU states from financial liabilities. How absurd is that? Von der Leyen and her Russophobic ilk are setting up Europe for bankruptcy by stealing Russia’s wealth for propping up a corrupt NeoNazi regime that has already sacrificed millions of Ukrainian military casualties?

Alternatively, if the EU leadership does not get away with its madcap robbery scheme at the summit on December 18-19, the “Plan B” is for the EU 27 members to take out a joint debt from international markets to carry the Kiev regime through another two years of attritional war.

The insanity of the EU leaders is unfathomable. It is driven by ideological, futile obsession to “subjugate” Russia. Von der Leyen, as well as Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, are descendants of Nazi figures. For these people, there is an atavistic quest to defeat Russia and assert European “greatness”.

They lost their proxy war in Ukraine with much blood on their hands. But instead of desisting from their destructive obsession, they are desperately trying to find new ways to keep it going.

The criminal, irresponsible Euro elites like von der Leyen, Kallas, Merz, Macron, and NATO’s Rutte, are lashing the EU financially to a sinking ship. They are bringing the entire European bloc down with them, splintering as they go.

What these elites are doing is destroying the European Union as we know it, and they profess to uphold. Ironically, it is they, not Russia, that is the biggest enemy to democracy and peace in Europe.

December 8, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Bombed Chornobyl shelter no longer blocks radiation and needs major repair – IAEA

Drone attack that Ukraine blamed on Russia blew hole in painstakingly erected €1.5bn shield meant to allow for final clean-up of 1986 meltdown site.

Guardian staff and agencies, 6 Dec 25

The protective shield over the Chornobyl disaster nuclear reactor in Ukraine, which was hit by a drone in February, can no longer perform its main function of blocking radiation, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has announced.

In February a drone strike blew a hole in the “new safe confinement”, which was painstakingly built at a cost of €1.5bn ($1.75bn) next to the destroyed reactor and then hauled into place on tracks, with the work completed in 2019 by a Europe-led initiative. The IAEA said an inspection last week of the steel confinement structure found the drone impact had degraded the structure.

The 1986 Chornobyl explosion – which happened when Ukraine was under Moscow’s rule as part of the Soviet Union – sent radiation across Europe. In the scramble to contain the meltdown, the Soviets built over the reactor a concrete “sarcophagus” with only a 30-year lifespan. The new confinement was built to contain radiation during the decades-long final removal of the sarcophagus, ruined reactor building underneath it and the melted-down nuclear fuel itself.

The IAEA director general, Rafael Grossi, said an inspection mission “confirmed that the [protective structure] had lost its primary safety functions, including the confinement capability, but also found that there was no permanent damage to its load-bearing structures or monitoring systems”.

Grossi said some repairs had been carried out “but comprehensive restoration remains essential to prevent further degradation and ensure long-term nuclear safety”……………………………https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/06/chornobyl-disaster-shelter-no-longer-blocks-radiation-and-needs-major-repair-iaea

December 8, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant temporarily lost power overnight, IAEA says.

By Reuters, December 6, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ukraines-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-temporarily-lost-power-overnight-iaea-says-2025-12-06/

Dec 6 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant temporarily lost all off-site power overnight, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Saturday, citing its Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi.

The nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, has been under Russian control since March 2022, when Russian forces overran much of southeastern Ukraine. It is not currently producing electricity but relies on external power to keep the nuclear material cool and avoid a meltdown.

The plant was reconnected to a 330-kilovolt (kV) power line after a half-hour outage, the IAEA said.

A 750 kV line that was also disconnected earlier was back in operation, the Russian-installed management of the plant said later on Saturday, and stable power supply had been restored.

Radiation levels remained normal, the management said.

Widespread military activities overnight affected Ukraine’s electricity grid and prompted operating nuclear power plants (NPPs) to reduce output, the IAEA added.

Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan and Yazhini M V in Bengaluru; Editing by Aidan Lewis and Bernadette Baum

December 8, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Illegal drone shot down at nuclear submarine base

Officials are investigating an illegal drone which flew over the Atlantic coast base

Ap Correspondent, Independent UK, 05 December 2025 

French authorities have launched an investigation into an unauthorised drone overflight of the nation’s nuclear-armed submarine base on the Atlantic coast.

The incident, confirmed by officials on Friday, involved multiple drones detected on Thursday night above the highly sensitive Île Longue base in Brittany, western France.

This strategic facility serves as the home port for France’s four nuclear ballistic missile submarines: Le Triomphant, Le Téméraire, Le Vigilant, and Le Terrible.

While French media reported several aerial intruders, military authorities have refrained from disclosing their exact number or type.

Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin confirmed that personnel at the base successfully intercepted the overflight. However, she did not specify whether this involved firing shots, electronic jamming, or other countermeasures. The identity of those responsible for the incursion remains unclear.

Ms Vautrin stated: “Any overflight of a military site is prohibited in our country. I want to commend the interception carried out by our military personnel at the Île Longue base.”

A number of European Union member countries have reported mysterious drone flights in their airspace in recent months. Some led to airport shutdowns, disrupting commercial flights. Others have been detected near or over military facilities………………………….. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/drone-france-brittany-nuclear-base-b2879026.html

December 8, 2025 Posted by | France, incidents | Leave a comment

British Energy Ruled Out Nuclear At Heysham Due to Geological Fault.

Letter sent by Email today…https://lakesagainstnucleardump.com/2025/12/05/british-energy-ruled-out-nuclear-at-heysham-due-to-geological-fault/

Dear Lizzi Collinge MP

I am sure that you felt the earth move on December 4th along with everyone else in the region as there was a sudden movement along faults in the Morecambe bay area between Silverdale and Heysham. This was very scary for all concerned, we thought there had been a massive explosion in Milnthorpe and immediate thoughts went to Heysham’s dodgy old reactors.

SHUT DOWN OLD EMBRITTLED REACTORS AT HEYSHAM

Following on from our previous correspondence with you, the latest earthquake is a major reason why the old and embrittled reactors at Heysham should be mothballed – there would still be jobs on the site (maybe even more than now) for many years to come to ensure safe shut down and decommissioning.

GEOLOGICAL FAULT IS REASON BRITISH ENERGY SAID NO TO NEW BUILD AT HEYSHAM

The movement of the tectonic plates along the fault near Heysham on December 4th is also a major reason why there should be no new nuclear as advised by British Energy in 2002 and reported in the Lancashire Telegraph. We would suggest that MPs should ask for a copy of British Energy’s survey which found that a geological fault in the Heysham area rules out a Heysham 3 and 4. For the nuclear industry and local politicians to be ignoring this advice now in the context of a 3.3 earthquake in the Heysham area could be regarded as being reckless with the public’s safety.

Kind regards

Marianne, Radiation Free Lakeland

Fault rules out new build at Heysham, 18TH APRIL 2002

A GEOLOGICAL fault in the land next to Heysham 1 and 2 has ruled out the possibility of ever building a new nuclear power station at that site.

This week British Energy admitted it would be “impossible” to construct a Heysham 3 or 4.

Local environmentalists have recently been campaigning to stop an expansion of the area’s nuclear power capability fearing that Heysham could be chosen under the Government’s energy review.

But a British Energy survey has revealed that the vacant land has a geological fault which makes it unsuitable for development.

A spokesman said: “We have a certain amount of land but it is not suitable and a Heysham 3 or 4 has never been on the cards.

There are better places around the country to build new power stations.”

Embrittled Old Reactors

December 8, 2025 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

UK Government’s nuclear taskforce does not radiate authority

Paul Dorfman – AN “independent” Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce commissioned by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has published its final report, calling for a “radical reset of an overly complex nuclear regulatory system”.


Perhaps unfortunately, the taskforce’s announcement seems to have pre-empted its own findings, stating that it will “speed up the approval of new reactor designs and streamline how developers engage with regulators” without providing any evidence that regulation is responsible for huge delays and ballooning costs rather than the incompetence of the
builders and the issues with designs.

