US ‘disappointed’ that Rolls-Royce will build UK’s first small modular reactors.
Guardian, 13 Nov 25
As Keir Starmer announces SMRs to be built in Wales, US ambassador says Britain should choose ‘a different path.
Keir Starmer has announced that the UK’s first small modular nuclear reactors will be built in north Wales – but immediately faced a backlash from Donald Trump’s administration after it pushed for a US manufacturer to be chosen.
Wylfa on the island of Anglesey, or Ynys Môn, will be home to three small modular reactors (SMRs) to be built by British manufacturer Rolls-Royce SMR. The government said it will invest £2.5bn.
SMRs are a new – and untested – technology aiming to produce nuclear power stations in factories to drive down costs and speed up installation. Rolls-Royce plans to build reactors, each capable of generating 470 megawatts of power, mainly in Derby.
The government also said that its Great British Energy – Nuclear (GBE-N) will report on potential sites for further larger reactors. They would follow the 3.2GW reactors under construction by French state-owned EDF at Hinkley Point C in Somerset and Sizewell C in Suffolk.
The Labour government under Starmer has embraced nuclear energy in the hope that it can generate electricity without carbon dioxide emissions, while also providing the opportunity for a large new export industry in SMRs.
However, it faced the prospect of a row with the US, piqued that its ally had overlooked the US’s Westinghouse Electric Company when choosing the manufacturer for the Wylfa reactors.
Ahead of the publication of the UK announcement, US ambassador Warren Stephens published a statement saying Britain should choose “a different path” in Wales.
“We are extremely disappointed by this decision, not least because there are cheaper, faster and already-approved options to provide clean, safe energy at this same location,” he said.
The Trump administration last month signed an $80bn (£61bn) deal with Westinghouse, which had been struggling financially, to build several of the same larger reactors proposed at Wylfa. Under the terms of that deal, the Trump administration could end up taking a stake in the company……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/13/us-disappointed-that-rolls-royce-will-build-uks-first-small-modular-reactors
Los Alamos National Laboratory Reneges on Active Confinement Ventilation Systems at Plutonium Facility, PF-4.
| Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety .14 Nov 25 |
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) continues to neglect its obligations to safely operate its nuclear weapons facilities in a manner required by laws, orders, guidance and common sense.
A recent report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB or the Board) details the threats from the release of plutonium contaminated air during a seismic event from the LANL Plutonium Facility, or PF-4. For over 20 years, the Board has recommended that LANL establish active confinement ventilation systems for PF-4, and LANL agreed. https://www.dnfsb.gov/content/review-los-alamos-plutonium-facility-documented-safety-analysis
Active confinement ventilation systems require negative air pressure in rooms and buildings where plutonium is stored, handled and processed. In the event of seismic activity, or other possible catastrophic events, the negative air pressure would keep the contamination inside where it could be held and filtered before being released.
The converse, which is called passive confinement systems, would do nothing. No filtration would occur. Contaminated air would move out of the building and into the air we breathe. Depending on the wind direction, radioactive plutonium particles would be deposited in neighborhoods, on hiking trails, fields, school grounds, and in the Rio Grande.
When it comes to New Start nuclear treaty….Trump just can’t get started
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL , 12 Nov 25
President Trump sure has an aversion to nuclear disarmament treaties with Russia that might just prevent nuclear war.
In his first term he dropped out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a signature Obama agreement including Russia, China, France, Germany and the UK to diffuse Iran’s nuclear program. He also withdrew from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Then he left office without renewing the impending expiration of the New Start Treaty. Successor Biden wisely renewed it for 5 years upon replacing Trump in January, 2021.
Here we are with New Start set to expire in 12 weeks and guess whose president again? Nuclear agreement adverse Donald J. Trump. And what has Trump done to avoid having the third nuclear treaty go poof on his watch. Nada, zilch, nothing.
New Start was and is a sensible nuclear agreement. It limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads that can be deployed by the US and Russia to 1,550 each. It further restricts nuclear capable bombers, submarines and missile launchers to 800. All this to be verified by mutual inspections.
Seven weeks ago Russian President Putin reached out to Trump to get the New Start renewal ball rolling. Trump’s response? Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed dismay there has been no reaction to the proposal as of yet. “After all, my colleague in Washington announced that Trump would personally respond to this initiative. But so far, there’s been no response from the American.”
When a reporter recently asked Trump what he thought of Putin’s request to renew New Start, Trump meekly replied “Sounds like a good idea to me” before turning away to avoid a follow up question.
When it comes to initiating, staying in, renewing nuclear agreements with Russia that just might prevent nuclear Armageddon, Trump adheres to the NATO formula: No Action, Talk Only.
Is President Trump leading US to Vietnam style disaster in Venezuela?
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL , 14 Nov 25.
Sure looks like Trump is initiating regime change in Venezuela. He’s sent a US armada of ships including its most advanced aircraft carrier, planes and troops to Venezuela’s neighborhood. Trump’s hoping to intimidate Venezuelan President Maduro to go quietly so he can replace him with a compliant US puppet. For emphasis he’s issued a $50 million dollar reward for his arrest, and blasted 17 small, unarmed boats to smithereens near Venezuela murdering dozens.
Trump doesn’t care one whit about ending imaginary Venezuelan drug smuggling into the US. That is simply a plot device to control Venezuela’s massive oil reserves via a US puppet ruling Venezuela, and to sever Venezuela’s newfound political, economic and military ties to Russia and China. Neither will stand by to an American regime change operation, much less an outright invasion, without offering help to resist US aggression. Trump may be the president upon whose watch the Monroe Doctrine went poof.
