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Port Hope’s radioactive past fuels pushback against proposed nuclear reactor

August 21, 2026, The Canadian Press 

When the Ontario government announced plans earlier this year to build what could become one of the world’s largest nuclear power plants in a picturesque community of roughly 18,000 people, the news came wrapped in a series of celebratory speeches.

The province’s energy minister, Stephen Lecce, hailed the project as “another positive step” toward a secure energy future, while the local mayor said it would help usher in a “stronger and more resilient future” not only for the community about 100 kilometres east of Toronto, but for the entire province and country.

Though the news was welcomed by some, it shocked a generation of Port Hope residents old enough to have lived through the community’s fraught history with the nuclear industry, a legacy that permeates backyards and public properties to this day.

“I personally was outraged when I heard this announcement, and elected officials of every level were lined up here making this announcement as if this was good news,” said Faye More, a 75-year-old resident rallying opposition to the project in the community.

The community has felt “invisible for about 80 years in the matter of the operation of these plants,” and is feeling the same once again as the province forges ahead with the new project, More said in an interview.

It has been almost a century since the Eldorado mining company, which later became a Crown corporation, opened a radium refinery plant in Port Hope in the 1930s. When uranium suddenly became a prized commodity about a decade later, ore that was once considered a waste product was in demand. The plant began refining uranium instead, supplying the material to the United States military during the Second World War where its uses included the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government program that produced the first atomic bombs.

Over several decades, the plant dumped contaminated soil, rocks and building materials across Port Hope. The materials were used mainly as backfill, but also in the construction of parks, roads, schools and homes — including the home where More grew up and the one where she later raised a family of her own.

In 2001, the federal government signed an agreement with Port Hope and nearby Clarington, committing to cleaning up, isolating and managing the historic, low-level radioactive waste that contaminated the region.

The project, known as Port Hope Area Initiative, in being implemented by the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, which manages historic waste sites on behalf of the Crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.

The provincially owned company in charge of the new nuclear power project is assuring residents that the sector operates much differently than when it was in its infancy………………………………………………..

Those assurances haven’t swayed critics.

The municipality is already home to two nuclear operations on top of the decades-long remediation project, More said. Another nuclear plant is not welcome, she said.

The community is being “treated like (it’s) expendable” as the government seeks to expand nuclear power generation, More said. “But the people here have been exploited and they have borne the price of this and we say no more.”

To many, the new power plant may seem like a done deal, but More and several other residents who oppose the project said they are optimistic their efforts will bear fruit.

More, who heads a local committee focused on health concerns, said the group will keep raising awareness of the proposal as well as lobbying the government to reverse its decision.

In June, she sent a petition to Canada’s auditor general, seeking protection under the upcoming National Strategy Respecting Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice. The strategy, according to the federal government, aims to promote efforts to recognize and address the “existing inequalities faced by Indigenous, racialized or otherwise marginalized communities” when decisions are made about the environment.

Consultations on the draft strategy closed this week and the final version is expected to be tabled this fall.

Turning to the courts could also be an option, More said……..

Port Hope is one of the most contaminated towns in Canada when it comes to low-level radioactive waste; the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission says the bulk of historic waste is there and in nearby Clarington.

The $2.6-billion remediation plan currently underway is “pretty much the largest environmental cleanup that’s ever been undertaken in the country,” said Bill Daly, the director of communications for the Port Hope Area Initiative, the organization behind the cleanup and long-term monitoring project.

Daly said some 5,000 sites in the municipality have been tested and about 1,200 were found to have some level of contamination…………………………

Like several others in the municipality, Erland said he can’t fathom why Port Hope was chosen to house a nuclear reactor.

“The irony couldn’t be lost that just while this remediation is being undertaken on our property, we’re learning that the government now wants to build the largest nuclear power plant in the world in this area,” the 66-year-old said…….

Autumn Woolsey said she and her family have gone through a long and painful cycle of testing, remediation and restoration on their property.

“This summer has been the first summer in eight years that we have not had anything going on,” she said.

No health monitoring was conducted in that time, even after Woolsey repeatedly asked for it, she added.

Woolsey, who fiercely opposes the new reactor, said she’s fighting for future generations.

“I can’t change what has happened and what we’ve been exposed to, but if I can advocate and fight for my children, their children … that is what my goal, my mission is in life,” she said.

“Do not come in here to a community that has suffered for decades and think that we’re going to be happy to hear about this.”…

Few might be affected as directly as Sarah Sculthorpe and her family if the new plant goes ahead. The farm property where Sculthorpe moved nearly 50 years ago after marrying an eighth-generation Port Hope resident shoulders the site chosen for the project.

Over the last several months, Sculthorpe has been knocking on neighbours’ doors, talking to politicians and nuclear experts, doing online research and taking copious notes — all aimed at preventing what seems to be the inevitable.

“The only way to win a battle is to raise the knowledge and the voices of people,” she said. “And if we cannot educate people and let them know why we don’t want this, it will happen, because (for) most people, it’s out of sight, out of mind.”

The land earmarked for the plant spans 1,300 acres, with 700 acres deemed environmentally sensitive, she said.

Sculthorpe’s biggest concern, she said, is that building one of the country’s largest reactor sites on a plot of that size might mean there’s no space for a buffer zone between the plant and her property.

She argues Ontario Power Generation has not been transparent with the plant’s potential neighbours — an accusation denied by the corporation, which said it has “engaged extensively” with residents near the site and throughout the municipality.

Sculthorpe said her husband remembers seeing yellowcake, a powdery form of uranium oxide, in the ditches when he walked to school as a child, and later became of a member Citizens for Responsible Nuclear Waste Disposal. The grassroots group successfully lobbied for the environmental cleanup of Port Hope in 1980s.