So, the possibility that regulation takes as long as it does because that was how long it took to do the job to the required standard was discounted from the get-go.

Made up of three nuclear industry proponents, an economist and a lawyer, the taskforce makes 47 new recommendations “to unleash a golden era of nuclear technology and
innovation” – including the proposal that new nuclear reactors should be built closer to urban areas and should be allowed to harm the local environment.

There are five members of the taskforce: John Fingleton is an
economist, Mustafa Latif-Aramesh is a lawyer, Andrew Sherry is former chief scientist at the National Nuclear Laboratory, Dame Sue Ion has held posts in sets of UK nuclear industry bodies, and Mark Bassett is a member of the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group and appears the only one with
any experience of regulation.

Following the taskforce’s interim report in
August, a coalition of 25 civil society groups involved in formal
discussions with government warned of the dangers of cutting nuclear safety regulations, stating that the taskforce’s proposals “lacked credibility and rigour”.

Their moderating voices have gone unheard. New nuclear
construction has been subject to vast cost over-runs and huge delays. This is not the fault of safety and planning regulation – rather it’s the nature of the technology.

This attempt at nuclear deregulation would loosen
the safety ropes that anchor the nuclear industry in an increasingly unstable world. It doesn’t make good sense.

Given that the UK will influence other countries, there’s a risk that this narrative, that the only problem with nuclear is regulation, will be taken up elsewhere and there will be increasing pressure on regulators to do their job as quickly as possible regardless of whether necessary rigour would be damaged.


Blaming nuclear regulators for vast cost over-runs and huge delays has always been a fallback position for the nuclear industry. This is not the fault of safety and planning regulation, rather it’s the nature of the technology. De facto nuclear deregulation is a poor short-term choice of the worst kind – and reveals something important about the high-risk
technology that the UK Ministry of Defence classes as a “Tier 1
Hazard”.

It makes good sense to choose the swiftest, most practical,
flexible and least-cost power generation options available. Unlike new nuclear, renewables are here and now – on-time and cost effective. It’s entirely possible to sustain a reliable power system by expanding renewable energy in all sectors, rapid growth and modernisation of the electricity
grid, storage roll-out, faster interconnection, using power far more effectively via energy efficiency and management, and transitional combined cycle gas technology for short-term power demand peaks.

Combining solar, wind and energy storage increases their individual values and lowers the net cost of the energy they produce, making each component more valuable.
This synergy turns intermittent energy sources into a reliable,
dispatchable power supply.

 The National 3rd Dec 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25668133.uk-governments-nuclear-taskforce-not-radiate-authority/

December 7, 2025 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Russia’s economy is not about to explode.

Yet western propagandists need you to believe that it will.

Ian Proud, Dec 06, 2025, https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/russias-economy-is-not-about-to-explode?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=180801359&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email;

I’ve been hearing since 2014 about the imminent implosion of Russia’s economy, but this has never looked likely to happen.

In a remarkable recent article in the UK’s Telegraph newspaper, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard makes the remarkable claim that the ‘balance of advantage is shifting in favour of Ukraine,’ on the basis that Russia may soon go into economic meltdown. He goes on to say that if we walk away now, we will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.’

However, and conveniently, he does not elucidate how Ukraine is gaining the supposed upper-hand, nor how an implausible victory over Russia might be achieved. That is because there is no evidence to support his claims.

Evans-Pritchard’s CV doesn’t show any obvious subject matter expertise on Russia. But this should come as no surprise from a newspaper – the Telegraph – whose Ukraine watcher team is stuffed with Russophobes and ex-British military types who have a vested interested in maintaining the delusion of eventual Russian defeat.

