nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Ukraine’s Energoatom, Holtec International, and the US retreat from fighting corruption abroad

very little about the relationship between Trump’s Washington and Zelenskyy’s Kyiv might be considered ordinary.

President Zelensky moved to dismantle the safeguards meant to protect Ukraine’s institutions from corruption,

Bulletin, By Matt Smith | December 3, 2025,

In 2012, FBI agents stationed themselves in a Trump Tower apartment to wire up a senior official of FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, to record conversations that would become evidence for anti-bribery prosecutions. In 2018, Justice Department officials seized the yacht Equanimity in an operation aimed at returning stolen assets to Malaysia. In 2023, the United States sent a veteran US prosecutor to Kyiv to strengthen Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies, which America had earlier helped establish.

In a functioning international order, we might see this type of global collaboration in the wake of a recent investigative piece I wrote for the Bulletin about a US company, Holtec International, that has had substantial dealings with a state-owned nuclear company now under investigation in Ukraine.

In more normal times, the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy might request assistance under the US-Ukraine Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters. The FBI established a liaison office at the headquarters of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (aka NABU) in 2017, under a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on “investigations related to money laundering, international asset recovery, and Ukrainian high-level officials’ bribery and corruption.” These are word–for–word what investigators are now pursuing in Ukraine’s nuclear power agency.

A professionalized Justice Department could respond to a formal Ukrainian request by issuing subpoenas seeking information from US firms that might be relevant to the Ukrainian probe.

But we are no longer in anything like normal times.

Here’s the context: NABU—an agency the United States helped create and train—is investigating an alleged $100 million corruption scheme inside Energoatom, the governmental body that oversees nuclear energy and spent fuel storage in Ukraine. This scandal has consumed Zelenskyy’s inner circle and led to the resignation of his chief deputy and lead peace negotiator.

Holtec International, a Florida company that established an office in Kyiv in 2007, became a prime contractor and subcontractor for Energoatom on complex, multi-year spent nuclear fuel storage projects.

Holtec executives met repeatedly with Energoatom leadership. They navigated Ukraine’s procurement systems. They hired local subcontractors. They managed complex, multi-year construction projects in a business environment that Ukrainian prosecutors now say has been compromised. Holtec has files that could matter: Ukrainian invoices, compliance checks, email communications, and management logs.

In response to my inquiry about whether the company had heard from the Justice Department regarding Ukraine, Holtec issued a statement saying it witnessed no corruption: “Our operations center in Kyiv, Holtec Ukraine, has worked with our client, Energoatom, to provide safe storage systems and technology to ensure the spent fuel in Ukraine is stored safely and protected from external threats. At no time have we had any interactions that would have led us to believe in any impropriety with our work and contracts.”

As with any such company statement, this one merits checking. Holtec email communications might show whether American executives interacted with the officials now under investigation. Compliance audits might reveal whether the company flagged irregularities. Payment records might reveal inflated costs prosecutors have identified elsewhere. Internal management logs might document which Ukrainian officials controlled access to Holtec’s projects and whether those officials match the outside “shadow managers” prosecutors have identified as having gained control of Energoatom and then having demanded bribes from contractors.

The Bulletin’s investigation, published November 20, did not find evidence that Holtec was involved in Ukrainian misconduct. In fact, subpoenaing Holtec’s records would neither require nor imply allegations of corporate wrongdoing; such subpoenas require only the recognition that a US entity could possess evidence material to a foreign corruption prosecution. The legal mechanisms for seeking Holtec’s records exist. The precedents for doing so are well-established. Such a procedure has previously been seen as an ordinary step.

But very little about the relationship between Trump’s Washington and Zelenskyy’s Kyiv might be considered ordinary.

Since Trump took office in January, his administration has pursued a quiet dismantling of America’s ability to provide this kind of aid. On February 5, Attorney General Pam Bondi formally disbanded Task Force KleptoCapture, the unit established after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and dedicated to seizing assets of Russian oligarchs. Five days later, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14209, explicitly “pausing” enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act—the very statute that authorizes investigations into potential bribery of foreign officials by US companies.

Deregulation even extended to tools of crime, as Russia increasingly relies on cryptocurrency to bypass sanctions. The Justice Department has turned away from prosecuting digital asset violations while the US established a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve,” giving legitimacy to a cryptocurrency known as a key sanctions-evasion tool.

Scores of federal prosecutors have left Justice as colleagues were fired for perceived political slights. Trump’s highest-priority prosecutions—i.e., the politicized ones—are pursued by unqualified loyalists who have ended up, in many matters, embarrassing a once-storied agency.

The diminished US interest in corruption prosecution has had foreseeable consequences in Kyiv. Concurrent with the shift in Washington, President Zelensky moved to dismantle the safeguards meant to protect Ukraine’s institutions from corruption, signing legislation in July to strip NABU of independence. Ukrainians took to the streets. Most reports about international pressure to restore NABU’s status concerned European countries that sprang to the defense of the anti-corruption agency America helped build. The United States recently rotated a new FBI liaison to the NABU offices as part of the cooperation agreement. The Ukrainian press said a recent meeting concerned the Energoatom bribery case.

Typically, the next steps might seem clear. But nobody involved seems to be operating in a typical way.

The Justice Department press office did not respond to questions asking whether Holtec’s files sit in Florida, untouched. https://thebulletin.org/2025/12/ukraines-energoatom-holtec-international-and-the-us-retreat-from-fighting-corruption-abroad/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Ukraine%20s%20Energoatom%2C%20Holtec%20International%2C%20and%20the%20US%20retreat%20from%20fighting%20corruption%20abroad&utm_campaign=20251201%20Monday%20Newsletter%20%28Copy%29

December 6, 2025 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

Europe could be on the hook for $160 billion to keep Ukraine afloat.

Belgium is holding the line on using Russia’s frozen assets for now, which leaves Europe obligated to keep the lights on and the war going

Ian Proud, Dec 04, 2025, https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/europe-could-be-on-the-hook-for-160?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=180637110&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Below my article of yesterday in Responsible Statecraft on the issue of the spuriously named ‘reparations loan’ to Ukraine. Since going to print, the European Central Bank has come out to torpedo the Commission’s expropriation of $140 bn in immobilised Russian assets to fund the Ukrainian war effort. This should come as no surprise, as Christine Lagarde pointed out the risks at the October European Council meeting, and Bart de Wever leaned heavily on her advice in his subsequent remarks to the media.