She said she doesn’t want her grandchildren to be raised next door to a nuclear reactor.

“For me it’s a very emotional battle,” she said. https://www.cp24.com/local/2026/08/21/port-hopes-radioactive-past-fuels-pushback-against-proposed-nuclear-reactor/

August 25, 2026 Posted by | Canada, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Floating 10 MW nuclear reactor proposed for California.

By Efosa Udinmwen, 22 Aug 26, https://www.techradar.com/pro/floating-10-mw-nuclear-reactor-proposed-for-california-barge-mounted-smr-aims-to-power-15-000-homes

The Port of Long Beach is exploring small modular reactors that could eventually supply electricity for port operations and ships.

Bluecore Energy, a startup building compact nuclear reactors meant to operate from floating barges, is leading the proposal.

This marks a potential return of nuclear power development in California after nearly five decades under state restrictions.

A startup’s barge-based reactor plan

Bluecore has leased space at Berth 48 within the Port of Long Beach, where it intends to develop and test its floating reactor system.

The company’s initial system is rated at 10 MWe, a capacity the startup says can scale through pairing multiple units together, an approach which suits continuous port operations partly because individual reactors are designed to run for years on a single fueling cycle.

August 25, 2026 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Golden Dome Secrecy Poses Challenge for Estimating Costs.

The Pentagon has said it expects the program to cost $185 billion to build over the next 10 years, but think tank experts and government analysis have argued the bill for what Trump’s executive order articulated will likely be much higher. One of the first outside estimates, released last year by the American Enterprise Institute, projected costs ranging anywhere from $250 billion to $2.4 trillion. In May, the Congressional Budget Office pegged the program’s cost at $1.2 trillion.

COMMENT, by Alice Slater. Don’t forget that Russia and China have been urging us for years to negotiate a treaty to prohibit weapons and war in space which the US and our Peace Movement generally ignores!    Most recently, they issued a Joint Proposal on the 80th Anniversary of WWII last summer for more global cooperation., criticizing the Golden Dome and urging that we negotiate their draft treaty to ban weapons and war in space, pledging never to be the first to put weapons or war in space!!!   Why aren’t we all urging the US government and its allies in crime to take up this proposal and save one and a half trillion  dollars on the Golden Dumb!!  See Russian and Chinese proposal here:  http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/6310 

Aug. 19, 2026 | By Courtney Albon, https://www.airandspaceforces.com/golden-dome-secrecy-challenge-cost-estimates/

While Pentagon officials have revealed some details about the architecture behind the Golden Dome missile defense project, crafting an independent cost estimate for a largely classified program remains a challenge, experts said Aug. 19.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January 2025 directing the Pentagon to build a multilayered missile defense shield to protect the U.S. from traditional and advanced missile threats, to include hypersonic weapons. Defense Department officials have said the system will consist of command-and-control nodes, satellite sensors, and ground-and- space-based interceptors, but the finer details of that architecture—including numbers of satellites and interceptors—remain shrouded in secrecy. 

The Pentagon has said it expects the program to cost $185 billion to build over the next 10 years, but think tank experts and government analysis have argued the bill for what Trump’s executive order articulated will likely be much higher. One of the first outside estimates, released last year by the American Enterprise Institute, projected costs ranging anywhere from $250 billion to $2.4 trillion. In May, the Congressional Budget Office pegged the program’s cost at $1.2 trillion.

These wide-ranging projections point to the lack of a common, unclassified understanding of what systems and technology will underpin the program, which experts said is the fundamental challenge of estimating Golden Dome’s cost.

Speaking at a Brookings Institute event, CBO’s Director of National Security Analysis David Mosher said the organization was tasked by lawmakers to put a price tag on the scope laid out in Trump’s initial executive order rather than try to estimate what the Golden Dome program office is actually building—an important distinction.

“The Golden Dome they’re building is perhaps different than the Golden Dome in the executive order,” Mosher said. “We couldn’t have costed what they’re building because nobody knows what they’re building yet.”

With the executive order as the baseline, the report constructed an architecture with the elements included in Trump’s directive and then sized it “to protect what we thought was a sort of plausible, relatively large attack from North Korea, or a modest attack from Russia or China,” Mosher said. The resulting notional architecture features four interceptor layers designed to target multiple missile types and to operate either independently or in concert with an associated command-and-control network:

  • A space-based constellation of 7,800 satellites designed to take out up to 10 intercontinental ballistic missiles launched near simultaneously as well as hypersonic glide vehicle threats
  • An upper wide-area surface layer comprised of three Ground-Based Midcourse Defense sites, each with 60 Next-Generation Interceptors or Ground-Based Interceptors focused on engaging ICBM threats
  • A lower wide-area surface layer with four U.S.-based sites, each equipped with 48 SM-3 Block IIA interceptors to defeat ICBMs or hypersonic glide vehicles
  • A “regional sector” layer with 35 interceptor and radar sites loaded with THAAD, SM-6 Block IB, and Patriot interceptors that can target ICBMs, glide vehicles, and cruise missiles

The space-based interceptor constellation would be the most expensive element of this architecture by far, costing $743 billion over 20 years, or 60 percent of the total cost. The report, which calls its architecture a “middle ground” between more limited and high-end alternatives, estimates each SBI-equipped satellite would cost $22 million and have a five-year service life. 

CBO’s report also includes the cost of a satellite sensing layer—which it projects would require about $90 billion to develop, field, and maintain—as well as the battle management and communication systems needed to coordinate the broader architecture. The sensing layer would include satellites such as the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor, which the Space Development Agency is fielding as part of its low-Earth orbit missile-tracking constellation, and space-based air moving target indication satellites, which the Space Force is currently developing.