Take Dom Nicholls, who co-hosts the telegraph’s Ukraine: the Latest podcast, which grandly describes itself as the ‘world’s most trusted and award winning podcast on the war,’ even though Nicholls’ CV suggests absolutely zero subject matter expertise on the issue of Russia. His podcast never departs from the UK government line that Putin must be defeated eventually, and that only more pressure will do the trick. Nor does he allow the podcast to drift too far into real evidence about the ability of Russia to fight on longer than Ukraine can fight on.

Then take Hamish De-Bretton Gordon, retired Colonel and Chemical weapons expert with even less expertise than Dom Nicholls, who, in any case, has no Russia expertise. He regularly posts fantastical articles with titles such as ‘Putin is eating his own supporters,’ and ‘Putin will be quaking in his boots today.’

It doesn’t matter that they have no understanding of the strategic balance of power in the Ukraine war. Facts and analysis are entirely redundant for people whose top, indeed, only priority is to peddle the latest lines from the Ministry of Defence on Whitehall. This is not journalism it is government propaganda. The BBC, which in any case is a state-owned broadcaster, is bad enough in its one-sided reporting, but the Telegraph is more sinister because of its infiltration by pseudo-government operatives covering as experts.

Characteristic of most western media commentary of the in Ukraine and, indeed, of the Ukraine crisis since it started, has been the complete lack of comparison.

Focus is always and only on the negative impacts of conflict on Russia itself. And, indeed, there have been negative consequences. Russia is subject to over 20,000 economic sanctions, locked out of most trade with the west, excluded from political dialogue as an article of diplomacy, cut off from most international sports and cultural events, hundreds of thousands of its troops killed or injured since the war started, its regular citizens increasingly restricted in their movements within Europe.

The economy of Russia today looks vastly different from that in 2014 when the crisis started. As President Putin recently pointed out, economic growth is sagging from its early war highs which were stimulated by a massive fiscal splurge. Interest rates and inflation remain worryingly high, labour shortages in some industries are growing, the population continues to age, and it remains over-reliant on fossil fuel exports.

Some of these issues are long-standing, while others have become more acute since the war began. Yet, these manifest limitations are never juxtaposed against the even greater challenges that Ukraine faces, which you will seldom hear mention of in the Telegraph.

The weight of western foreign policy, bolstered by willing pro-war reporters in the media, is that breaking Russia’s petroeconomic model will force Putin to back down, and that sanctions are helping to do just that.

So, let’s take a look at Ambrose-Pritchard’s key argument that Russia’s oil exports are collapsing on the back of Trump’s recent sanctioning of Rosneft and Lukoil. This might be persuasive if true and if Ukraine’s exports were somehow performing much better.

Yet, the early evidence suggests otherwise. US sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil do appear dramatically to have reduced their volumes of trade. However, there is also evidence, that trade has simply been diverted to other Russian exporters of oil, with no significant net effect. Diversion, which has been widely reported by the media, is and has been a Russian tactic to minimise sanctions impact for over a decade, after all.

Bear in mind that Russian oil has been sanctioned in one way or another by the EU since 2014, and that there has been a progressive shutting down of gas exports since the war in Ukraine started. You would therefore expect that the total value of Russia’s exports had fallen.

Except that it hasn’t.

Since 2014, the average quarterly value of Russian exports has been a fraction above $100 bn. This takes account of the huge surge in export values shortly before the war started and throughout 2022 on the back of soaring oil prices. In the four quarters from Q4 2021 to Q3 2022, Russian exports averaged $150 bn (or $50 bn per month), 50% higher than the long-term average. But on the flip side, it also averages out against troughs, in particular after the oil price collapse of 2016 and during COVID.

In the first two quarters of 2025, Russian exports have come in at $98 bn, $2bn below the long-term average, although, in fact, identical to the two-year period from Q4 2019 through Q3 2021. So, no golden bullet evidence here of sanctions having a more than marginal impact at best, given Russia’s export pivot towards Asia and the global south.

In any case, the value of exports is a less helpful reference than the overall trade balance, i.e. the difference between exports and imports. It doesn’t matter how big a country’s exports are if they are importing more.