Not surprisingly, western mainstream pro-war hacks have come out a-howling at this outrage. The eternally moronic Anders Aslund questioning the ECB’s right to have an opinion on European financial assistance to Ukraine. Bill Browder simply suggesting Europe should expropriate the funds anyway, even though they are housed in Belgium, and the Belgians won’t permit it.You can see why he made so much money in Russia in the nineties. Less clear which clown in Whitehall decided he should be knighted.

The level of idiocy is truly off the charts. And the clamour now is so loud simply because Ukraine will shortly run out of money, Europe will need to tip more money into the bottomless pit at Bankova, and they may well have to use funds from national budgets (even if it is packaged up as common EU debt).

Meanwhile, Belgian police have raied the premises of hte former EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, arresting her on suspicion of fraud at the College of Europe. Who is surprised that yet another unelected, unaccountable EU apparatchik is on the make?

Perhaps that’s why the Commission is so desperate to support the corrupt regime in Kyiv, as they are kindred spirits. More likely, they are merely stupid and have no self-awareness. Ursula von der Leyen seems to be carrying on regardless, as if nothing is untowards. driving towards the cliff edge at breakneck speed with her and Kaja Kallas’ feet firmly on the accelerator pedal. You couldn’t make it up….

I hope you find the article interesting.

Even if war ended tomorrow, Europe could be on the hook for 135 billion euros (nearly $160 billion) over the next two years to keep Ukraine afloat. Brussels does not appear to have a plan B up its sleeve.

I first warned in September 2024 that using immobilized Russian assets to fund war fighting in Ukraine would disincentivize Russia from suing for peace. Nothing has changed since then. Russia maintains the battlefield advantage, has the financial reserves, extremely low levels of debt by Western standards, and can afford to keep fighting, despite the human cost. Putin is self-evidently waiting the Europeans out, knowing they will run out of money before he does.

For now, his strategy appears to be working, because Ukraine has no money and Europe — unwilling to see Ukraine pushed into an unfavorable peace — is groaning under the obligation to find an answer. In May I also reported that “Ukraine is already asking for more money to continue fighting into 2026, a sure sign that President Volodmyr Zelensky has no plans to end the war.”

At that time, the likely cost of war fighting for another year was estimated at around $43.3 billion. The bill has since gone up to $63 billion in 2026 and, according to the IMF, $136.6 billion over the next four years.

Europe simply does not have this level of funding freely available. As a result, European political leaders are descending into panic mode as the chicken of Ukraine’s enormous budget shortfall comes home to roost.

That chicken, to quote the prime minister of Belgium, Bart de Wever, in remarks after the October European council meeting, is the $140 billion in immobilized Russian assets that the European Commission would like to use to back a “reparations loan” to Ukraine. Self-evidently, this money isn’t intended for reparations, but rather to soak up Ukraine’s expected deficits going forward.

All of the money would be pumped into Ukraine’s treasury to meet day to day expenses, with the defense bill alone costing $172 million every day right now, compared to $140 million per day one year ago. And on the basis that Ukraine’s budget estimates only ever go up and not down, that money won’t last forever.

At this point, one might be tempted to think that Ukraine’s vast defense spending, which accounts for around 63% of the Ukrainian government’s budget, will fall away if the war ends this year, in response to President Trump’s peace initiative. But such an assumption is, I fear, misplaced. Europe has been pressuring the U.S. not to cap the size of Ukraine’s near one million strong army in any peace deal. In a best-case scenario, Ukraine might decide in a graduated way to reduce the size of its army over time. But that would still leave a large budget black hole for some years to come. Yet a large army won’t pay for itself and the Europeans will be left to pay the bill.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Belgians are saying “non” to the use of immobilized assets in its country to fund Ukraine’s fiscal deficit. Prime Minister de Wever claims that doing so will derail U.S.-led efforts to bring the near four-year long war to a close, by disincentivizing Russia from settling, which takes us back to the point I made 15 months ago.

However, the deeper issue for Belgium is a fear that sanctioning the expropriation of Russian sovereign assets on shaky legal ground would shred its financial reputation and scare off investors from the developing world. Belgium-based Euroclear, where the immobilized Russian assets are held, has a stock of $4 trillion in sovereign assets from around the globe. Starting to eat the chicken of these assets, as Belgium’s prime minister puts it, by essentially lending those assets to Ukraine, could “damage Belgium’s reputation as a reliable financial hub and erode trust in the euro and the EU financial system.”

Predictably, that has led to a storm of protest from other European states that are piling increasing pressure on Belgium to relent and so free up the monies for Ukraine’s cause. But as de Wever has pointed out on numerous occasions, those European states, for example, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, are not offering to unleash immobilized Russian assets in their jurisdictions and so share the financial risk. Nor are they willing to back the loan of assets held in Belgium with guarantees to repay a proportion of the cost, should Russia mount a successful legal challenge after the war ends. So, for now, Belgium is holding out and blocking the loan, with few signs that it will back down.

As a result, the matter has been kicked back to December for a final decision buying time for the Eurocrats in Brussels to sway their recalcitrant Belgian hosts. If agreement cannot be reached, Ukraine faces the prospect of running out of money to fight, on the basis that it is locked out of access to Western capital markets, given its moratorium on the repayment of debt.

That leaves the European Commission in the position of possibly having to raise capital on the markets to make a non-repayable grant to Ukraine to cover its financing needs in 2026.

How did we end up here? Since 2024, Western sponsors of the war in Ukraine have progressively shifted from offering free cash to loans, most notably the last big G7 loan of $50 billion that was agreed in June of 2024. But with Ukraine’s national debt to GDP having risen from 49% in 2021 to 109% now, piling more debt on the war-ravaged country may literally equate to killing Ukraine with kindness.

The reparations loan was clearly intended as a means to make Russia pay so that neither Ukraine, nor Europe, had to. Efforts to find off-budget means to pay for the war in Ukraine have always been “an unseemly quest for alternatives to western taxpayers funding.” Put simply, cash-strapped European governments can’t easily afford to give Ukraine their own money at a time when their governments face rising political headwinds at home from nationalist parties.

Mainstream European political leaders have remained implacably set against the idea of bringing the senseless war in Ukraine to a much-needed close. They will pay the price for this at the polls in the coming years, as the big fiscal chicken of war spending pecks away at their legitimacy at home. This is all the more depressing for having been so utterly predictable.