Golden Dome Director Gen. Michael Guetlein has pushed back on CBO’s estimates, saying they’re built on inaccurate assumptions about what his team is actually building. According to Guetlein, the report’s assumptions are based on technology envisioned in the early 2000s “for a different fight”—one focused on point defense, or defense of a limited area, rather than the regional, homeland defense mission that underpins Golden Dome.

“That is not what we need for the homeland,” he said in May. “In a regional defense, there’s a different architecture. And you can’t just take what we’ve done in the past and multiply it forward or you’re going to get large numbers like CBO got.”

Mosher acknowledged the report is detached from the program office’s architecture, pointing out multiple times that CBO and the general public do not have access to those details. He said CBO has asked for briefings but hasn’t been able to meet with program officials. 

“I know nothing about what they’re actually building except what I read in publications,” Mosher said. 

According to Guetlein, a key difference between the architecture envisioned in the CBO report and what the Pentagon is pursuing through Golden Dome is the use of “next-generation” technology like AI, advanced computing, and directed energy. 

Mosher said that for the most part, the report used existing systems as a baseline because they’re a known quantity. He said it’s true that harnessing advanced technology could lower costs over time, especially for some space-based elements of the architecture. However, other technologies like high-energy lasers in space aren’t yet ready for prime time, which means it’s likely not a near-term differentiator. 

“We tend to estimate what we see,” he said. “New technologies might provide the opportunity for that, I think we mentioned that as a possibility, but it’s not what you would have in the near term, which is what they’re trying to do.”

August 24, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

DOE Again Denies Access to Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) at Nuclear Weapons Facilities; Contact Your Elected Officials

Once again, the Department of Energy and its semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration has denied the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board access to nuclear weapons facilities, including at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). At a time when LANL is ramping up production of plutonium pits, the triggers for nuclear weapons, the DOE is restricting access to the Board and its resident inspectors preventing them from fulfilling critical oversight and public reporting responsibilities. As a result, the public is no longer informed about potential issues of adequate protection at defense nuclear facilities.

The Board provides oversight of DOE and is independent in the execution of its mission.  It is part of the Executive Branch of government.

Further, the five-member Board has been eviserated because neither the recent Democratic nor Republican administrations have filled positions on the Board. Currently there is one Board member, which means the Board cannot issue formal recommendations without a quorum – all to the detriment of the public.

The Board is governed by the Atomic Energy Act which requires that the Energy Secretary “shall fully cooperate with the Board and provide prompt and unfettered access to such facilities, personnel, and information as the Board considers necessary to carry out its responsibilities.” 

Based upon a lack of jurisdiction argument, DOE falsely claims that it has the authority to deny the Board access to facilities, personnel and information among other improper denials – again, all to the detriment of the public.

Get all the details at nuclearactive.org

August 24, 2026 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

The defense revolving-door, Silicon Valley edition

he Trump administration has installed a revolving door between defense-tech companies and the Pentagon.

An eye-opening glimpse at the links between two congressional committees and more than 100 defense contractors, consultants, and lobbyists.

By John Mecklin, August 17, 2026, https://thebulletin.org/2026/08/the-defense-revolving-door-silicon-valley-edition/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=The%20defense%20revolving-door%2C%20Silicon%20Valley%20edition&utm_campaign=20260817%20Monday%20Newsletter%20%28Copy%29

ince President Eisenhower more-or-less invented the term military-industrial complex, US defense spending has grown, dramatically in some eras, leveling off a bit in others, but overall heading ever-upward. Annual US defense expenditures now approach $1 trillion—and, if the Trump administration gets its way, will head toward $1.5 trillion in the coming fiscal year. A variety of factors has driven this rise in defense outlays, but one has become persistent: the revolving door that some national service officials walk through to take well-compensated positions at private-sector military contractors and the firms that lobby the government on their behalf.

The phenomenon and its corruptive possibilities have been much-studied and widely criticized. US Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the noted progressive, commissioned a report on the issue in 2023 with the withering title “Pentagon Alchemy: How Defense Officials Pass rough the Revolving Door and Peddle Brass for Gold.” The libertarian-to-conservative Cato Institute writes less compelling headlines (“Dealing with the Defense Industry’s Revolving Door in the 2027 NDAA”) but doesn’t like the revolving door, either. And in its 2023 report, “March of the Four–Stars: The Role of Retired Generals and Admirals in the Arms Industry,” the heterodox Quincy Institute basically supports Warren’s attempt to at least slow the revolving door via the “Department of Defense Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act.” Warren initially introduced the bill in 2019 and reintroduced it in 2021 and 2023, to no avail.

The interactive display below [on original] illustrates one piece of the defense revolving door as it has evolved over the last decade. During that time, former congressional officials have strolled through the door and wound up working not just at the largest defense contractors (often called “primes”) but also for a new class of high-technology firms—often involved in artificial intelligence and headquartered in Silicon Valley—that has aggressively expanded its Pentagon contracting efforts. And to be clear, the door leads in both directions; private sector bigwigs sometimes move into influential government positions that could affect the fortunes of their companies.

As UC Berkeley investigative reporter Bernice Yeung recently wrote for the Bulletin:

[T]he Trump administration has installed a revolving door between defense-tech companies and the Pentagon. The deputy secretary of defense, Steve Feinberg, is the cofounder and former CEO of a private equity firm that invests heavily in companies with Pentagon contracts. The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology co-chair David Sacks is a venture capitalist who invests in defense tech. The country’s science and technology advisor, Michael Kratsios, was previously an executive at top AI defense firm, Scale AI. The armed services are also stacked with senior leaders with ties to the tech industry, such as Under Secretary of the Army Michael Obadal, an Anduril alum.