Let’s take a historical look back to the start of the Ukraine crisis in 2014. Russia’s quarterly current account surplus – its balance of exports over imports – has averagfed $17.9 bn. Right now it is lower, at $11 bn with oil prices falling and imports higher than average. In 2022, Russia pulled in its highest ever current account surplus, with a quarterly average of $59.5 bn, when oil prices were soaring.

However, the key point is that Russia is able to stay in surplus every year and hasn’t experienced a full-year current account deficit since 1997, and even then it was less than $1 bn.

Consistently exporting more than it imports, Russia has built its international reserves over time, giving it resilience against external economic shocks and pressure. Russia’s international reserves have steadily grown from around $400 bn in late 2014, to $725 bn now. Even if western powers expropriated all of the approximately $300 bn in immobilised assets, Russia would still possess more than it had in 2014, the year the Ukraine crisis started.

In a quite bizarre comment, Evans-Pritchard says ‘Putin can keep selling Russia’s reserves of gold, all the way down to the Tsarist double eagles at the bottom of the vault beneath Neglinnaya Street,’ (the location of Russia’s Central Bank). This hints strongly, that Russia is on the verge of running out of gold, right?

And yet, Russia’s reserve stock of monetary gold has grown from $132 bn when the war started in 2022, to $299 bn today, which includes an increase of $17bn in October 2025.

I don’t say this out of any desire to prove Russia to be right, but rather from a determination to let our analysis of the situation to be driven by data, not vacuous sound bites.

The ridiculous announcements in the Daily Telegraph lack credibility precisely because they consciously and intentionally avoid hard evidence about Russia while avoiding all mention of Ukraine’s difficulties. Readers are invited to believe that Ukraine is doing just fine, and that if we just keep pumping money in, they will eventually win.

So, let’s look at Ukraine in comparison. Since 2014 through 2024, it has consistently imported more than it exports, with an average yearly trade deficit of $13.1 bn. During the first three full years of war, that rose on average to $25.6 bn, and in the first ten months of 2025, it is already at $39.8 bn. Expressed another way, Ukraine exported $24 bn less in 2024 than it did in 2021 and imported $2.5 bn more. War and European restrictions on the import of cheap Ukrainian agriculture have hit the value of its exports hard. That might bounce back when the war ends, even though Evans-Pritchard wants it to continue.

But, even so, Ukraine’s current account has shown an average deficit of $2.8 bn since 2014; the figure is so much lower than the trade balance because of big inflows of foreign donations, in particular in 2015 and in 2022, which led to a current account surplus in those years. Critically, while Ukraine had a current account surplus of $8bn in 2022, it slumped back into deficit in 2023, with a shortfall of $9.6 bn which rose to $15.1 bn in 2024. In the first 10 months of 2025, the deficit already stands at $26.9 bn.

That means Ukraine will need at least $30 bn in foreign exchange this year just to keep its currency afloat. The only credible way right now in which Ukraine can easily fill the hole in its international reserves is to receive donations from western nations. And as we are starting to see, in respect of Europe’s faltering efforts to agree a bizarrely named ‘reparations loan’, that is proving increasingly difficult because of Belgian and European Central Bank resistance.

So, War hungry pundits in the Telegraph talk about the imminent collapse of the Russian economy are only deflecting attention from the real problem. When the western money stops flooding into Ukraine, the country may quickly find itself having to devalue its currency and, in so doing, deal with spiralling inflation, high interest rates and a sovereign default.

Of course, Ukraine is already bankrupt, as it refuses to make payments on its existing debt while nonetheless asking for more loans. Western IFIs have conveniently turned a blind eye to this right back to 2015 when Ukraine defaulted on a loan it had received from Russia. They’ve done this under pressure from western governments who also, no doubt, drive outlandish Telegraph headlines about Russia’s imminent implosion.

The sad truth is, people like Evans-Pritchard need the war to continue so they have something to say. They certainly couldn’t care a jot about Ukraine itsel

December 7, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, Russia | Leave a comment

New mini nuclear reactors are jeopardised by wildlife fears

COMMENT. Doncha love that headline?