December 6, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, EUROPE | Leave a comment

Russia Dangles Business Ties To U.S. at Europe’s Expense. Kremlin pitched White House on investments and industry to end war – today’s Wall Street Journal

American and Russian business leaders were quietly anticipating that Witkoff and Dmitriev would deliver, positioning their companies to profit from peace.

2 Dec 2025 By Drew Hinshaw, Benoit Faucon , Rebecca Ballhaus , Thomas Grove and Joe Parkinson

Three powerful businessmen— two Americans and a Russian—hunched over a laptop in Miami Beach, ostensibly to draw up a plan to end Russia’s long and deadly war with Ukraine.

But the full scope of their project went much further, according to people familiar with the talks. They were privately charting a path to bring Russia’s $2 trillion economy in from the cold—with American businesses first in line to beat European competitors to the dividends.

At his waterfront estate, billionaire developer-turned-special envoy Steve Witkoff was hosting Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund and Vladimir Putin’s handpicked negotiator, who had largely shaped the document they were revising on the screen. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, had arrived from his nearby home on an island known as the “Billionaire Bunker.”

Dmitriev was pushing a plan for U.S. companies to tap the roughly $300 billion of Russian central bank assets, frozen in Europe, for U.S.-Russian investment projects and a U.S.-led reconstruction of Ukraine. U.S. and Russian companies could join to exploit the vast mineral wealth in the Arctic. There were no limits to what two longtime adversaries could achieve, Dmitriev had argued: Their rival space industries, which raced one another during the Cold War, could even pursue a joint mission to Mars with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

For the Kremlin, the Miami talks were the culmination of a strategy, hatched before Trump’s inauguration, to bypass the traditional U.S. national security apparatus and convince the administration to view Russia not as a military threat but as a land of bountiful opportunity, according to Western security officials. By dangling multibillion-dollar rareearth and energy deals, Moscow could reshape the economic map of Europe—while driving a wedge between America and its traditional allies.

Dmitriev, a Goldman Sachs alumnus, had found receptive partners in Witkoff—Trump’s longtime golfing partner—and Kushner, whose investment fund, Affinity Partners, drew billion-dollar investments from the Arab monarchies whose conflict with Israel he had helped mediate.

The two businessmen shared President Trump’s longheld approach to geopolitics. If generations of diplomats viewed the post-Soviet challenges of Eastern Europe as a Gordian knot to be painstakingly unraveled, the president envisioned an easy fix: The borders matter less than the business. In the 1980s, he had offered to personally negotiate a swift end to the Cold War while building what he told Soviet diplomats would be a Trump Tower across the street from the Kremlin, with their Communist regime as a business partner.

“Russia has so many vast resources, vast expanses of land,” Witkoff told The Wall Street Journal, describing at length his hopes that Russia, Ukraine and America would all become business partners. “If we do all that, and everybody’s prospering and they’re all a part of it, and there’s upside for everybody, that’s going to naturally be a bulwark against future conflicts there. Because everybody’s thriving.”

Red lines

When a version of the 28point plan leaked earlier this month, it drew immediate protests. Leaders in Europe and Ukraine complained it reflected mostly Russian talking points and bulldozed through nearly all of Kyiv’s red lines. They weren’t assuaged even after administration officials assured them that the plan wasn’t set in stone, worried that Russia— after violently redrawing European borders—was being rewarded with commercial opportunities.

As Western leaders convened to digest the plan, Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk offered a pithy summary: “We know this is not about peace. It’s about business.”

For many in the Trump White House, that blurring of business and geopolitics is a feature, not a bug. Key presidential advisers see an opportunity for American investors to snap up lucrative deals in a new postwar Russia and become the commercial guarantors of peace. In conversations with Witkoff and Kushner, Russia has been clear it would prefer U.S. businesses to step in, not rivals from European states whose leaders have “talked a lot of trash” about the peace efforts, one of these people said: “It’s Trump’s ‘Art of the Deal’ to say, ‘Look, I’m settling this thing and there’s huge economic benefits for doing that for America, right?’” A question for history will be whether Putin entertained this approach in the interest of ending the war, or as a ploy to pacify the U.S. while prolonging a conflict he believes is his place in history to slowly, ineluctably win.

Trusted friends

One sign that he may be serious is that some of his mosttrusted friends, sanctioned billionaires from his St. Petersburg hometown—Gennady Timchenko, Yuri Kovalchuk and the Rotenberg brothers, Boris and Arkady—have sent representatives to quietly meet American companies to explore rare-earth mining and energy deals, according to people familiar with the meetings and European security officials. That includes reviving the giant Nord Stream pipeline, sabotaged by Ukrainian tactical divers, and under European Union sanctions.

Earlier this year, Exxon Mobil met with Russia’s biggest state energy company, Rosneft, to discuss returning to the massive Sakhalin gas project if Moscow and Washington gave the green light.

Elsewhere, a cast of businessmen close to the Trump administration have been looking to position themselves as new economic links between the U.S. and Russia.

Gentry Beach, a college friend of Donald Trump Jr. and campaign donor to his father, has been in talks to acquire a stake in a Russian Arctic gas project if it is released from sanctions. Another Trump donor, Stephen P. Lynch, paid $600,000 this year to a lobbyist close to Trump Jr. who is helping him seek a Treasury Department license to buy the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from a Russian state-owned company.

There is no evidence that Witkoff, the White House or Kushner are briefed on these efforts or coordinating them. A person familiar with Witkoff’s thinking said the envoy is confident that any settlement with Russia would benefit America broadly, not just a handful of investors.

Witkoff, who hasn’t traveled to Ukraine this year, is set to visit Russia for the sixth time this week and will again meet Putin. He insisted he isn’t playing favorites. “Ukrainians have fought heroically for their independence,” said Witkoff, who has tried to inspire Ukrainian officials with the idea of soldiers disarming to earn Silicon Valley-scale salaries operating American built AI data centers. “It is now time to consolidate what they have achieved through diplomacy,” he said.

‘Both sides’

“The Trump administration has gathered input from both the Ukrainians and Russians to formulate a peace deal that can stop the killing and bring this war to a close,” said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly. “As the President said, his national security team has made great progress over the past week, and the agreement will continue to be fine-tuned following conversations with officials from both sides.”

As Witkoff pursued talks with Dmitriev over nine months, some agencies inside the Trump administration had a limited view of his dealings with Moscow.