No nation in in Central or South America supports Trump’s march to war against Venezuela. Indeed no nation in the world, outside of possibly Israel, supports this impending abomination of foreign intervention.
US firepower is so dominant they can quickly take out Maduro if Trump’s newly rechristened Secretary of War Pete Hegseth lights the fuse. But neither the Maduro government nor its citizens will go quietly. Resistance both during and after the incursion will likely be ferocious. Get ready for US body bags to start arriving at Arlington.
Trump would be wise to converse with former President George W. Bush to get his thoughts on the nearly 4,500 senseless US deaths in Iraq and the 2,400 senseless US deaths in Afghanistan after Bush’s ‘war fighters’ quickly deposed Saddam Hussein and the Taliban respectively. To what end? We’re still defiling Iraq with 2,000 troops Iraq wants out but, like being in a roach motel, will never leave. It took 20 years but the Taliban kicked out the US invaders that stayed thru 3 presidencies till Biden left in disgrace.
The last possible firewall preventing Trump’s impending invasion, Congress, abdicated their responsibility by refusing to invoke the War Powers Act forbidding war without Congressional approval as required by the Constitution. Only 2 of 100 Senators voted for peace. All 49 Democrats who voted to prevent were more likely motivated by political opposition to anything Trump. When it comes to US militarism abroad, Democrats are almost always on board.
The 49 Republicans voting for presidential war did so because they love both robust militarism and their deranged, war loving president keeping them supported by Trump’s MAGA base. Only Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul voted against their party’s impending war out of principle.
Besides a powwow with Bush Jr., Trump might seek a séance with late warmonger down in War Lovers Hell LBJ. If he could communicate from his everlasting place of infamy over Vietnam, he might tell Trump, ‘Faggedaboudit Donald, I lost 58,000 US boys for nothing. Pivot to peace while you’re till earthbound.’
Nuclear Force “Recapitalization”
an idealized illustration of a Sentinel ICBM soon after launch. Don’t think about the aftermath of thermonuclear war. As NBC Pitchman Brian Williams once said, it’s important to be guided by the beauty of our weapons.
An Abomination of the English Language
| Just when you thought the assault on the English language couldn’t be more severe, I came across a new abomination in a recent memo (11/3/25) signed by the Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF).The CSAF expressed his commitment to nuclear force “recapitalization,” meaning that he fully supports the B-21 Raider and the Sentinel ICBM, which will cost more than $500 billion over the next two decades. He vowed he’d “relentlessly advocate” for them. |
“Recapitalization”: What a word to describe more genocidal nuclear weapons!
Typically, the Air Force refers to “modernization” or “investment” when it comes to new nukes. This latest euphemism is an even more extreme example of bureaucratese and business-speak.
We’re just “recapitalizing” our nuclear forces, folks. Nothing to see here, move along.
One thing is certain. The new CSAF, with his talk of “recapitalization,” will make the smoothest of transitions to industry once he retires from the military.
It’s time for recapitalization! (Red sky in morning, America take warning.)
US Plans for China Blockade Continue Taking Shape
Brian Berletic. https://sovereignista.com/ November 11, 2025
What was once a theoretical discussion in U.S. military journals about blockading China’s oil supply is now steadily turning into a tangible, multi-layered strategy aimed at containing Beijing and preserving American global dominance.
In 2018, the US Naval War College Review published a paper titled, “A Maritime Oil Blockade Against China—Tactically Tempting But Strategically Flawed.” It was only one of many over the preceding years discussing the details of implementing a maritime blockade as part of a larger encirclement and containment strategy of China.
At first glance the paper looks like US policy thinking considered, then moved past the idea of blockading China. Instead, the paper merely listed a number of obstacles impeding such a strategy in 2018—obstacles that would need to be removed if such a strategy were to be viable in the near or intermediate future—and obstacles US policymakers have been removing ever since.
More contemporary papers published, including those among the pages of the US Naval Institute (here and here), have updated and refined not just an emerging strategy to theoretically confront and contain China, but a plan of action taking tangible shape.
Cold War Continuity of Agenda
Throughout the Cold War and ever since its conclusion, the US’ singular foreign policy objective has been to maintain American hegemony over the globe established at the end of the World Wars. A 1992 New York Times article titled “U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring no Rivals Develop” made it clear the US would actively prevent the emergence of any nation or groups of nations from contesting American primacy worldwide.
In recent years this has included preventing the reemergence of Russia as well as the rise of China. It also involves surrounding both nations with arcs of chaos and/or confrontation—either through the destruction of neighboring countries through political subversion, or the capture of these nations by the US and their transformation into battering rams to be used against both nations.
Ukraine is an extreme example of this policy in action. The US is also transforming both the Philippines and the Chinese island province of Taiwan into similar proxies vis-à-vis China.
Beyond this, the US seeks to prevent the majority of nations currently outside US dominion from joining with and contributing to the multipolar world order proposed by nations like Russia and China.
This strategy of coercion, destabilization, political capture, proxy war, and outright war has been used to target both Russia and China directly, their neighbors, and a growing list of nations far beyond their near abroad.
The US is demonstrating a clear, unwavering commitment to a multi-layered strategy of containment, coercion, and confrontation designed not just to prepare for conflict, but to make that conflict both inevitable and successful for the singular goal of maintaining global American hegemony
Strengths and Weaknesses of American Primacy
Enabling this strategy is America’s global-spanning military presence facilitated by its “alliance network.” This network of obedient client regimes both hosts US military forces and serves as an extension of US military, economic, and increasingly military-industrial power. US “allies” often pursue US geopolitical objectives at their own expense.