The interactive is anything but comprehensive. It looks only at members of Congress who served and top staffers who worked on the House and Senate armed services committees during the 2015-2025 decade. The graphic does not deal with defense-related political contributions, or with the many employees of the Pentagon, military services, State Department, and Energy Department who also rode the revolving door connecting government service to high-paying positions with defense contractors and the K Street firms that lobby for them. The interactive simply shows some of the ways in which the two congressional committees that deal with the country’s armed services are connected with private-sector defense contractors, consultants, and lobbyists. Even within this limited scope, the connections are eye-opening.

August 24, 2026 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Jared Kushner: US will back Israeli resumption of war if Hamas fails to honor disarmament commitments

Kushner said Hamas could surrender weapons and tunnels within 60 to 90 days, calling demilitarization a potential major security gain for Israel.

Jerusalem Post, ByJAMES GENN, AUGUST 18, 2026 

Hamas must honor its commitments to disarm or face an IDF operation to “finish the job,” US special envoy Jared Kushner told FOX News’s Trey Yingst on Monday.

Kushner’s comments came after meetings with Hamas and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) in Cairo on Sunday, and respective meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem on Monday.

“If they [Hamas] don’t follow through now on their commitment, everyone will see that they’re not genuine about peace, and then Israel will have a lot more support from the US and others to go and finish the job in the appropriate way,” Kushner stated………………………………

“For Israel, we think this is a win-win situation because if Hamas actually gives over the weapons and the tunnels willingly over the next 60 to 90 days, that obviously would be the elimination of a huge security threat for Israel, almost an unthinkable achievement,” he stated.

Trump admin. will not allow Gaza to be rebuilt until Hamas demilitarizes, Kushner says

The Trump administration will “not allow Gaza to be rebuilt until demilitarization occurs,” Kushner stated……………….. https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-905880

August 23, 2026 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

USA government handing out $billions to X-energy and TerraPower for advanced nuclear reactors

X-energy, TerraPower share updates on advanced reactor projects

Mon, Aug 17, 2026, https://www.ans.org/news/2026-08-17/article-8297/xenergy-terrapower-share-updates-on-advanced-reactor-projects/

The two main players of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, X-energy and TerraPower, have both announced significant developments in their projects to deploy advanced commercial-scale reactors.

X-energy to get another $1 billion: During its second-quarter earnings call on Thursday, CEO Clay Sell said the DOE notified X-energy that it would receive an additional $1 billion in cost-shared funding for its Long Mott project. The company wants to build four Xe-100 reactors at Dow’s UCC Seadrift Operations, a chemical production facility in Seadrift, Texas. It would be the first advanced reactor deployment of its kind at an industrial site in North America.

Combined with the $1 billion X-energy has already received from DOE, the company will have received roughly $2.15 billion for the Seadrift project, Sell said. X-energy will be required to follow the same cost-share requirements as in the earlier allocation…….

Highlighted other key second-quarter moments and developments for the company during the call, including the following:

  • Entering into long-term agreements for high-assay low-enriched uranium enrichment services with Centrus Energy Corp. and General Matter.
  • Entering into an agreement with SGL Carbon to expand manufacturing capacity for nuclear-grade graphite.
  • Receiving an $11 million economic development grant from Tennessee to support its TRISO-X fuel fabrication campus in Oak Ridge.
  • Acquiring roughly 70 acres adjacent to its Oak Ridge campus to expand its TRISO-X footprint.

With regard to Long Mott, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to complete its construction permit review later this year, with a permit issuance decision likely in the first half of 2027, according to Sell. X-energy is also expected to submit its construction permit application to the NRC in the first half of next year for the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility project in Washington state with Amazon and Energy Northwest.

Lastly, an announcement of a 1-GW project with an unnamed utility is coming “in the near future,” Sell said.

TerraPower, South Korean companies reach deals: TerraPower is looking to strengthen its ties with South Korea and has reached agreements with Hyundai Engineering & Construction (HDEC) and SK Innovation to develop and commercialize the Natrium reactor in the United States, Korea, and select international markets. This comes after TerraPower officials—including founder and chair Bill Gates and president and CEO Chris Levesque—traveled to South Korea to meet with Prime Minister Seong-sook Han and leaders from the Export-Import Bank of Korea, HD Hyundai, HDEC, and SK Innovation.


Under the agreement reached with HDEC, the Korean company will be TerraPower’s engineering, procurement, and construction contractor and will build up to eight of its Natrium reactors with completion, price, and performance guarantees. TerraPower is currently constructing its first Natrium reactor—a 345-MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor with molten salt heat storage to temporarily boost power output to 500 MWe—in Kemmerer, Wyo.

TerraPower’s term-sheet agreement with SK Innovation clears a pathway for Korea’s first Natrium plant, along with plans to expand internationally. The two companies will explore opportunities to collaborate on engineering and digital innovation solutions, including digital twin technology and artificial intelligence, the news release said.

“Today marks a pivotal moment for TerraPower as we embark on a new chapter of international collaboration with Korea’s leading organizations,” Levesque said. “Combining TerraPower’s innovative advanced nuclear technology with Korea’s nuclear construction and operational expertise will strengthen our global cooperation and accelerate the deployment of a Natrium fleet that will transform the world’s energy landscape.”

August 22, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

A Canadian lab ran real spent nuclear fuel through one chemical process and stripped 89% of its long-lived danger in 24 hours.

COMMENT – by Gordon Edwards

“This pro-plutonium article is misleading. Separating plutonium from spent nuclear fuel is the surest path to proliferation of nuclear weapons, and in no way does it solve the long-term problem of high-level nuclear waste. For further information see ccnr.org/Moltex_Refuted_2021.pdf . By the way, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (although lavishly funded by Canadian taxpayers) is owned and run by a consortium of American multinational corporations.”