In the lead-up to an August summit in Alaska between Trump and Putin, Witkoff and Dmitriev discussed a prisoner exchange that would have been the largest bilateral swap in their countries’ history. The Central Intelligence Agency, which traditionally manages prisoner trades with Russia, wasn’t fully briefed on that proposed exchange. Nor was the State Department’s office for unjustly imprisoned Americans. The CIA didn’t return requests for comment. The State Department referred questions to the White House.

Career officials overseeing sanctions at the Treasury Department have at times learned details of Witkoff’s meetings with Moscow from their British counterparts.

In the days after Alaska, a European intelligence agency distributed a hard-copy report in a manila envelope to some of the continent’s most senior national security officials, who were shocked by the contents: Inside were details of the commercial and economic plans the Trump administration had been pursuing with Russia, including jointly mining rare earths in the Arctic.

Witkoff has worked closely with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. But the special envoy for Ukraine, former Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, has all but been frozen out of serious talks, and said he is leaving.

To understand the administration’s Russia negotiations, The Wall Street Journal spoke to dozens of officials, diplomats, and former and current intelligence officers from the U.S., Russia and Europe, and American lobbyists and investors close to the administration.

The picture that emerges is a remarkable story of business leaders working outside the traditional lines of diplomacy to cement a peace agreement with business deals.

‘ We keep on knocking at the door and coming up with ideas.’

Witkoff was just weeks into his new job as President Trump’s Russia and Ukraine negotiator when his office asked the Treasury Department for help allowing a sanctioned Russian businessman to visit Washington.

Kirill Dmitriev, an investment banker with degrees from Harvard and Stanford, spoke Witkoff’s preferred language: business. He had invited Witkoff to Moscow in February and escorted him into a three-hour meeting with Putin to discuss the Ukraine war. But Dmitriev was persona non grata in the U.S, blocked by the Treasury in 2022 for his role leading his country’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, which it called a “slush fund for Vladimir Putin.”

Trump had told Witkoff he wanted the war to end and the administration was willing to take the risk of welcoming Putin’s emissary to Washington. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had questions about the unique request, but ultimately signed off.

Dmitriev arrived at the White House on April 2 and presented a list of multibilliondollar business projects the two governments could pursue together. At one point, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Dmitriev that Putin needed to demonstrate he was serious about peace. But Dmitriev felt his businesslike rapport was breaking through. “We can transition i n v e s t m e n t trust into a political role,” he said in an unpublished interview that month.

In April, Dmitriev welcomed Witkoff to the St. Petersburg presidential library for another three-hour meeting with Putin. Witkoff took his own notes, relying on a Kremlin translator, then briefed the White House from the U.S. Embassy. That same month, European national security advisers planned to meet Witkoff in London to integrate him into their peace process. But he was busy with his other portfolio— negotiating a cease-fire in Gaza—and couldn’t make it. Afterward, one European official asked Witkoff to start speaking with allies over the secure fixed line Europe’s heads of state use to conduct sensitive diplomatic conversations. Witkoff demurred, as he traveled too much to use the cumbersome system.

Dmitriev and Witkoff meanwhile were chatting regularly by phone about increasingly ambitious proposals. The U.S. and Russia were discussing major agreements on oil-andgas exploration and Arctic transportation, Dmitriev told the Journal. “We believe that the U.S. and Russia can cooperate basically on everything in the Arctic,” he said. “If a solution is found in Ukraine, U.S. economic cooperation can be a foundation for our relationship going forward.”

Into position

American and Russian business leaders were quietly anticipating that Witkoff and Dmitriev would deliver, positioning their companies to profit from peace.

Exxon, billionaire investor Todd Boehly and others have explored buying assets owned by Lukoil, Russia’s second-largest oil producer. The U.S. sanctioned Lukoil in October to increase pressure on Moscow, prompting the company to put its overseas assets up for sale. Elliott Investment Management eyed buying a stake in a pipeline that carries Russian natural gas into Europe.

More recently, Kremlin–linked businessmen Timchenko, Kovalchuk and the Rotenbergs have been offering U.S. counterparts gas concessions in the Sea of Okhotsk, as well as potentially four other locations, according to a European security official and a person familiar with the talks. Russia has also mentioned rare-earth mining opportunities near the massive nickel mines of Norilsk and in as many as six other Siberian locations that are still unexploited, these people said.

Beach, Trump Jr.’s college friend, was in talks to acquire 9.9% of an Arctic LNG project with Novatek, Russia’s secondlargest natural gas producer— which is partly owned by Timchenko — if the U.S. and U.K. remove sanctions on it, according to drafts of contracts reviewed by the Journal.

In a statement, Beach said that partnering with Novatek would “strongly benefit any company committed to advancing American energy leadership,” and that his company, America First Global, “actively seeks investment opportunities that strengthen American interests around the world.” He said he “has never worked with Steve Witkoff” but is “extremely grateful” for the efforts Witkoff and others are making to end the war in Ukraine. Trump Jr. has told people he isn’t doing business with Beach.Lynch, the Miami-based investor, had been asking the U.S. government to allow him to bid on the sabotaged Nord Stream Pipeline 2 if it came up for auction in a Swiss bankruptcy proceeding. Lynch, who in 2022 was given a license by Treasury to complete the acquisition of the Swiss subsidiary of Russia’s Sberbank, had been seeking a license for the pipeline since the Biden administration, but in April dialed up his lobbying efforts by hiring Ches McDowell, a friend of Trump Jr. He would pay Mc-Dowell’s firm $600,000 over the next six months. Lynch’s representatives reached out to Witkoff for a meeting.

The road to Miami

On Aug. 6, Witkoff flew to Moscow, at Putin’s invitation, for a meeting prepared only a few days in advance. Dmitriev walked him through Zaryadye Park overlooking the Moskva River, then escorted him to the Kremlin for another three-hour session with Russia’s leader. Putin mentioned wanting to meet with Trump personally. He gave Witkoff a medal, the Order of Lenin, to pass to a CIA deputy director whose mentally unwell son was killed fighting for Russia in Ukraine.

The next day, Witkoff dialed into a videoconference with officials and heads of state from top European allies, and explained the outlines of what he understood to be Putin’s offer. If Ukraine would surrender the remaining roughly 20% of Donetsk province that Russia had failed to conquer, Moscow would forfeit its claim to Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces. The European officials were confused. Did Putin mean he would withdraw his troops from Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, as Witkoff was suggesting? Or, more likely, was Putin merely promising to not conquer the thousands of square miles of those two provinces that, after years of bloody fighting, remained in Ukrainian hands? Either way, Ukraine was skeptical about the value of a promise from Putin.