Again, an explicit example of this is Ukraine, which is locked in a proxy war with Russia, threatening its own self-preservation as a means of—as US policymakers described in a 2019 RAND Corporation paper—“extending Russia.”
While conflicts like that unfolding in Ukraine or the US-backed military build-up in the Philippines or on Taiwan has exposed a critical weakness of the United States—its lagging military industrial capacity vis-à-vis either Russia or China, let alone both nations—the US has demonstrated the ability to compensate through geopolitical agility the multipolar world is struggling to address.
This includes the ability of the US to mire a targeted nation in conflict in one location while moving resources across its global-spanning military-logistical networks toward pressure points in other locations, overextending the targeted nation and achieving success in at least one of the multiple pressure points targeted. The US successfully did this through its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, which tied Russia up sufficiently for the US to finally succeed in the overthrow of the Syrian government, where Russian forces had previously thwarted US-sponsored proxy war and regime change.
It also includes the ability of the US to target partner or potential partner nations of Russia and China through economic, political, or even military means in ways Russia and China are unable to defend against—including through political subversion facilitated through America’s near monopoly over global information space.
These advantages the US still possesses also make potential maritime blockades very difficult for Russia and China to defend against.
Russian Energy Shipments as a Beta Test for Blockading China
France recently announced seizing a ship accused of being part of Russia’s “ghost” or “shadow” fleet—ships refusing to heed unilateral sanctions placed by the US and its client states on Russian energy shipments.
This was just one of several first steps toward what may materialize into a wider and more aggressive interdiction or blockade of Russian energy shipments. This may also be a beta test for implementing a long-desired maritime blockade on China…………………
Setting the Stage for a Blockade of China Has Already Begun
The 2018 US Naval War College Review paper lays out the realities of a potential blockade against China in 2018, noting the various opportunities and risks associated with such a strategy…………………………………………………………………………………………..
Since the paper was published, the US has pursued both continued preparations for a maritime blockade of China itself, as well as build up a number of regional proxies to wage war against China, as the US wages proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and, increasingly, through the rest of Europe……………………………………………………………………..
To understand Washington’s strategy toward China, one should not look to the political rhetoric of “retreat” or “homeland defense” in the Western Hemisphere, but rather to the tangible actions taking place across the Asia-Pacific and beyond—the meticulous encirclement of China’s periphery, the sustained attacks on its critical overland energy and trade links (BRI/CPEC), the calculated incapacitation of Russia as a potential energy supplier, and the establishment of local proxy forces (the Philippines, Japan, separatists on Taiwan) prepared to wage war.
Far from an abstract or “flawed” concept relegated to think-tank papers, the maritime oil blockade—or wider general blockade against China—is being incrementally prepared in real-time. By systematically removing the very obstacles noted in the 2018 Naval War College Review paper, the US is demonstrating a clear, unwavering commitment to a multi-layered strategy of containment, coercion, and confrontation designed not just to prepare for conflict, but to make that conflict both inevitable and successful for the singular goal of maintaining global American hegemony. https://sovereignista.com/2025/11/11/us-plans-for-china-blockade-continue-taking-shape/
Residents outraged as US nuclear plant gets greenlight to dump radioactive waste into major river: ‘Potential long-term consequences’
“We really don’t know enough.”
The Cool Down, by Kristen Lawrence, November 5, 2025
A federal court has ruled that a nuclear plant in New York can dump radioactive waste into the Hudson River, a decision that overrides a 2023 ban on releasing treated wastewater into the river.
What’s happening?
As Surfer Magazine reported, the ruling will allow Holtec, a nuclear-power-focused energy company, to release around 45,000 gallons per year of treated wastewater from the decommissioned Indian Point plant into the Hudson.
The site is only 40 miles from Rockaway Beach, one of the most popular surfing locations in the state and the only one within NYC’s limits.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas ruled that federal authority over nuclear regulation supersedes the prior ban that was the result of the “Save the Hudson” campaign, which was in response to a proposal by Holtec to release radioactive wastewater into the river.
Holtec will now be allowed to dump the materials — mostly tritiated water, which Surfer explained “contains the nuclear-energy byproduct tritium — into the Hudson, with around 1.5 million gallons expected to enter the river in the next several years.
Even though the 45,000 gallons set to be dumped annually is within safe limits, according to the federal government, the public and environmental organizations like Riverkeeper worry about how the waste will affect people’s health and the surrounding ecosystem……………………………
“We really don’t know enough about how tritium behaves in the environment [at diluted levels] to assess potential long-term consequences to the environment, to the food chain, and ultimately to humans,” Timothy Mousseau, biologist at the University of South Carolina, told Chemical & Engineering News.
There are also concerns that fewer people will want to surf and swim in the Hudson because of the new regulations.
Surfer reported that the river had only recently become a “viable recreational waterway” and that dumping radioactive waste may deter people from visiting…………………………….. https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/radioactive-waste-hudson-river-nuclear-plant/
Invest in existing clean energy solutions, not nuclear fantasy.
By Lynda Williams, 31 Oct 25, https://www.staradvertiser.com/2025/10/30/editorial/island-voices/column-invest-in-existing-clean-energy-solutions-not-nuclear-fantasy/
In the last legislative session, Hawai‘i lawmakers approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 136, directing the Hawai‘i State Energy Office (HSEO) to convene a Nuclear Energy Working Group to study whether “advanced” nuclear power could help meet the state’s 100% renewable energy goal.