By Kevin Montien, August 7, 2026,https://www.vozpopuli.com/indux/en/a-canadian-lab-ran-real-spent-nuclear-fuel-through-one-chemical-process-and-stripped-89-of-its-long-lived-danger-in-24-hours/8154/

A Canadian laboratory has carried out a chemical test with real spent fuel from a commercial CANDU reactor and extracted 89.4% of its plutonium into molten salt in 24 hours. After 60 hours, the figure rose to 94.3%, while almost all the uranium remained outside the salt. That is a serious technical result, not a computer model.

But no electricity has been generated from the recovered material. The test validated the first stage of Moltex Energy’s Waste to Stable Salt process, known as WATSS, while the company’s planned 300-megawatt electric reactor remains in development and must still pass a much deeper regulatory process. The chemistry worked, but the power plant does not yet exist.

How WATSS separates the material

Spent nuclear fuel contains uranium, fission products and transuranic elements such as plutonium and americium. WATSS uses a high-temperature chloride salt and a carefully chosen reducing metal to convert transuranic oxides into forms that dissolve in the salt, while most of the uranium oxide stays solid.

This is a group-separation process, not a method for producing pure plutonium. In the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories tests, niobium was used as the reducing metal, and uranium carry-over into the salt was only 0.05% after 24 hours and 0.02% after 60 hours. The process moved the target material without dragging the bulk uranium along with it.

The location of the work matters too. Canadian Nuclear Laboratories carried out the experiments in shielded hot cells at Chalk River, using irradiated fuel rather than a laboratory substitute. That moves WATSS beyond the familiar stage where a promising idea works only with simulated waste.

Why this matters for nuclear waste

That percentage matters because Transuranic elements are heavier than uranium and include isotopes that remain radioactive for thousands of years, helping drive the need for deep isolation over geological timescales. Removing and later fissioning much of that inventory could reduce the long-lived burden, although it cannot make every waste stream disappear.

Canada has now selected the Revell Batholith in northwestern Ontario for its proposed deep geological repository, after Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation and the Township of Ignace agreed to advance the project. The regulatory process began in January 2026, so the country has a chosen location but not an operating repository.

Meanwhile, the inventory keeps growing. Canada had about 3.4 million used fuel bundles as of 2025 and generates roughly 90,000 more each year, according to the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. A new recycling route could change what eventually goes underground, but it would not remove the need for a final disposal system.

A reactor designed to consume the recovered salt

Moltex plans to turn the concentrated transuranic salt into fuel for its Stable Salt Reactor Wasteburner, or SSR-W. The design is a fast-spectrum molten salt reactor rated at about 300 megawatts electric, with molten chloride fuel held inside fuel tubes and grouped into assemblies rather than circulated through a conventional solid-fuel core.

Fast neutrons are central to the idea. They can fission heavy isotopes that today’s thermal reactors use poorly, producing electricity while converting part of the long-lived inventory into fission products that are, for the most part, shorter-lived. Those products still require management, but the most persistent part of the waste can, to a large extent, become fuel instead of remaining untouched in storage.

Moltex estimates that about 260,000 used CANDU bundles expected at Point Lepreau by the end of the plant’s life could fuel one SSR-W for 60 years. The company also says the combined system could cut the repository footprint needed for that material by as much as 80%. Those are engineering projections tied to a facility that has not been built, not operating results.

The waste is already at Point Lepreau

Point Lepreau has operated on the Bay of Fundy since 1983, and its used fuel remains on site. NB Power says each bundle spends seven to ten years under water in a pool about the size of an Olympic swimming pool before moving into above-ground concrete dry-storage containers.

The amount looks surprisingly compact. NB Power says all the fuel used at the station since 1983 could fit within roughly one-third of an NHL hockey rink if stacked like firewood from the ice to the top of the boards. But a small footprint does not mean a small obligation, because the bundles must still be secured, monitored and eventually placed into a long-term management system.

The hardest part comes after the lab

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission completed a Phase 1 vendor design review of the SSR-W in 2021. Regulators found that Moltex generally understood the high-level intent of Canadian requirements, but they also identified additional work, and the review did not approve construction or issue a reactor license.

WATSS entered a separate pre-licensing consultation with the regulator in 2025. In its latest update, Moltex said the hot-cell work had “significantly advanced our understanding of the WATSS process,” while also stating that it intends to continue the remaining development stages and re-engage with regulators, utilities and governments as work resumes.

That leaves major questions around full-scale processing, fuel production, reactor performance, secondary waste, safeguards, cost and financing. The 24-hour extraction is a milestone, but it is not yet a power plant.

The latest statement was published on Moltex Energy.

Kevin Montien

Social communicator and journalist with extensive experience in creating and editing digital content for high-impact media outlets. He stands out for his ability to write news articles, cover international events and his multicultural vision, reinforced by his English language training (B2 level) obtained in Australia.

August 22, 2026 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

Walt Zlotow – 21ST century David v. Goliath: Iran’s $8 billion military whups America’s $1 trillion military


Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  GlenEllyn IL , 19 Aug 26, https://theaimn.net/21st-century-david-v-goliath/

What’s going on in the Middle East is not a Biblical fairy tale. Irans’s piddly military has delivered a devastating defeat to America’s gargantuan trillion dollar military.

Iran’s David does not need to squander a trillion annually on 750 bases housing over 160,000 soldiers in 80 countries.  Nor does Iran’s David need 287 naval ships including 11 nuclear powered aircraft carriers that have suddenly become obsolete in the era of drone and missile warfare. Those carriers have been steering clear of Iran’s missiles and drones least they be sent to Davy Jones Locker.  