I mean – those poor little non-existent unaffordable, dirty, dangerous, useless mini nuclear reactors – being persecuted by nasty Arctic, Sandwich and vulgar common terns!

Pledge to build three small modular reactors on island of Anglesey is threatened by warnings of potential impact on nesting terns in local nature reserve.

Sir Keir Starmer’s attempt to kickstart Britain’s mini nuclear reactor programme is being threatened by a protected colony of rare birds. The prime minister has pledged to build the UK’s first three small modular reactors (SMRs) at the Wylfa nuclear site on the island of Anglesey in north Wales, but the proposed location sits beside the Cemlyn nature reserve, where about 2,000 pairs of Arctic, Sandwich and common terns nest
each summer.

Wildlife groups have warned that the birds could abandon the
site if construction goes ahead, and this threatens to delay or reshape the first big project in the government’s nuclear programme, according to the Telegraph, which first reported the story, Mark Avery, a scientist and former conservationist at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), said:

“Terns are vulnerable because of the types of places where
they live, which tend to be places that would be disturbed if they’re not protected. So they do need our help. And the UK is important for these species. If anybody’s going to look after them, we ought to.”

 Times 1st Dec 2025, https://www.thetimes.com/business/energy/article/new-mini-nuclear-reactors-are-jeopardised-by-wildlife-fears-gjmf28bgz

December 7, 2025 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Chernobyl nuclear plant’s shield damaged: UN agency

Canberra Times, December 6 2025, https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9128130/chernobyl-nuclear-plants-shield-damaged-un-agency/

A protective shield at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in war-torn Ukraine, built to contain radioactive material from the 1986 disaster, can no longer perform its main safety function due to drone damage, the UN nuclear watchdog says.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said an inspection last week of the steel confinement structure completed in 2019 found the drone impact in February, three years into Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, had degraded the structure.

IAEA director general Rafael Grossi said in a statement the inspection “mission confirmed that the (protective structure) had lost its primary safety functions, including the confinement capability, but also found that there was no permanent damage to its load-bearing structures or monitoring systems.”……………………………………………………………….. https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9128130/chernobyl-nuclear-plants-shield-damaged-un-agency/

December 6, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

What’s behind the peace negotiations for Ukraine?

(President Macron) had indeed pompously signed documents for the sale of 100 Rafale fighter jets, SAMP/T air defense systems, modern air defense radars, air-to-air missiles, and guided bombs to Ukraine. In reality, these were not contracts, but “declarations of intent.” The financing for these extravagant sales was not guaranteed, and their manufacture by Dassault Aviation could not begin for five to ten years.

We don’t know what was said in Washington, but we can assume that the United States took a firm stance toward Ukraine, even if it didn’t want to risk destroying Atlantic solidarity. Thierry Meyssan presents here what transpired during this tumultuous week.

by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 5 December 2025, https://www.voltairenet.org/article223293.html

To understand the week of peace negotiations in Ukraine, it is essential to first dispel the misinformation disseminated by the mainstream press: contrary to what they implied, the Europeans were never allowed to join the Geneva talks.

It is also worth recalling what I explained last week [1]: European governments have no interest in peace; they even fear it: it would undoubtedly bring about their own downfall.

It is therefore no coincidence that the German, British, and French press claimed that the Geneva peace plan was a European document. They asserted this so strongly that we ourselves repeated this falsehood before correcting it.

With that established, let us review the sequence of events:

When the peace plan, drafted by the United States and Russia in Florida, became public [2], the subservient commentators presented it as “outrageously pro-Russian.”

The Geneva Negotiations

The Ukrainians requested to draft a counter-proposal with the United States. Talks were held in Geneva on November 23 and 24.