Witkoff wanted to strike while the iron was hot and hold a summit without delay. Dmitriev was optimistic Witkoff had taken Russia’s sensitivities on board: “We believe Steve Witkoff and the Trump team are doing a great job to understand the Russian position to end the conflict,” he told the Journal, a few days before.

Failed summit

The Aug. 15 summit fell apart almost as soon as it began. Witkoff, Rubio, and Trump arrived on Air Force One, meeting Putin, his longtime adviser Yuri Ushakov, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Putin launched into a 1,000-year history lecture on the unity of the Russian and Ukrainian people. The two sides canceled a lunch and an afternoon session where they were meant to check through their other issues, like the exchange of prisoners. Witkoff left uncertain where things stood, but hopeful talks would accelerate soon.

In October, President Zelensky flew to Washington, hoping to secure long-range, U.S.made Tomahawk cruise missiles. His military wanted to cripple Russian refineries, pushing Moscow to negotiate on better terms. By the time Zelensky arrived, Trump had spoken to Putin and decided not to offer the Tomahawks. Witkoff encouraged Ukrainian officials to try another tack: They should ask Trump for a 10-year tariff exemption. It would supercharge their economy, he said. “I’m in the deal settlement business. That’s why I’m here,” he told the Journal. “We keep on knocking at the door and coming up with ideas.”

December 5, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, Russia, USA | 2 Comments

No solutions for nuclear waste – no new nuclear power plants!

Greenpeace Switzerland, November 30, 2025

To date, there is no long-term safe solution for the storage of nuclear waste anywhere in the world. This is shown in a new study commissioned by Greenpeace Switzerland. It makes clear that the option planned in Switzerland—burying the nuclear waste in a clay layer north of the cantons of Zurich and Aargau—is fraught with numerous uncertainties. 

Here are three reasons why Switzerland must phase out nuclear power as quickly as possible and reduce the production of highly radioactive waste.

1. Burying nuclear waste is not a solution

The Greenpeace study summarizes the findings of over 800 scientific papers on the deep geological disposal of highly radioactive nuclear waste from the last 15 years. It reveals several new problems that are still poorly understood even by experts. These include phenomena such as the mutual weakening of various safety barriers, as well as processes (such as heat and radiation exposure, colloids, cracks, etc.) that could accelerate the spread of radioactive materials in the soil and groundwater.

Overall, it is clear that none of the “solutions” discussed so far for the deep geological disposal of these highly radioactive materials – neither in clay nor in granite formations – can guarantee that the radioactivity will remain safely contained in the long term. This finding is particularly worrying given that the Federal Council is considering a return to nuclear energy.

2. Swiss deep geological repository does not meet safety requirements

The report questions the safety of the planned deep geological repository. The National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste (Nagra) intends to store the highly radioactive waste in thick-walled steel containers, which are to be embedded in an Opalinus Clay layer at a depth of approximately 900 meters. The repository is designed to contain the radioactivity for one million years.

However, the study shows that certain processes could undermine the safety of the repository after only 1,000 or 2,000 years. Given these uncertainties, the optimism of the project’s proponents seems disconcerting. 

The Federal Council also seems keen to present the public with a final plan as quickly as possible – for political and financial reasons. In other words, the problem should be resolved as quickly as possible in order to revive nuclear energy in Switzerland. 

This is dangerous: We must not make any hasty decisions.

3. The safest way: No new waste – therefore no nuclear power

The reality is that Switzerland currently lacks a safe solution for the long-term storage of high-level radioactive waste. Continuing to pursue the planned deep geological repository in the Northern Lägern region, despite so many doubts, is not a good idea.

Furthermore, there is no disposal strategy whatsoever for a potential new reactor – a point that neither the Federal Council nor the proponents of nuclear energy ever openly address.

Given this situation, we must stop the production of highly radioactive waste as quickly as possible and prevent the problem from worsening through new nuclear power plants. Therefore, please sign our petition: https://www.greenpeace.ch/de/handeln/atomkraft-nie-wieder/

December 5, 2025 Posted by | Events, Switzerland | Leave a comment

Trump’s buried complicity in lost US proxy war against Russia.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL 2 Dec 25

Trump boasted he’d end the war destroying Ukraine in one day if re-elected. He claimed it was all Biden’s war that Trump had nothing to do with. If only Trump had been reelected in 2020, he claims, there would have been no war gutting Ukraine as a functioning state with tens of millions fled, dead, deserted, injured. The US wouldn’t have squandered over $180 billion to achieve this dubious Biden achievement.   

Trump, like every world leader, gets to make history but not rewrite history. Joe Biden was president when Russia launched its Special Military Operation to liberate the Donbas Ukrainians from destruction by Kyiv and keep NATO missiles off Russia’s borders. Biden essentially triggered that totally unnecessary war now in the final stages of Ukraine’s collapse. Biden also sabotaged the peace deal nearly achieved two month in that would have ended the war with no new lost Ukrainian territory. 

That will get Biden history’s everlasting condemnation.   But Trump also deserves history’s condemnation for ramping up the conditions that led to war under successor Biden. During his first term from 2017 to 2021 Trump kept alive long standing US dream of bringing Ukraine into NATO, a red line Russia warned America not to cross for over a decade prior. Trump authorized repeated NATO military exercises in Ukraine, which effectively made Ukraine a de facto NATO member. Trump allowed new NATO bases in Poland and Romania, adding to Russian angst over NATO encroachment.

Trump reversed a sensible Obama policy of not arming the Kyiv government to complete its destruction of Donbas Ukrainian separatists. In his 4 years Trump oversaw a fourfold increase of Kyiv military might.   Had Trump simply reversed senseless US expansion of NATO beginning under Bill Clinton in 1999, and forced Germany, France and UK to honor the Minsk Agreements granting regional autonomy to Donbas Ukrainians, Biden may not have had the conditions or momentum to provoke the February 2022 Russian invasion.   

Trump pretends he’s the White Knight bringing peace to a Ukraine wrecked solely by Biden’s perfidy. He should own up to his first term complicity and make peace to atone for his own sins destroying Ukraine as well as those of Joe Biden.