The US is flummoxed at how Iran’s minuscule military has made mincemeat out of all 18 US bases in US Gulf State allies Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Bahrain. After plastering Iran with thousands of bombs for 39 days, it was the US, not Iran that was running out of offensive and defensive missiles and bombs, so much so Trump cried ‘Uncle’ and demanded a ceasefire.

When Trump signed the Iran’s ‘Unconditional Surrender’ document, the Memorandum of Understanding, on June 17, it was equivalent to Goliath being smitten by the stone puny David fired from his sling. 

Of course, the story of David and Goliath is a fairy tale that allegedly occurred over 3,000 years ogo. The 21st century version is no fairy tale. Now in its 173rd day with no end in sight, it still represents the most catastrophic military blunder in US history. It will likely push the US out of the Middle East. The 5 Gulf States housing now damaged or destroyed US bases may seek more reliable countries to rely on for their security. Iran will emerge a stronger power in the region. The entire world economy still teeters on possible decline from US intransigence and refusal to admit defeat. 


Trump still doesn’t get it. He’s seeks another half trillion bucks for his wildly bloated military for fiscal ’27 in hopes of prevailing over Iran’s tiny $8 billion dollar military. Mayne he should start reading something he’s never read before…the Bible. He should start with 1 Samuel 17:1–50.

August 21, 2026 Posted by | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trump ‘weighing nuclear attack on Iran’ as peace deal expires.

Plus: Why the Iran war has prompted Trump to scale back key US-South Korea military drills

As the US-Iran ceasefire officially expires and the Strait of Hormuz
remains closed, is Donald Trump considering using nuclear weapons to break
the war’s stalemate? On today’s episode of Iran: The Latest, Venetia Rainey
and Roland Oliphant discuss why US politician Marjorie Taylor Greene’s
bizarre nuclear claim may be less crazy than it first appears and how an
underground nuclear facility at Pickaxe Mountain could be the potential
target. They also look at the state of the war 60 days on from the
ill-fated Memorandum of Understanding peace deal and why Iran is more
bullish than ever.

Telegraph 17th Aug 2026, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/08/17/trump-weighing-nuclear-attack-on-iran-as-peace-deal-expires/

August 21, 2026 Posted by | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Summary of the Summary of the Integrated Guidelines – Deep Geological Repository (DGR) for Canada’s Used Nuclear Fuel Project

The document refers to ‘spatial and temporal boundaries’ and ‘follow up and monitoring’. AsI understand the project, the temporal boundary is several hundred thousand years.

But NWMO will not follow up or monitor beyond apx 160 years, instead handing the dgr to the public to follow up and monitor beyond that.  If all the copper cladding corrodes away in 161 years, it’s not their problem.

 

Dated as having been posted August and without an explanatory note, the Impact Assessment Agency has posted a “Summary of the Integrated Guidelines” as Document 1117 at  https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/documents/p88774/167588E.pdf

The nine page document begins with a disclaimer: “This document is a summary of the requirements found in the Integrated Tailored Impact Statement Guidelines (the Guidelines) for the Deep Geological Repository for Canada’s Used Nuclear Fuel Project (the project), proposed by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (the proponent). This document outlines, at a high level, the information that the proponent must provide in their Impact Statement. The purpose of this document is to serve as an engagement tool for participants to support their understanding of the requirements.”

August 21, 2026 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

The Quantum Con: How Chicago’s Southside Became a Sacrificial Altar to the War Machine

Are we as Chicago residents at ease with the unprecedented horrors of quantum and AI warfare coming out of our own backyards?

Pete Hegseth’s Department of War is building America’s largest quantum computing project right here on the Southside of Chicago, to the detriment of not only our city but the world at large. Gov. JB Pritzker has lauded the venture capital project as an unprecedented opportunity to make Illinois the “Silicon Valley of quantum development.” With whose consent? On whose land? And on whose dime?

When examining the backers of the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park (IQMP), it is difficult to rationalize this $9 billion project as anything but an accelerative altar to militarism. Alongside federal backing from DARPA, investors such as BlackRock, IBM, and Israeli startup Quantum Machines have all cited quantum technology as the next frontier in modern warfare. The military-industrial complex has emphatically doubled down on quantum computing technology and advanced computing in AI alike as the next crucial edges in 21st-century militarism. Indeed, AI technology in warfare is already being used extensively by the US and Israel to terrorize the SWANA region.

Even with the considerable private capital financing already allotted to this project’s troubling Big Tech-war machine alliance, Illinois taxpayers are the top funders of IQMP by far. To the sum of more than 700 million state dollars, the land and water beneath our feet have been sold out to private equity military contracts. As families across our cities starve, as rent costs go up and our unhoused neighbors are continually displaced, we must stop the flow of state and city resources from being directed to a global surveillance state hellbent on mass destruction.

On a local level, the Chicago City Council has unanimously approved the Quantum Park’s construction on three separate occasions, with Mayor Brandon Johnson contributing $5 million from the city’s already strained budget. The contrast between the typical glacial speed of approval from City Council and the suspiciously rapid approval process of this project is jarring to say the least, particularly when one considers the largely uncharted nature of the technology itself.

Southside Together’s campaign against Quantum is an unequivocal stand for people power against the cynical backdrop of Big Tech fatalism.

Southside Together, an organization focused on building people power with working-class Southside residents, collected signatures proposing a non-binding referendum concerning IQMP. The petition asked one question: “Should our local elected officials stop the construction of the IQMP and instead invest directly in community resources?” Non-binding ballot referendums are rarely challenged on the basis of their language, yet this expression of community consensus was struck from the ballot summarily. Southside residents, in particular, breaking the silence on this project have been clearly delineated as a high-priority threat by backing city officials.