I serve on that Working Group as a physicist representing the environmental organization 350 Hawai‘i. Other members include representatives from HSEO, the Departments of Health and Land and Natural Resources, the Public Utilities Commission and the University of Hawai‘i, along with invited members from the U.S. Navy, nuclear power lobby groups and environmental groups. No Kanaka Maoli-led organizations such as the Office of Hawaiian Affairs or KAHEA were included — a serious oversight in any discussion of Hawai‘i’s energy future.
Nuclear power is not feasible in Hawai‘i because it faces insurmountable legal and technical barriers. Article XI, Section 8 of the Hawai‘i State Constitution prohibits the construction or operation of any nuclear-fission reactor without a two-thirds vote of each house of the Legislature — an exceptionally high bar without sweeping political change. Hawai‘i law also defines renewable energy as sources that are naturally replenished, such as solar, wind, ocean and geothermal — not technologies dependent on mining that produce radioactive waste. By legal definition, nuclear power cannot contribute to meeting the state’s renewable energy goals unless the law is changed.
Technical barriers are even higher. Despite growing hype around so-called “advanced” nuclear reactors, in reality, there are no operating “advanced” reactors anywhere in the world, no reliable timeline for when any might come online, and a decades-long record of cost overruns, cancellations and failed promises. Every design being promoted — from small modular reactors (SMRs) to molten-salt and thorium systems — is still a nuclear reactor that splits uranium atoms, generates radioactive waste and requires extensive cooling, shielding and waste-management infrastructure.
At our first meeting in September, there was discussion of whether Hawai‘i’s constitutional requirement for a two-thirds legislative vote to approve the construction of any nuclear-fission plant could somehow be avoided. That notion reflects a deep confusion driving this conversation: that “advanced” nuclear systems are fundamentally different from the fission reactors banned under Article XI. They are not. Some advocates even suggested that small “plug-and-play” SMRs could one day be shipped to Hawai‘i, used briefly and sent back to the continent — a concept that exists only in fantasy. Any nuclear reactor unit requires installation, grid connection and refueling — all of which constitute the operation of a nuclear-fission facility under Hawai‘i’s Constitution.
The first draft of HSEO’s report is due Nov. 5, with a final version to be submitted to the Legislature by the end of the year — a challenging timeline for such a complex report. How can anyone produce a thorough feasibility analysis — including cost, safety and environmental assessments — for a technology that doesn’t even exist? Even HSEO warned lawmakers in its testimony against this resolution that “given the current lack of cost, production, safety and nuclear waste-management information on SMRs, the formation of a nuclear energy task force is premature.”
Hawai‘i’s path forward in clean energy lies not in nuclear fantasies but in strengthening the laws protecting the islands and investing in what already works — solar and wind — and in exploring tidal and ocean energy resources to achieve clean, safe and independent power generation.
To read my full responses with citations to the Nuclear Energy Working Group survey, visit nuclearfreehawaii.substack.com.
New U.S. nuclear power boom begins with old, still-unsolved problem: What to do with radioactive waste
“I’m not sure that the tech industry has really thought through whether they want to be responsible for managing nuclear waste at their data center sites.”
Bob Woods CNBC, Sun, Nov 9 2025
Key Points
- The Trump administration aims to quadruple the current nuclear energy output over the next 25 years through construction of conventional reactors and next-gen small modular reactors, but a clear solution has yet to emerge for the old issue of radioactive waste.
- More than 95,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel (with a minority from weapons programs) sits temporarily stockpiled in special water-filled pools or dry casks at 79 sites in 39 states.
- The Department of Energy has no permanent disposal facility for nuclear waste, leaving taxpayers on the hook for payments to utilities of up to $800 million every year in damages, a bill that has reached $11.1 billion since 1998, and could grow to $44.5 billion in the future.
Nuclear power is back, largely due to the skyrocketing demand for electricity, including big tech’s hundreds of artificial intelligence data centers across the country and the reshoring of manufacturing. But it returns with an old and still-unsolved problem: storing all of the radioactive waste created as a byproduct of nuclear power generation.
In May, President Trump issued executive orders aimed at quadrupling the current nuclear output over the next 25 years by accelerating construction of both large conventional reactors and next-gen small modular reactors. Last week, the U.S. signed a deal with Westinghouse owners Cameco and Brookfield Asset Management to spend $80 billion to build nuclear plants across the country that could result in Westinghouse attempting to spinoff and IPO a stand-alone nuclear power company with the federal government as a shareholder.
There’s a growing consensus among governments, businesses and the public that the time is right for a nuclear power renaissance, and even if the ambitious build-out could take a decade or more and cost hundreds of billion of dollars, it will be an eventual boon to legacy and start-up nuclear energy companies, the AI-fixated wing of the tech industry and investors banking on their success.
But there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical. Only two nuclear power plants have been built since 1990 — more than $15 billion over budget and years behind schedule — and they went online in just the last two years. Almost all of the 94 reactors currently operating in 28 states, generating about 20% of the nation’s electricity, were built between 1967 and 1990. And though often unspoken, there’s the prickly issue that’s been grappled with ever since the first nuclear energy wave during the 1960s and ’70s: how to store, manage and dispose of radioactive waste, the toxic byproduct of harnessing uranium to generate electricity — and portions of which remain hazardous for millennia.
Solutions, employing old and new technologies, are under development by a number of private and public companies and in collaboration with the Department of Energy, which is required by law to accept and store spent nuclear fuel.