However, on November 22, EU leaders, along with the British, Norwegians, and Japanese, all attending the G20 summit of heads of state and government in Johannesburg, issued a joint statement. It reads:

“We are ready to commit to ensuring that future peace is lasting. We are clear on the principle that borders must not be changed by force. We are also concerned about the proposed restrictions on the Ukrainian armed forces, which would leave Ukraine vulnerable to future attack.

We reiterate that the implementation of elements relating to the European Union and those relating to NATO would require the consent of the respective EU and NATO members.”

Germany, France, and the United Kingdom therefore sent diplomats—uninvited—to the Intercontinental Hotel where the US and Ukrainian delegations were staying. They were able to speak with both sides but were not admitted to the negotiations.

The document, released after the talks, reiterates only the Ukrainian arguments [3].

It no longer mentions the denazification of Ukraine, the country’s neutrality, or EU participation in its reconstruction. It is therefore unacceptable from a Russian perspective.

Presenting his work to the press, State Secretary Marco Rubio simply stated that things were progressing very well. This is probably because Ukraine had renounced the reconquest of territories occupied/liberated by Russia and accepted their international recognition as Russian.

The “Coalition of the Willing”

On November 25, the Coalition of the Willing, established on March 1, 2025, by General Petr Pavel, Czech President and former Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, and by Keir Starmer, British Prime Minister, met via videoconference.

Continue reading →

December 6, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Together Against Sizewell C (TASC)’s new legal challenge against Sizewell C’s secret flood defences.

4 Dec 25, https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/sizewell-c-legal-challenge/

The Sizewell C site will be storing up to 4,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel on this vulnerable coastline until the late 2100s. The precautionary principle should surely apply so resilience, potential risks and impacts are assessed on a worst case basis and that should be done now. Sizewell C Ltd seem to believe they can do as they see fit with our Heritage Coast, National Landscape and designated wildlife sites irrespective of the damage they will cause.

 On Tuesday 9 December Together Against Sizewell C has a permission hearing at the High Court for their case about the overland flood barriers.

The project now includes a stated commitment by Sizewell C Ltd to the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) to install additional sea defences in a ‘credible maximum’ climate change scenario. These defences in the form of two huge 10 metre high ‘overland flood barriers’ were not included in the approved DCO project. In our opinion, these flood barriers, if installed, will likely have additional adverse impacts on the neighbouring designated wildlife sites including RSPB Minsmere as well as the Heritage Coast and Suffolk Coast & Heaths National Landscape. We need to ensure that the original promotor EDF and the now UK government controlled Sizewell C Ltd are not allowed to use climate change uncertainties as an excuse to delay assessment and avoid public scrutiny of these additional structures for decades. The full impact of the whole project should be assessed now.

There is very little detail about the barriers, but it appears from the above diagram [on original] that, if needed:-

The Southern barrier stretches for nearly 500 metres from the Sizewell A site, across the Sizewell Gap to the start of the cliffs running south to Thorpeness, sited on land not in Sizewell C’s ownership.

The Northern barrier potentially stretches from the north of the Sizewell C site, through the SSSI, then inland over Goose Hill for up to a kilometre.

Together with our lawyers, Leigh Day, we have sought the High Court’s permission to apply for judicial review of the decision of the Secretary of State to refuse TASC’s request to revoke or vary the Sizewell C DCO. The grounds for our legal challenge are set out in Leigh Day’s press release.

How we got here

From documents obtained under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, TASC found out that EDF knew as far back as 2017 that their chosen nuclear platform height of 7.3m AOD would, along with the adapted sea wall on the eastern flank of the site, require two 10-metre high ‘overland flood barriers’. These will be needed to prevent the nuclear platform from flooding from the west in the event that sea level rise reaches a ‘credible maximum’ scenario. This will lead to a major breach of the low-lying coast to the north of Sizewell C and south of the Sizewell nuclear cluster. However, while EDF rightly included the adaptive design of the eastern sea defences in their DCO application documents, they did not include the southern and northern overland flood barriers in the DCO application, thereby avoiding any public scrutiny. As a result there is no commitment in the approved DCO to install these additional sea defences. This is despite there being a requirement to keep the nuclear site safe for its full lifetime from climate change impacts in a credible maximum scenario i.e. to, at least, 2160 while spent nuclear fuel is stored on site.   