Widespread awareness and community dissent could in fact function as IQMP’s death knell. If organizing on the Southside alone has already scared these Big Tech military syndicates into such frantic repression, imagine what genuine citywide resistance to quantum computing development could accomplish in turn.

As Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Johnson push this project through, they are continuing to make the people of Chicago complicit in war crimes across the globe. Do Illinois politicians want this escalation in Big Tech militarism to be their legacy? More importantly, are we as Chicago residents at ease with the unprecedented horrors of quantum and AI warfare coming out of our own backyards?

Southside Together’s campaign against Quantum is an unequivocal stand for people power against the cynical backdrop of Big Tech fatalism. Join the fight today against what quantum tech threatens to do tomorrow.

August 20, 2026 Posted by | technology, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Anti-uranium advocates wrest control of public hearing on proposed mine near Navajo Nation

NMDOJ also weighs in on NuFuels’ nuclear license renewal, saying company is making false promises about unproven extraction technology 

By Patrick Lohmann-August 10, 2026 , https://sourcenm.com/2026/08/10/anti-uranium-advocates-wrest-control-of-public-hearing-on-proposed-mine-near-navajo-nation/

GALLUP — A recent hearing meant to inform the public about a new uranium mine proposal near Church Rock instead exposed wounds around the legacy of mining’s impacts on Navajo communities, as well as fresh concerns about whether technology that promises to safely extract the mineral is as clean as the industry claims. 

Laramide Resources, a Canadian mining company, and its subsidiary NuFuels, Inc., held a public hearing Thursday at a casino near Gallup as it seeks a permit from the New Mexico Environment Department to discharge. 

But Navajo anti-mining advocates, as well as those who still remember the cascading consequences  from the 1979 Church Rock mine spill, shouted out repeatedly during the company’s presentation. They expressed frustration that NuFuels would pursue a uranium mine in an area still contending with the biggest uranium spill in the nation’s history, as well as numerous other public health and environmental harms from decades of uranium mining.

About half way through company Vice President Josh Leftwich’s presentation, advocate Jenn Nez slowly got to her feet and walked toward Leftwich, ultimately convincing him to hand her his microphone. 

Through tears, Nez described cancer and other health issues she said uranium contamination caused in her family. Leftwich did not get the microphone back for most of the rest of the 90-minute meeting, as a line of fellow opponents gathered alongside Nez and waited for their chance to speak. 

“Thank you for giving us this opportunity, because we took it from you,” Teracita Keyanna, vice president of the Red Water Pond Road Community Association Executive Committee, told Leftwich. “This is my community. This is my family. That’s my home you’re talking about.”

Leftwich’s presentation centered on a proposed uranium project called Church Rock Section 8, which the company hopes to build on a 175-acre site of private land surrounded by the Navajo Nation, which bans uranium mining. Before Leftwich was interrupted, he detailed how the company sought to use a mining method known as in situ recovery to access roughly 10 million pounds of uranium contained in sandstone formations in the underground aquifer. 

In situ recovery entails the injection of lixiviant — a chemical solution composed of water, oxygen and either carbon dioxide or sodium bicarbonate — to dissolve the uranium underground. From there, pumps extract the uranium liquid into recovery wells, where the uranium is separated. The leftover water is then discharged back into the aquifer. 

“It’s a closed-loop system,” Leftwich said. “There won’t be any other discharges. The water just circulates through the formation to extract the uranium.”

The company’s permit application notes that, when fully operational, it will seek to discharge roughly 4,000 gallons of leftover water a minute back into the aquifer, which provides drinking water to the Crownpoint community. That would be the equivalent of about nine Olympic-size swimming pools’ worth of water a day. 

The company cannot begin mining until the NMED rules on the permit application, which officials said will take at least a year.

Still, Leftwich’s presentation extolled the virtues of in situ recovery as a low-emissions means of extracting uranium without risking the lives of workers underground.

The company would also employ monitoring wells to ensure the water quality meets federal and state standards, and the company is in preliminary stages of a research project with Los Alamos National Laboratories that aims to restore the groundwater supply with “approaches tailored to the geology of the Churchrock deposit.”

However, state officials are dubious about the company’s promises to restore the groundwater to its pre-mining condition. Earlier Thursday, the New Mexico Department of Justice weighed in on the company’s pending license renewal application to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission with a 39-page rebuttal of numerous claims the company has made regarding its operation and in situ recovery more broadly. 

The NMDOJ’s “petition to intervene” argues that in situ recovery has never been proven to restore groundwater supplies to their pre-mining states and that no technology yet exists to do so. It cites NuFuels’ own statements in an unrelated filing before the NRC in 2023, in which the company states that, “to date, no ISR site has restored all groundwater constituents of concern to pre-operational concentrations” and that uranium levels “tend to gradually rebound” in aquifers after the treatment.

Therefore, the NMDOJ wrote, the company has acknowledged “that the technology needed to ensure compliance with the governing restoration standard does not yet exist and that developing it is the object of ongoing research.” 

Advocates who wrested the microphone from Leftwich on Thursday also raised concerns about what they said is untested technology, with one woman shouting that the NuFuels was making “Guinea pigs” out of the communities downstream of the mine site. 

Leftwich told Source NM after the hearing that he was surprised the New Mexico Department of Justice would weigh in on what he sees as a “pretty small issue” regarding a single mine in the Church Rock area, “compared to big issues, like across the state.” 

As for the hearing itself, he said he was content to let people “speak their minds” about the issue, but also that legacy uranium issues and “misinformation” are preventing a productive community debate. The hearing also marked the beginning of a 60-day public comment period. 

“This is the first of hopefully multiple meetings that we can get more in-depth,” he said. “I really wish we could have good meetings.”