The most viable solution for permanently storing nuclear waste was first proffered back in 1957 by the National Academy of Sciences. Its report recommended burying the detritus in deep underground repositories (as opposed to the long-since-abandoned notion of blasting it into low-Earth orbit). It wasn’t until 1982, though, that Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, assigning the DOE responsibility for finding such a site…………………………………
Other nations have moved forward with the idea. Finland, for instance, is nearing completion of the world’s first permanent underground disposal site ………………………………………..
An American startup, Deep Isolation Nuclear, is combining the underground burial concept with oil-and-gas fracking techniques. The methodology, called deep borehole disposal, is achieved by drilling 18-inch vertical tunnels thousands of feet below ground, then turning horizontal. Corrosion-resistant canisters — each 16 feet long, 15 inches in diameter and weighing 6,000 pounds — containing nuclear waste are forced down into the horizontal sections, stacked side-by-side and stored, conceivably, for thousands of years………………………………………………………………..
Recycling radioactive waste for modular reactors
An entirely different, old-is-new-again technology, pioneered in the mid-1940s during the Manhattan Project, is gathering steam. It involves reprocessing spent fuel to extract uranium and other elements to create new fuel to power small modular reactors. The process is being explored by several startups, including Curio, Shine Technologies and Oklo.
Oklo has gained attention among investors drawn to its two-pronged approach to nuclear energy. The company — which went public via a SPAC in 2024, after early-stage funding from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm and others — announced in September that it is earmarking $1.68 billion to build an advanced fuel reprocessing facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Concurrently, the company signed an agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority “to explore how we can take used nuclear fuel sitting on its sites and convert it into fuel we can use in our reactors,” said a company spokeswoman……………………………..
Oklo exemplifies both the promise and the perplexity associated with the rebirth of nuclear power. On one hand is the attraction of repurposing nuclear waste and building dozens of SMRs to electrify AI data centers and factories. On the other hand, the company has no facilities in full operation, is awaiting final approval from the NRC for its Aurora reactor, and is producing no revenue. Oklo’s stock has risen nearly 429% this year, with a current market valuation of more than $16.5 billion, but share prices have fluctuated over the past month.
“It’s a high-risk name because it’s pre-revenue, and I anticipate that the company will need to provide more details around its Aurora reactor plans, as well as the [fuel reprocessing] program on the [November 11] earnings report call,” said Jed Dorsheimer, an energy industry analyst at William Blair in a late October interview. “
In the meantime, more than 95,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel (about 10,000 tons is from weapons programs) sits temporarily stockpiled aboveground in special water-filled pools or dry casks at 79 sites in 39 states, while about 2,000 metric tons are being produced every year. ………………………………………………………………………
Allison Macfarlane, professor and director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia, as well as the chair of the NRC from 2012–2014, deems spent fuel reprocessing as far too expensive and a source of new waste streams, and dismisses deep borehole disposal as a “non-starter.”……………………
As far as nuclear waste, “we need to put [it] deep underground,” Macfarlane said.
………………………………………………………………….the rush to build new reactors — and generate even more waste — marches on alongside the data center boom……………………………….
Those long timelines alone should be a deterrent, said Tim Judson, executive director of the Nuclear Information Resource Service, a nonprofit advocate for a nuclear-free world. “It is fanciful to think that nuclear energy is going to be helpful in dealing with the increases in electricity demand from data centers,” he said, “because nuclear power plants take so long to build and the data centers are being built today.”
And then there’s the waste issue, Judson said. “I’m not sure that the tech industry has really thought through whether they want to be responsible for managing nuclear waste at their data center sites.”
But you can count Gates, the big tech billionaire who was backing nuclear even before the AI data center boom, as having not only thought about the waste problem, but dismissed it as major impediment. “The waste problems should not be a reason to not do nuclear,” Gates said in an interview with the German business publication Handelsblatt back in 2023….. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/09/nuclear-power-energy-radioactive-waste-storage-disposal.html
US-Led ‘Coordination Center’ Replaces Israel as ‘Overseer’ of Gaza Aid Deliveries
Israel has continued to restrict aid deliveries into Gaza in violation of the ceasefire deal
by Dave DeCamp | November 9, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/11/09/us-led-coordination-center-replaces-israel-as-overseer-of-gaza-aid-deliveries/
The US military-led Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) that was recently established in southern Israel has replaced Israel as the “overseer” of Gaza aid deliveries, The Washington Post reported on Friday.
Since the ceasefire deal was supposed to be implemented on October 10, Israel has violated it by continuing to restrict aid deliveries entering Gaza. “Israel is blocking the Trump plan’s humanitarian clauses,” Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told the Post.
Egeland said it was “very good news” that the US is more engaged in aid deliveries, though it remains unclear whether the restrictions will be lifted. “Our appeal is make the plan a reality,” he said. “Of course, the credibility of the United States is at stake here.”
One of the biggest impediments to aid deliveries is that Israel has only allowed trucks to enter Gaza through two border crossings, with most deliveries going through the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza. “We need full access. We need everything to be moving fast. We are in a race against time. The winter months are coming. People are still suffering from hunger, and the needs are overwhelming,” Abeer Etefa, a spokeswoman for the UN’s World Food Program, said last week.
There have been no direct aid deliveries to northern Gaza, where people need food the most, and, according to the Post report, many of the trucks allowed to enter Gaza carry commercial goods that few Palestinians can afford to purchase.
The Post report said the responsibility for Gaza aid was being shifted to the CMCC from the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit of the Israeli Defense Ministry that oversees Israeli-occupied and controlled territory.