December 5, 2025 Posted by | Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Hinkley Point C contractor issued notice after ‘significant fire safety shortfalls’

The potential for harm and risk of serious injury was identified

A fire enforcement notice has been served on a Hinkley Point C
contractor after “significant fire safety shortfalls” were identified at
the nuclear construction site. Following a focused fire safety
intervention, Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) inspectors identified
that Bylor JV (Laing O’Rourke and Bouygues Travaux Publics) had failed to
implement appropriate arrangements for the effective planning,
organisation, control, monitoring and review of preventive and protective
measures.

 Somerset Live 2nd Dec 2025, https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/hinkley-point-c-contractor-issued-10681094

December 4, 2025 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Trump’s Peace With NATO Reinforces Its Purpose: US-Led Global Hegemony

Trump’s hardball tactics have extorted greater allied cooperation and reasserted US domination over the organization.

By Jonathan Ng , Truthout. November 29, 2025, https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-peace-with-nato-reinforces-its-purpose-us-led-global-hegemony/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=d2f1ccd0ed-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_11_29_05_59&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-d2f1ccd0ed-650192793

This October, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth dominated the NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels, while pressuring Europeans to assume an even heavier share of the defense burden. Referring to his peers as “ministers of war,” Hegseth demanded that member states purchase additional U.S. arms for Ukraine. “All countries need to translate goals into guns,” he hammered home. “That’s all that matters: hard power.”

Following Hegseth’s lead, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is now directing a campaign to secure arms purchase commitments. Rutte emphasizes that he is “proud” of the alliance’s ongoing assistance to Ukraine, noting that Russia has “lost 1 million people — dead or seriously wounded.”

Hegseth’s strongarm tactics and fundraising drive showcase the power dynamics that underlie NATO policymaking. In recent years, the organization has portrayed itself as an alliance of democracies confronting unprovoked aggression in Ukraine and China’s meteoric rise. Yet fundamentally, NATO is a U.S.-dominated forum, rather than a symposium of equals — a reality that Rutte’s relentlessly patient handling of the Trump administration makes clear.

Since 1949, members have exploited the alliance to solidify American global leadership, coordinate interventionism, and contain rivals that challenge Western influence. Rather than promote peace, NATO continues to pose one of the greatest threats to international stability by fueling armed conflicts in Ukraine and across the world.

NATO’s Fascists

NATO often portrays itself as a principled alliance of democracies confronting authoritarian rivals. But historically, the organization has collaborated with far-right intellectuals and statesmen, in order to maintain its military-industrial edge and geopolitical power. Following World War II, U.S. officials protected Wernher von Braun and around 1,500 other Nazi scientists from prosecution, while integrating them into the alliance’s scientific establishment. Eventually, the German General Adolf Heusinger, whose men butchered Jews and tossed children into wells, became a senior NATO commander.

For decades, Spain’s fascist strongman, Francisco Franco, was also an essential alliance partner. Between 1951 and 1953, the United States negotiated the Pact of Madrid, securing access to Spanish military bases and turning the country into a staging ground for NATO operations.

During negotiations, Washington appeared outwardly critical of Franco, while assuring his blood-soaked regime that it prioritized cooperation — a balancing act that insiders labeled a “comedy.” Privately, the U.S. embassy dismissed moral reservations, suggesting that officials approach relations “from a practical, even selfish, point of view,” since collaboration “could pay dividends in our own interest.” After concluding the pact, U.S. authorities praised Spain, a country studded with mass graves, for its “defense of the free world.” And Spanish bases became NATO launchpads in the escalating Cold War.

That came at a cost. In 1966, one of the U.S. Strategic Air Command’s B-52 bombers crashed above Palomares, releasing four hydrogen bombs over the seaside town. Residents remember a scalding wind and enormous fireball bursting over the horizon. “We thought that it was the end of the world,” one explained. The U.S. government promised to clean up the radioactive waste, but instead left the region riddled with plutonium particles. For the Spanish left, Palomares was the victim of NATO, an organization increasingly inseparable from the Franco dictatorship.

Continue reading →

December 4, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Did Davey’s EDF Hinkley deal scupper tax payer?

Is EDF about to pocket extra cash due to strike price from decade ago?

 The Telegraph reports that Hinkley Point C will slap £1bn a year onto UK
energy bills the moment it starts generating. The cash will flow straight
from households to EDF under a subsidy deal locked in more than a decade
ago.

A second £1bn hit will land through the nuclear levy that bankrolls
Sizewell C in Suffolk. Campaigners are already calling the combination a
“nuclear tax on households” as ministers push ahead with the biggest
expansion of nuclear power in a generation.

Treasury and OBR documents
released after Rachel Reeves’s Budget spell out how the money will move.
CfD receipts are forecast to hit £4.6bn in 2030-31 with £1bn of that
handed to Hinkley C in its first year of operation. The root cause is the
2013 strike price agreed between EDF and Sir Ed Davey. It guarantees
£92.50/MWh for Hinkley’s output, now worth £133 with inflation and
expected to reach around £150 by the time the plant opens in 2030. If
wholesale prices hover near £80/MWh as they do today EDF can claim roughly£70/MWh from consumers and businesses to make up the difference.

 Energy Live News 1st Dec 2025. https://www.energylivenews.com/2025/12/01/did-daveys-edf-hinkley-deal-scupper-tax-payer/

December 4, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

France & UK Still Insist On Sending Troops To Ukraine, In Effort To Sabotage Trump Peace Plan

by Tyler Durden, Tuesday, Dec 02, 2025 ,https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/france-uk-still-insist-sending-troops-ukraine-effort-sabotage-trump-peace-plan

As we reported earlier, the important Miami meeting wherein American and Ukrainian delegations hammered out a revised ceasefire draft for some five hours on Sunday did not have European participation. But this is where the real deal-making is taking place. Trump envoy Steve Witkoff is en route to Moscow, where he’s expected to meet with President Putin on Tuesday, in order to present where things stand on the peace plan.

The Miami meeting reportedly focused on where the new de facto border would be in the east, after the 19-point plan featured significant territorial concessions in the Donbass and Crimea. As for Europe, is still touting a “coalition of the willing” which are vowing ongoing military support to the Zelensky government.

At this moment, France and the United Kingdom especially are continuing to push for the deployment of troops from NATO-member states to Ukraine as part of their version of peace settlement, despite this being very obviously unacceptable to Moscow. 