August 20, 2026 Posted by | Canada, opposition to nuclear, Uranium | Leave a comment

Enough is Enough

a report submitted by the
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
to the
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

regarding OPG’s requested
authorization for the
Proposed Pickering B Refurbishment

August 12 2026
Dr. Gordon Edwards, Ph.D. and Dr. Sunil Nijhawan, Ph.D.

Recommendation 1: The Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility regards it asan unreasonable risk to expose the City of Toronto and environs to the unnecessary threat of a devastating nuclear disaster, however low the estimated probability might be. CCNR therefore recommends that CNSC refuse to grant the licence requested byOPG to refurbish and continue to operate four nuclear power reactors (units 5 to 8) atthe Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. This recommendation is reinforced by the

following facts:

(1)There are more than 1.1 million people living within 20 kilometres of Pickering NGS, and twice as many living within a 30-kilometre radius;

(2)Every homeowner’s insurance policy has a “nuclear exclusion clause” which voids coverage in case of radioactive contamination from a nuclear accident’

(3)As recently as 2016, OPG confirmed its earlier decision that refurbishment of the Pickering B reactors even at a lower cost ($10.7 billion) is unjustified

(4)As of 2010, OPG was fully prepared to see its Pickering Nuclear GeneratingStation completely shut down by 2030;

(5)The current estimated cost of refurbishing Pickering B is prohibitively expensive compared to other energy options, both nuclear and non-nuclear.

Gordon Edwards, Ph.D., President,

Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility

www.ccnr.org/PNGS_CCNR_CNSC_2026.pdf

August 20, 2026 Posted by | Canada, opposition to nuclear | 2 Comments

Hegseth Announces Expansion Of US Military Sphere Of Operations.

During his visit, the Secretary of War announced the signing of agreements and strikes in Latin America and the Caribbean against targets considered a threat to US security.

BreakThrough News, August 14 2026, https://breakthroughnews.org/2026/08/14/us-military-expands-sphere-of-operations-during-hegseth-visit-to-panama/

On August 12, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth visited Panama, where he attended the Coalition of the Americas Against Cartels (A3C). There, he met with ministers, deputy ministers, security and defense chiefs, and several high-ranking military officers from the Shield of the Americas, the new Washington-led regional coalition focused on “combating narcotrafficking”.

In addition to the United States, member countries include Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Chile, Guatemala, Peru, and the Dominican Republic (and, more recently, Colombia, following the change in government), all of which have declared their political and economic alignment with Washington.

Thus, for a few days, Panama became the hub for planning and meetings among the new international cooperation initiative led by the Trump administration, which has stated that its primary goal is to combat organized crime and cartels.

Following the start of Trump’s second term, the Panamanian government under José Raúl Mulino has aligned itself with Washington’s stance, even going so far as to distance itself from agreements with China regarding the Panama Canal, which Trump himself has threatened to “take back.”

In this regard, Hegseth, on his second trip as Secretary, said: “I look forward to strengthening our partnership to keep the Panama Canal secure and disrupt cartel operations throughout the region.”

However, not all Panamanians welcomed Hegseth’s second visit with open arms. One such group was the National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (FRENADESO), which rejected the US military presence in their country. “Panama cannot once again become a military platform for any power. We do not want bases, enclaves, or facilities that could use our territory as a springboard for aggression against other peoples and nations. Nor do we accept that decisions made by others turn Panama, its people, or the Canal into military targets in conflicts that are not our own. Our security does not lie in militarization or in subordinating ourselves to the geopolitical interests of a superpower,” FRENADESO stated.

In the statement, FRENADESO also said: “[We must] defend our sovereignty, neutrality, independence, and self-determination, and maintain relations of respect and cooperation with all the peoples of the world. Panama, a land of peace and sovereignty! Neither a platform for aggression nor a military target! Respect for the self-determination of peoples!”

New attacks announced

During his visit to Panama, Hegseth reported that his government plans to launch “ground” attacks against “drug traffickers and terrorists” with the approval of the member governments of Shield of the Americas. This type of operation has already been seen in Ecuador, when US forces claimed to have carried out an attack on Ecuadorian soil alongside the Ecuadorian armed forces.

Furthermore, it is important to recall that the United States has already carried out several attacks in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, where it has sunk over 60 vessels allegedly carrying drugs, resulting in the deaths of over 200 people.

Hegseth warned that attacks could occur “anywhere” drug trafficking groups operate. He stated that US forces hope to deploy, alongside their allies, “an operational capability like the one you saw in the attacks on drug boats [in the Caribbean and the Pacific]… We are working with Ecuador, Colombia, and other partners to take the fight to DTOs (designated terrorist organizations) on land.”

In addition, Hegseth stated that the attacks will be carried out precisely to avoid a judicial process and take direct action: “We’re not going to put them through a judicial process where we know they’ll be released. We’re going to destroy these networks using all the capabilities of the US government,” said the Pentagon chief, perhaps in response to the criticism his administration has received over alleged extrajudicial killings.

The press has reported that, for now, Hegseth has reached agreements with Colombia and Ecuador. Regarding the former, Colombia’s Minister of Defense requested the deployment of US troops on Colombian territory.

“Through the newly inaugurated president… Colombia has already requested that the War Department join Colombia in its fight against narco-terrorism, authorizing joint military operations to destroy terrorists and terrorist networks,” said the Pentagon chief.

According to the Ecuadorian Ministry of Defense, the agreements with Ecuador – though still confidential – aim to establish a framework for the participation of US forces in the South American country.

In this way, the United States plans to expand its presence in Latin America not only through diplomatic and economic channels, but also through military means. The effects that this new series of US military operations will have on the region remain to be seen, and it will be a wait marked by the smell of gunpowder and a great deal of controversy.

BreakThrough News, August 14 2026

August 20, 2026 Posted by | SOUTH AMERICA, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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