In response to the report, COGAT characterized the shift differently, saying the “Americans will be integrated into the formulation and implementation of coordination, supervision, and control mechanisms in the context of humanitarian aid, in full cooperation with the Israeli security services.”
An unnamed Israeli official said that the “Americans will take the lead in engaging with the international community on humanitarian matters. … It should be emphasized that this does not constitute a transfer of authority or responsibility from COGAT to the Americans.”
While the US leads the CMCC, where about 200 US troops have been deployed, the Post report said more than 40 other countries and organizations are also involved. The CMCC is also supposed to oversee an international force that may be deployed to Gaza under the ceasefire deal, but it remains unclear whether it will come together, as countries willing to participate want more clarity about exactly what their troops will be doing.
In the meantime, Israeli troops continue to occupy more than 50% of Gaza’s territroy and continue to carry out attacks against Palestinians. Since the ceasefire went into effect on October 10, at least 241 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
US conducts its Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) test.
ICBMs have been sold to the public as a guarantor of security, when in fact, they are an imminent threat.
Maintaining these weapons is a huge waste of resources.
Influential right wing think tanks like The Heritage Foundation have come out in opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and have directly called for the U.S. to prepare to resume explosive nuclear weapons testing
by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/11/09/us-conducts-its-icbm-test/
Although not carrying a nuclear warhead, the test is still provocative, say Defuse Nuclear War and Tri-Valley CAREs
In the early morning hours of November 5th, Vandenberg Space Force Base launched a Minuteman III missile, the current intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) ground-based nuclear warhead delivery system in roughly 400 underground silos across five states that would target US adversaries in a full-scale nuclear war.
This ICBM test, which landed roughly 30 minutes later at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, is one of several that occur at Vandenburg every year — as they have for many decades. According to the Space Force Press Release, today’s test “validates” the “reliability, operational readiness, and accuracy of the ICBM system.” While these tests are launched without the nuclear warhead, the purpose is to practice nuclear war fighting and these tests are just as provocative to US adversaries as their nuclear-capable missile tests are to us.
This launch has an increased gravitas, as it comes hardly a week after the President used his social media platform to make a confusingly provocative announcement that, “Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis.”
Exactly what was meant by the President’s vague statement has been debated in the days since. The President could not have been referencing other countries conducting explosive nuclear tests, because no nation except North Korea has conducted an explosive nuclear test this century.
The reference to “equal basis” with other “countries testing programs” has been thought to be in reference to nuclear weapon delivery system tests, which have been conducted by both Russia and China. But as today’s launch displays, these delivery system tests are nothing new, and the United States has long tested all of the delivery vehicles in its triad, including today’s ICBM test.
If the US were to resume explosive nuclear testing, Russia and others have already signaled they will follow. This reckless move would break a 30-year taboo that has kept the world safer. If the US resumes testing, it won’t just poison the air: it could destroy decades of progress toward preventing nuclear war.
Resuming explosive nuclear testing at this time would solely be a political decision, and it would be a very bad one. The human and environmental toll would be immense: radiation poisoning that seeps into lungs, water, and soil; children born with preventable cancers; ecosystems rendered unlivable. Testing again would repeat history’s worst mistakes on purpose.
US resumption of explosive nuclear testing would open the door to all of the other nuclear powered states conducting their own tests for both their existing stockpile warhead designs, and those that are in development, potentially opening the door to decades of testing and associated releases of radiation into the environment.
Influential right wing think tanks like The Heritage Foundation have come out in opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and have directly called for the U.S. to prepare to resume explosive nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). For example, in its January 2025 report, America Must Prepare to Test Nuclear Weapons, it claims that testing is necessary for the global image of America and would be a display of resolve.
Additionally, Project 2025 calls for the United States to “Reject ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and indicate a willingness to conduct nuclear tests in response to adversary nuclear developments if necessary. This will require that the National Nuclear Security Administration be directed to move to immediate test readiness…”
Officials from the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Labs who manage the existing nuclear weapons stockpile have expressed that there’s no military or technical justification for explosive nuclear testing at this time. The billions spent on the Labs’ supercomputer modeling, National Ignition Facility laser testing and multiple other simulation systems allow them to ensure that the stockpile will work as designed in a “use scenario.”
The US conducted 100 atmospheric and 828 underground explosive nuclear tests at NNSS between 1951 and 1992. The agency currently needs 36 months to get “ready” for a full-scale, underground, explosive nuclear test at NNSS.
In response to the President’s sudden announcement, on October 30th Congresswoman Dina Titus (NV-01) introduced the Renewing Efforts to Suspend Testing and Reinforce Arms Control Initiatives Now (RESTRAIN) Act to prohibit the United States from conducting explosive testing of nuclear weapons.
In her press release announcing the RESTRAIN Act, Representative Titus states, “Donald Trump has put his own ego and authoritarian ambitions above the health and safety of Nevadans. His announcement to resume nuclear testing in the United States goes against the arms control and nonproliferation treaties that the U.S. has spearheaded since the end of the Cold War, and will trigger new tests by Russia and China, reigniting an international arms race. It also puts Nevadans back in the crosshairs of toxic radiation and environmental destruction. With just 97 days until the only arms control agreement between the U.S. and Russia expires, now should be the time to negotiate further arms-control agreements, not create mushroom clouds in the Nevada desert.”
The RESTRAIN Act amends U.S. Code to insert a prohibition of explosive nuclear testing while simultaneously preventing any funding from going toward the Trump Administration’s effort to conduct explosive nuclear tests.