TASC’s aim is to ensure that the overland flood barriers, not included by EDF in the DCO application, now form part of the overall project. Therefore we need the Secretary of State to either revoke or change the DCO, in order that a lawful assessment of the potential environmental impacts of the entire project is carried out and subject to public scrutiny. 

This is important because the project may be grossly underestimating the potential environmental impact, flood risk and sea-defence costs. This, if unaddressed, could be a major burden on future and far future generations who may be impacted by severe, non-reversible environmental, ecological and human impacts combined with an extreme financial liability if Sizewell C were to flood.

Further background for those that want to know more

The Sizewell C project, originally promoted by EDF, is to build twin EPR nuclear reactors close to the North Sea at Sizewell, Suffolk, one of the fastest eroding coastlines in Europe. The site is in the heart of Suffolk Coast & Heaths National Landscape, largely surrounded by designated wildlife sites including RSPB Minsmere and will be partially built on Sizewell Marshes SSSI.

In 2021, Prof Paul Dorfman’s report stated “…any adaptation efforts to mitigate annual flooding (projected to almost entirely surround the proposed EDF Sizewell C EPR nuclear island by 2050) will inevitably entail significantly increased expense for construction, operation, spent nuclear fuel management, rad-waste storage and eventual decommissioning”. 

In line with the ONR’s preference, Hinkley Point C is a ‘dry site’ i.e. its platform height at 14 metres AOD is of sufficient height to prevent it from flooding. However, Sizewell C with a platform height of 7.3m AOD, is a ‘protected site’ which means that Sizewell C must at all times demonstrate that the site can be protected against flooding for its full lifetime by use of ‘permanent external barriers such as levees, sea walls and bulkheads’. Once Sizewell C is constructed with a 7.3m AOD platform height, the platform cannot be raised at a later date. The overland flood barriers need to be assessed now so alternatives can be considered e.g. raising the platform height.

Sizewell C was given DCO approval in July 2022 against the recommendation of the five professional planning inspectors. In TASC’s view, the impacts from the overland flood barriers, if they had been assessed during the DCO examination, may well have resulted in planning permission being refused. In any event, our case argues that the Secretary of State’s ‘Habitats Regulation Assessment’ has not considered the environmental impacts of the full project or alternatives, something that is a lawful requirement. 

Documentation published by the ONR supporting their grant of Sizewell C’s nuclear site licence in May 2024, has revealed that, in TASC’s opinion, there are now two materially different projects, the one in the DCO approved by Kwasi Kwarteng, and the one still being considered by the ONR as part of the ‘site safety case’. It was an FOI request to the ONR in late 2024 that provided the documentation from 2017 that shows the project requires the adaptive flood protection in the form of the overland flood barriers in a credible maximum climate change scenario.

The Sizewell C site will be storing up to 4,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel on this vulnerable coastline until the late 2100s. The precautionary principle should surely apply so resilience, potential risks and impacts are assessed on a worst case basis and that should be done now. Sizewell C Ltd seem to believe they can do as they see fit with our Heritage Coast, National Landscape and designated wildlife sites irrespective of the damage they will cause.

In an attempt to resolve our concerns, on 6th March 2025 TASC wrote to Secretary of State, Ed Miliband calling on him to make a decision on whether the material change to the Sizewell C project highlighted by TASC, namely the commitment to install ‘overland flood barriers’, ‘amounts to exceptional circumstances that make it appropriate for him to exercise his power to change or revoke the DCO’.

The Energy Minister, on behalf of the Secretary of State, replied on 28th March 2025, refusing TASC’s request to vary or revoke the DCO. As TASC consider this matter to be of great importance, we have been left with no alternative but to challenge the Secretary of State’s decision through the courts.

December 6, 2025 Posted by | Legal, UK | Leave a comment

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