Last week Politico reported that when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined a discussion involving the coalition of the willing via phone call, he made clear to all that the White House wants a peace agreement in place before committing to any long-term security guarantees for Kiev.

But UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer tried to push back, arguing that a “multinational force” would be essential for ensuring Ukraine’s future security.

Bloomberg then followed with a report saying that UK officials have already selected the military units they plan to deploy, based on several reconnaissance trips to Ukraine.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron proposed that such troops could operate in the capital area or western regions of the country, far from the front lines. But this would flagrantly cross all Russia’s red lines. NATO troops on its doorstep was key Putin’s decision-making in launching the ‘special military operation’ in the first place.

It must be recalled that the original US-drafted 28-point peace plan, which leaked to the press and more recently was condensed down to 19 points, included an explicit prohibition on deploying NATO troops to Ukraine.

The European-proposed counter-plan, which was also quickly leaked to the media, greatly softened that stance and laid out that instead of a blanket ban, NATO would not “permanently station troops under its command in Ukraine in peacetime.”

At a moment Trump’s peace plan advances, and with Witkoff on his way to meet with President Putin, hawks in Europe are growing even more hawkish:

Such intentionally vague language leaves open the possibility of NATO troop rotations into Ukraine. The Kremlin has time and again said it would not tolerate this, and such a move would lead to direct war with the West.

Europe’s plan also seeks to leave open a Ukrainian path to NATO, but this is also a sticking point which the US plan leaves out, given it would of course be dead on arrival if presented to Putin.

December 4, 2025 Posted by | France, UK, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Fifth Belgian reactor is permanently shut down

World Nuclear News, 1 December 2025

Unit 2 of the Doel nuclear power plant in Belgium’s Flanders region has been taken offline for the final time after 50 years of operation and disconnected from the grid. Its closure is in line with Belgium’s nuclear phase-out policy, under which four other reactors have already been shut down.

Belgium’s Federal Agency for Nuclear Control (FANC) said the operation to shut down the 445 MWe (net) pressurised water reactor (PWR) was carried out under its supervision.

Doel 2 has now entered the decommissioning phase in preparation for its actual dismantling. Fuel will be unloaded from the reactor and cooled in the storage pool, so it can later be transported to temporary storage.

“As with the other shutdowns, the process began with the submission of a ‘notice of cessation of activities’ to the FANC,” the regulator said. “This document describes in great detail the activities that will be carried out after the shutdown to prepare for decommissioning.”

Belgium’s federal law of 31 January 2003 required the phase-out of all seven nuclear power reactors in the country. Under that policy, Doel 1 and 2 were originally set to be taken out of service on their 40th anniversaries, in 2015. However, the law was amended in 2013 and 2015 to provide for Doel 1  and 2 to remain operational for an additional 10 years. Doel 1 was retired in February this year. Duel 3 was closed in September 2022 and Tihange 2 at the end of January 2023. Tihange 1 was disconnected from the grid on 30 September this year……………………………………………….https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/fifth-belgian-reactor-permanently-shut-down?cid=15961&utm_source=omka&utm_medium=WNN_Daily:_1_December_2025&utm_id=493&utm_map=24ecfe77-e3db-473a-be05-7c037a58ceb4

December 4, 2025 Posted by | decommission reactor, EUROPE | Leave a comment

UK is running out of water – but data centres refuse to say how much they use.

One Government insider said ‘accurate water figures have historically been very hard to get from facilities of any size’.

 Tech firms are failing to tell the Government how much water they use in
their data centres, as concerns grow that the UK does not have enough water to meet its needs.

Experts are calling on the Government to introduce
tighter regulations on data centres amid warnings that new power and
water-intensive supercomputers could be built in areas vulnerable to
drought. Campaigners have raised concerns that the Government is “too
close” to tech lobbyists and is failing to fully consider the impact a
data centre boom could have on the UK’s natural resources.

 iNews 1st Dec 2025, https://inews.co.uk/news/uk-running-out-water-data-centres-refuse-say-4062230

December 4, 2025 Posted by | environment, technology, UK | Leave a comment

Europe militarizes its space agency.


Sat, 29 Nov 2025 , https://www.sott.net/article/503252-Europe-militarizes-its-space-agency

The ESA has been awarded record funding, dropping its civilian-only focus and branching out to military and security missions.

The European Space Agency (ESA) will begin working on defense projects for the first time, in a move it is describing as “historic.” A resolution by its 23 member states says the agency has the tools to develop space systems “for security and defense.”

The EU and NATO are pouring tens of billions in taxpayer and borrowed money into supporting defense firms and churning out weapons, claiming Russia poses an imminent threat. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that EU leaders are inflating the alleged danger to push their own political agendas and funnel cash into the arms industry.

Next year’s budget allocates a record €22.1 billion (around $24 billion) to the ESA for the next three years.Its member states include virtually all European NATO countries, as well as non‑NATO members such as Switzerland and Austria.

The new budget is a sharp rise from the previous €17 billion. Germany is the top contributor with €5 billion, followed by France and Italy at over €3 billion each.

According to ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher, Poland was instrumental in promoting the agency’s new strategic direction. He confirmed that Warsaw is currently in discussions to host a new ESA center dedicated to security-focused projects.

Across the EU, defense budgets are surging as Brussels and its allies push for rearmament under the banner of security. The European Commission’s ‘ReArm Europe’ plan aims to pour hundreds of billions into joint weapons procurement and infrastructure, while member states have boosted arms purchases by nearly 40% in just one year.

Research and development spending is also up sharply, signaling a full-speed shift toward a greater military focus.

 ESA approves first-ever defense program:

Europe is taking its biggest step yet into space militarization. The centrepiece of this shift is European Resilience from Space (ERS), a new dual-use program intended to build a military-grade “system of systems” combining national satellites for secure surveillance, communications, navigation, and climate monitoring.

ERS received $1.39 billion of the $1.56 billion ESA sought. In February, ESA will ask European defense ministries for an additional $290 million.

ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher called the decision “a clear defense and security mandate,” noting that support from 23 member states — including non-EU countries such as the UK — was nearly unanimous.

At the ministerial summit in Bremen, ESA member states also approved:

  • a total transportation budget of $5.09 billion (4.39 billion EUR) to develop reusable European rockets;
  • $4.18 billion for commercial space partnerships;
  • continued funding for the Rosalind Franklin Mars mission, now slated for launch in 2028 with NASA’s confirmed support;
  • initial studies for a mission to Saturn’s moon Enceladus, seen by astrobiologists as a prime target for finding extraterrestrial life.