Emma Claire Foley with the Defuse Nuclear War coalition said of today’s launch, “ICBM tests make war more likely and damage the place they supposedly protect. Scheduling this latest test on Election Day is an attempt to avoid public attention on a weapons system that experts agree makes the U.S. less safe.” She added, “ICBMs are a threat to the life and health of every single person in the United States and around the world. We ask that the upcoming ICBM test, all future scheduled tests, be canceled, and that the U.S. hold to its decades-long record of not conducting nuclear tests.”
ICBMs have been sold to the public as a guarantor of security, when in fact, they are an imminent threat. In the words of the late Daniel Ellsberg, author of The Doomsday Machine, these weapons make “any conflict enormously more dangerous than it has to be” by increasing “the danger that any armed conflict between major nuclear states can escalate to all-out war.” ICBMs are on hair-trigger alert and, once launched, cannot be recalled, virtually guaranteeing a strike on the country that launches them. As long as ICBMs exist, we live with the constant risk that misinterpreted intelligence, human error, or a single rash decision could end civilization as we know it within an hour.
Maintaining these weapons is a huge waste of resources. The U.S. has committed to spending hundreds of billions of dollars to “modernize” its ICBM force, which in practice means replacing the Minuteman III system that was tested today with an entirely new missile system – the Sentinel ICBM, and a new nuclear warhead design.
Thus far, the Sentinel ICBM program is now an astonishing 81% over budget and years behind schedule, not including the expense for its new W-87-1 nuclear warhead development being done at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory or the new plutonium pits that will be built at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Yet the U.S. Secretary of Defense has certified, through a “comprehensive, unbiased review” not shared with the public, that the program will proceed.
Scott Yundt, Executive Director of Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs criticized the launch from Vandenburg, saying, “Test launches like today’s damage human communities and ecosystems. The Marshall Islands, already forced to bear the overwhelming environmental costs of U.S. nuclear weapons testing, are still used as a target test area.”
Yundt went on to say “When tensions among nuclear-armed states are high, each test launch carries an added risk. The U.S. military has acknowledged as much by pausing these launches at high points of tension in the war in Ukraine. The risk of nuclear escalation remains too high to introduce the possibility of misinterpretation of a test into the mix.”
“ICBM tests are damaging and provocative acts masquerading as business as usual. We condemn all wasteful, destructive tests that keep the world at the edge of nuclear destruction,” Yundt concluded.
TriValley CAREs watchdogs the nuclear weapons complex and its Lawrence Livermore Lab, one of two locations that develops all US nuclear bombs and warheads. Defuse Nuclear War is a coalition of more than 200 organizations and organizers dedicated to reducing the risk of nuclear war.
Nuclear power will get the most Energy Department loans, Chris Wright says
Mon, Nov 10 2025, Spencer Kimball, CNBC
Key Points
- Nuclear power plants will receive the bulk of the money from the Energy Department’s loan office, Secretary Chris Wright said.
- The Trump administration struck a deal last month with the owners of Westinghouse to invest $80 billion to build nuclear plants across the U.S.
Nuclear power will receive most of the money from the Energy Department’s loan office as the Trump administration pushes to quickly break ground on new reactors, Secretary Chris Wright said on Monday.
“We have significant lending authority at the loan program office,” the Secretary of Energy said at a conference hosted by the American Nuclear Society in Washington D.C. “By far the biggest use of those dollars will be for nuclear power plants — to get those first plants built.”
President Trump signed an executive order in May that called for the U.S. to break ground on 10 large nuclear reactors by 2030. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft are investing billions of dollars to restart old nuclear plants, upgrade existing ones, and deploy new reactor technology to meet the electricity demand from artificial intelligence data centers.
Wright said he expects electricity demand from AI to attract billions of dollars in equity capital to build new nuclear capacity from “very creditworthy providers.” The Energy Department could match those private dollars by as much as four to one with low cost debt financing from the loan office, he said………..
Westinghouse deal
The Trump administration struck a deal last month with the owners of Westinghouse to invest $80 billion to build nuclear plants across the U.S. Westinghouse is owned by uranium miner Cameco and Brookfield Asset Management…………………………….
Cameco Chief Operating Officer Grant Isaac said last week that the U.S. government has a number of options available to facilitate the financing of Westinghouse reactors, including the Energy Department’s loan office.
“We’re assured that there is a lot of interest in investing this minimum $80 billion in order to begin the process,” Isaac told investors on Cameco’s third-quarter earnings call.
Under the terms of the October deal, Westinghouse could spin out as a separate, publicly-traded company with the U.S. government as a shareholder.
But Westinghouse has struggled in the past to build the AP1000 on time and on budget. It went bankrupt in 2017 from cost overruns at big nuclear projects in Georgia and South Carolina.
Two AP1000 reactors entered service at Plant Vogtle in Georgia in 2023 and 2024, years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. The South Carolina project was cancelled. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/10/nuclear-power-energy-department-chris-wright-loan-westinghouse-ai-data-center.html
Hegseth Vows Wartime Footing For U.S. Weapons Production.
BY DREW FITZGERALD, Wall Street Journal 11/08/25
Pentagon leaders are putting their weapons suppliers in the crosshairs.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday that the U.S. military will shake up the way it buys weaponry, equipment and software by making purchases more quickly, and from a broader range of potential suppliers. The plan would streamline Pentagon program offices, develop incentives for new investments and potentially box out suppliers that miss deadlines.
Hegseth said decadelong weapons-development timelines have put the U.S. military at risk of falling behind rivals such as China. He said he would clear testing requirements that can slow purchasing and empower military officials to order commercial products when custom-made technology takes too long.
“We need to save the bureaucracy from itself,” Hegseth said Friday at an address to dozens of defense-industry executives in Washington.
The Trump administration aims to extend Pentagon efforts to bring into the fold more technology companies. The push has exposed ten-sions between the old-guard contractors such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin and a new crop of politically connected tech companies………………………………………………….
“We need to save the bureaucracy from itself,” Hegseth said Friday at an address to dozens of defense-industry executives in Washington.
The Trump administration aims to extend Pentagon efforts to bring into the fold more technology companies. The push has exposed ten-sions between the old-guard contractors such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin and a new crop of politically connected tech companies…………..
US Again Flies Heavy Bombers Near Venezuela’s Coast
The Senate on Thursday voted against a War Powers Resolution that would have prohibited the president from starting a war with Venezuela without congressional authorization.
The flight marked the fourth time since October 15 that the US has sent bombers into the Caribbean
by Dave DeCamp | November 6, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/11/06/us-again-flies-heavy-bombers-near-venezuelas-coast/
The US has once again flown heavy bombers over the Caribbean and near the coast of Venezuela, according to a report from Newsweek, which cited flight tracking data.
Two US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress aircraft made the provocative flight, marking the fourth time since October 15 that the US has sent bombers near Venezuela’s coast. The first flight also involved B-52s, and the second and third were conducted by B-1B Lancer bombers.
In each case, the US bombers kept their transponders on when flying near Venezuela, meaning they wanted to be seen. It’s been clear that one aspect of the US military activity in the region has been meant as a psychological operation against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, as the Trump administration is hoping he decides to step down or someone in his inner circle turns on him, something that’s unlikely to happen.
The latest bomber flight comes as a US aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, is en route to the region. The Gerald Ford and its strike group will join eight US warships already deployed in the Caribbean.
According to a recent report from The New York Times, President Trump is considering several options for launching attacks on Venezuela, and he isn’t expected to decide until the Gerald Ford is in position. The report also said that the president was worried about failing or putting US troops at risk, and that he hadn’t made a final decision.
The Senate on Thursday voted against a War Powers Resolution that would have prohibited the president from starting a war with Venezuela without congressional authorization.
The US military has continued its bombing campaign against alleged drug-running boats in Latin America, which so far has involved the destruction of 17 vessels and the killing of 66 people. The Trump administration has not provided any evidence to back up its claims about what the boats are carrying and has admitted it doesn’t know the identities of the people it has been extra-judicially executing.
The US Empire Keeps Getting Creepier
Caitlin Johnstone, Nov 09, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-us-empire-keeps-getting-creepier?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=178388003&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Secretary of War™ Pete Hegseth said during a speech on Friday that the US is at “a 1939 moment” of “mounting urgency” in which “enemies gather, threats grow,” adding, “We are not building for peacetime. We are pivoting the Pentagon and our industrial base to a wartime footing.”
Everything’s getting darker and creepier in the shadow of the empire.
Nate Bear has a report out on his newsletter titled “The AI Drones Used In Gaza Now Surveilling American Cities” about a new company called Skydio which “in the last few years has gone from relative obscurity to quietly become a multi-billion dollar company and the largest drone manufacturer in the US.” Bear reports that Skydio now has contracts with police departments in almost every large US city to use these Gaza-tested drones for surveillance of American civilians.
Haaretz reports that Israel’s efforts to manipulate American minds back into supporting the Zionist entity include pouring millions into influence operations targeting Christian churchgoers and efforts to change responses to Palestine-related queries on popular AI services like ChatGPT. It’s crazy how you can literally just be minding your own business in your own church on a Sunday morning and then suddenly find yourself getting throat fucked by propaganda paid for by the state of Israel.
The Intercept reports that YouTube, which is owned by Google, quietly deleted more than 700 videos documenting Israel’s atrocities in Gaza in a purge of pro-Palestine human rights groups from the platform. Mass Silicon Valley deletions like this combined with the sudden influx of fake AI-generated video content polluting the information ecosystem could serve to erase and obfuscate the evidence of the Gaza holocaust for future generations.
A new report from Reuters says that last year the US had intelligence showing Israel’s own lawyers warning that the IDF’s mass atrocities in the Gaza Strip could result in war crimes charges. This is yet more evidence that the Biden administration knew it was backing a genocide the entire time, including during election season when left-leaning Americans were being told they needed to vote for then-Vice President Kamala Harris if they wanted to save Gaza.
In Italy a journalist was fired from the news agency Nova for asking an EU official if she thought Israel should be responsible for the reconstruction of Gaza in the same way she’s said Russia should have to fund the reconstruction of Ukraine. A Nova spokesperson confirmed to The Intercept that the journalist was indeed fired for asking the inconvenient question on the basis that “Russia had invaded a sovereign country unprovoked, whereas Israel was responding to an attack.”
Reuters reports that the US is preparing to establish a military base in Damascus. For years the empire waged a complex regime change operation in Syria to oust Assad, first by backing proxy forces to destroy the country and then via sanctions and US military occupation to prevent reconstruction. And it worked. The empire’s dirty war in Syria will be cited by warmongering swamp monsters for years to come as evidence that regime change interventionism can succeed if you just stick at it and do whatever evil things need to be done.
These are just a few of the disturbing stories from the last few days that I hadn’t had a chance to write about yet. This is the kind of world we are being offered by the US empire. There is nothing on the menu for us but more war, more genocide, more surveillance, more censorship, more tyranny, and more abuse.
Things are going to keep getting more and more dystopian for everyone who lives under the thumb of the imperial power structure until enough of us decide that the empire needs to end.
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