Germany — already planning to invest $40.6 billion in military space capabilities by 2030 — extended its lead as ESA’s largest contributor. In exchange, Berlin secured a commitment that a German astronaut will be the first European to join NASA’s Artemis lunar missions.

Space consultants note that while ERS funding is substantial, it remains politically delicate. “The coming year will be decisive for whether Europe can truly stand up a sovereign, rapid-response intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance constellation,” said Maxime Puteaux of Novaspace.

Earlier, Maj. Gen. Paul Tedman, head of the UK Space Command,reported that Russia was routinely shadowing and trying to jam British military satellites.

December 3, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, space travel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

  Inside the power-hungry data centres taking over Britain.

Our thirst for AI is fuelling a new construction wave: of giant data centres. But can ourelectricity and water systems cope — and what will the neighbours say?
Plants [like the one] run by the company Stellium on the outskirts of
Newcastle upon Tyne, are springing up across the country.

There are already
more than 500 data centres operating in the UK, many of which have been
around since the Nineties and Noughties. They grew in number as businesses and governments digitised their work and stored their data in outsourced “clouds”, while the public switched to shopping, banking and even tracking their bicycle rides online.

But it was in 2022, when a nascent
technology company called OpenAI launched ChatGPT, that the world woke up to the potential of AI and large language models to change the way the planet does, well, just about everything.

It can do this thanks largely to advances in chip design by the US company Nvidia — now the world’s most valuable (and first $5 trillion) business. The trouble is, a typical 4334wChatGPT query needs about ten times as much computing power — and electricity — as a conventional Google search.

This has led to an
explosion in data centres to do the maths. Nearly 100 are currently going
through planning applications in the UK, according to the research group
Barbour ABI. Most will be built in the next five years. More than half of
the new centres are due to be in London and the home counties — many of
them funded by US tech giants such as Google and Microsoft and leading
investment firms. Nine are planned in Wales, five in Greater Manchester,
one in Scotland and a handful elsewhere in the UK.

The boom is so huge that
it has led to concerns about the amount of energy, water and land these
centres will consume, as residents in some areas face the prospect of
seeing attractive countryside paved over with warehouses of tech. Typically
these centres might use 1GW (1,000MW) of electricity — more power than is
needed to supply the cities of London, Birmingham and Manchester put
together.

 Times 29th Nov 2025, https://www.thetimes.com/business/technology/article/inside-britains-ai-data-centre-boom-can-the-grid-keep-up-jllzb3b0p

December 3, 2025 Posted by | energy storage, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

  Nuclear a ‘political toy’ for Ed Miliband in Scotland, claims Scottish National Party

SNP’s Stephen Flynn has taken a firm stance against the development of
nuclear power stations in Scotland.

Aberdeen South MP Stephen Flynn has
left a scathing review of Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s plans for
nuclear power stations in Scotland. He labelled the plans ironic as it
would leave “energy rich Scotland picking up the bill for those
projects” when it “already produces more electricity than it
consumes”, claiming that said irony “will be lost on nobody – well
maybe just Ed Miliband it seems.” He also took aim at the UK state Great
British (GB) Energy, which has “so far achieved nothing for Scotland”,
leading to Miliband “doubling down on that record with this new
instruction to a supposedly independent company.” “Nobody knows what GB Energy is actually supposed to be, but this news suggests it’s little
more than a political toy for Miliband to play with whilst he destroys
Scotland’s offshore industry,” he added.

 Energy Voice 1st Dec 2025, https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/nuclear/586027/nuclear-a-political-toy-for-ed-miliband-in-scotland-claims-snp/

December 3, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Use less energy : Demand-led policy scenarios show promise.

 Renew Extra 29th Nov 2025,

Demand-side energy reduction has so far received less policy support than supply-side net-zero technologies, despite the fact that, as this interesting new Nature paper claims, ‘energy demand reductions of ~50% by 2050 compared with today are possible while maintaining essential services and improving quality of life’.  That would involve more than just improved technical efficiency of energy use and production, something that is already thankfully underway-  although still rather too slowly. It would also mean fundamental changes in how energy is used, with radical reductions in consumption due to new social/behavioural patterns.     

The paper notes that ‘policies explicitly targeting large energy demand reductions remain scarce, suggesting that they have so far been disregarded by policymakers owing to real or perceived lack of political feasibility. Instead, national energy strategies frame shifts in demand through an emphatically technological lens, focusing on efficiency gains through electrification and overlooking the broader structural and societal changes necessary to substantially cut the need to use energy..’

To address the perceived ‘persistent gap between academic energy demand scenarios and the scarcity of corresponding energy policy’, in a new approach, academics and policy makers join forces in a demand-focused process of ‘co-created’ UK 2050 energy scenario analysis, led by policymakers and evaluated through public dialogue. It takes more effort, but this paper says the new combined approach is well worth it: the ‘uniquely close involvement’ of policymakers leading the project evidently generated markedly different & positive narratives that reflect policymakers’ concerns while still leading to scenarios with reductions in energy demand of 18–45%, exceeding what policies normally suggest’. To address the perceived ‘persistent gap between academic energy demand scenarios and the scarcity of corresponding energy policy’, in a new approach, academics and policy makers join forces in a demand-focused process of ‘co-created’ UK 2050 energy scenario analysis, led by policymakers and evaluated through public dialogue. It takes more effort, but this paper says the new combined approach is well worth it: the ‘uniquely close involvement’ of policymakers leading the project evidently generated markedly different & positive narratives that reflect policymakers’ concerns while still leading to scenarios with reductions in energy demand of 18–45%, exceeding what policies normally suggest’. 

The new paper expands on the method developed by Barrett et al, replacing the ‘academic scenario design’ stage by a policymaker-led process, with input from energy-system modellers. The resultant co-created scenarios are then subject to public discussion, so as to ‘avoid being perceived by policymakers either as ideologically driven or as theoretical academic exercises’……………………………………

The paper also claims that the new approach can deliver practical result and savings: ‘demand-side measures can help reduce societal risks by decreasing future reliance on technologies currently unproven at scale, in the context of a policymaker-led framework……………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2025/11/use-less-energy-demand-led-policy.html

December 3, 2025 Posted by | ENERGY, UK | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »