80 years after atomic bombs devastated Japan, Donald Trump’s actions risk nuclear proliferation
The Conversation 20th April 2025
- Jamie LevinAssociate Professor of Political Science, St. Francis Xavier University
- Youngwon ChoAssociate Professor of Political Science, St. Francis Xavier University
The policy of every American president since Harry S. Truman has been to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
They have not always been successful. The world’s most powerful weapons spread, with nine countries now possessing them. But no United States president has actively sought their further proliferation, as the belligerent policies of Donald Trump are now set to do.
In 2018, during his first term as president, Trump tore up the Iran nuclear deal, which had successfully placed limits on the enrichment of weapons-grade materials in exchange for sanctions relief.
Iran has since accelerated its nuclear weapons program. Estimates now put Iran within months or even weeks of producing several bombs.
A short time later, after a series of escalating threats, Trump suggested that North Korea had agreed to denuclearize. Talks ensued, but a deal never materialized.
In fact, Trump failed to stop, let alone roll back, North Korea’s ambitious nuclear weapons programs. North Korea is now said to possess at least 50 warheads as well as the means to deliver them.
No longer an ally
Under the second Trump administration, the world is facing a rapidly growing proliferation risk of a different kind, one that is found not only among the usual suspects in Iran and North Korea, but also among a long list of U.S. allies who once basked in American security guarantees.
Merely two months into Trump’s second term, America’s European allies have grown increasingly concerned that the U.S. is no longer a reliable ally.
That’s due to his suspension (and then reinstatement) of weapons transfers and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, an explicitly prioritized rapprochement with Russia, open denigration of its NATO allies, suggestions that the U.S. would not come to their defence if attacked, and his active and repeated threats to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Canada, Greenland and Panama.
Against this backdrop, Trump’s guiding Project 2025 principles advocate escalating nuclear testing, breaking a long-held taboo.
Once protected by its nuclear umbrella, America’s closest allies are now threatened by it. Europe’s loss of confidence in the U.S. is so severe that finding alternatives has now become part of serious discussions in capitals across the continent. France and the United Kingdom are poised to fill the void by extending their nuclear deterrence to the likes of Germany and Poland.
The scene in Asia
But the risk of proliferation is greatest in East Asia. On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump mused that Japan and South Korea might need to develop nuclear weapons. “It’s only a matter of time,” he said.
That time is unfortunately now…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Catastrophic dangers
While going nuclear may be individually rational for the East Asian countries, the collective outcome for the region and beyond is fraught with catastrophic risks.
The world is now grappling with the most dangerous collective action problem because the solution that has worked so well for decades — credible American security assurance — is eroding.
In upending the very international order that the U.S. established, the Trump administration is not merely chipping away at the global security architecture underpinned by myriad American security guarantees. It’s imploding the post-Second World War security order from within and the moral, political and institutional bulwark against nuclear proliferation.
In this predatory, zero-sum world of Trumpian foreign policy, putting America First necessarily means putting everyone else last — and, along the way, inadvertently fuelling nuclear proliferation. https://theconversation.com/80-years-after-atomic-bombs-devastated-japan-donald-trumps-actions-risk-nuclear-proliferation-254459
Small nuclear reactors are no fix for California’s energy needs
I know all too well that the hype is built on quicksand …….. many of those “building support for small modular reactors” are putting forward “rhetorical visions imbued with elements of fantasy.”
SMRs are just one of several wildly overhyped false promises on which the world is poised to spend hundreds of billions of dollars by 2040
Joseph Romm, April 18, 2025 , https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2025-04-18/small-modular-reactors-cost-california
It might seem like everyone from venture capitalists to the news media to the U.S. secretary of Energy has been hyping small modular reactors as the key to unlocking a nuclear renaissance and solving both climate change and modern data centers’ ravenous need for power.
On Monday, the Natural Resources Committee of the California Assembly will consider a bill to repeal a longstanding moratorium on nuclear plants in the state, which was meant to be in place until there is a sustainable plan for what to do with radioactive waste. Defeated multiple times in the past, this bill would carve out an exception for small modular reactors, or SMRs, the current pipe dream of nuclear advocates.
SMRs are typically under 300 megawatts, compared with the combined 2.2 gigawatts from Diablo Canyon’s two operating reactors near San Luis Obispo. These smaller nukes have received so much attention in recent years mainly because modern reactors are so costly that the U.S. and Europe have all but stopped building any.
The sad truth is that small reactors make even less sense than big ones. And Trump’s tariffs only make the math more discouraging.
I’ve been analyzing nuclear power since 1993, when I started a five-year stint at the Department of Energy as a special assistant to the deputy secretary. I helped him oversee both the nuclear energy program and the energy efficiency and renewable energy program, which I ran in 1997.
So I know all too well that the hype is built on quicksand — specifically, a seven-decade history of failure. As a 2015 analysis put it, “Economics killed small nuclear power plants in the past — and probably will keep doing so.” A 2014 journal article concluded many of those “building support for small modular reactors” are putting forward “rhetorical visions imbued with elements of fantasy.”
But isn’t there a nuclear renaissance going on? Nope. Georgia’s Vogtle plant is the only new nuclear plant the U.S. has successfully built and started in recent decades. The total cost was $35 billion, or about $16 million per megawatt of generating capacity — far more than methane (natural gas) or solar and wind with battery storage.
As such, Vogtle is “the most expensive power plant ever built on Earth,” with an “astoundingly high” estimated electricity cost, noted Power magazine. Georgia ratepayers each paid $1,000 to support this plant before they even got any power, and now their bills are rising more than $200 annually.
The high cost of construction and the resulting high energy bills explain why nuclear’s share of global power peaked at 17% in the mid-1990s but was down to 9.1% in 2024.
For decades, economies of scale drove reactors to grow beyond 1,000 megawatts. The idea that abandoning this logic would lead to a lower cost per megawatt is magical thinking, defying technical plausibility, historical reality and common sense.
Even a September report from the federal Department of Energy — which funds SMR development — modeled a cost per megawatt more than 50% higher than for large reactors. That’s why there are only three operating SMRs: one in China, with a 300% cost overrun, and two in Russia, with a 400% overrun. In March, a Financial Times analysis labeled such small reactors “the most expensive energy source.”
Indeed, the first SMR the U.S. tried to build — by NuScale — was canceled in 2023 after its cost soared past $20 million per megawatt, higher than Vogtle. In 2024, Bill Gates told CBS the full cost of his 375-megawatt Natrium reactor would be “close to $10 billion,” making its cost nearly $30 million per megawatt — almost twice Vogtle’s.
All of this has played out against a backdrop of historically cheap natural gas and a rapid expansion of renewable energy sources for electricity generation. All that competition against nuclear power matters: A 2023 Columbia University report concluded that “if the costs of new nuclear end up being much higher” than $6.2 million per megawatt, “new nuclear appears unlikely to play much of a role, if any, in the U.S. power sector.” R.I.P.
SMRs are just one of several wildly overhyped false promises on which the world is poised to spend hundreds of billions of dollars by 2040, including hydrogen energy and direct air carbon capture.
But nuclear power is the original overhyped energy technology. When he was chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis Strauss — the Robert Downey Jr. character in “Oppenheimer” — predicted in 1954 that our children would enjoy nuclear power “too cheap to meter.”
Yet by the time I joined the Department of Energy in 1993, nuclear power costs had grown steadily for decades. Since then, prices for new reactors have kept rising, and they are now the most expensive power source. But solar, wind and battery prices have kept dropping, becoming the cheapest. Indeed, those three technologies constitute a remarkable 93% of planned U.S. utility-scale electric-generating capacity additions in 2025. The rest is natural gas.
China is the only country building many new nuclear plants over the next five years — about 35 gigawatts. Less than 1% of this projected capacity would be from small reactors — while more than 95% will be from reactors over 1,100 megawatts. Now compare all that to the 350 gigawatts of solar and wind China built — just in 2024.
For the U.S., President Trump’s erratic tariffs make small modular reactors an even riskier bet. If the U.S. economy shrinks, so does demand for new electric power plants. And the twin threats of inflation and higher interest rates increase the risk of even worse construction cost overruns.
Also, China, Canada and other trading partners provide critical supply chain elements needed to mass-produce SMRs — and mass production is key to the sales pitch claiming this technology could become affordable. That logic would apply only if virtually all of the current SMR ventures fail and only one or two end up pursuing mass production.
So, can we please stop talking about small modular reactors as a solution to our power needs and get back to building the real solutions — wind, solar and batteries? They’re cheaper and cleaner — and actually modular.
Joseph Romm is a former acting assistant secretary of Energy and the author of “The Hype About Hydrogen: False Promises and Real Solutions in the Race to Save the Climate.”
US proposes leaving former Ukrainian territories under Russian control – Bloomberg
18 Apr,25 – https://www.rt.com/news/615961-russia-ukraine-peace-us/
Washington’s offer also reportedly envisions easing sanctions on Moscow and ending Kiev’s NATO aspirations.
The US has presented its allies with details of its peace plan to bring the conflict between Russia and Ukraine to an end, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing European officials familiar with the matter.
The proposal, outlined during a meeting in Paris on Thursday, reportedly includes easing sanctions on Russia, as well as terminating Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO. The roadmap would effectively freeze the conflict and leave former Ukrainian territories that are part of Russia under Moscow’s control, the sources suggested.
One of the officials told Bloomberg that the proposal still had to be discussed with Kiev, adding that the plan would not actually amount to a definitive conflict settlement. Kiev’s European backers would not recognize the territories as Russian, the source suggested.
The US delegation at the Paris meetings, which involved senior officials from several countries, was led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House special envoy Steve Witkoff. They met with French President Emmanuel Macron and also held discussions with top officials from France, Germany, the UK, and Ukraine.
Earlier on Friday, Rubio signaled Washington was ready to “move on” if a way to end the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev could not be found “within days.”
“We need to figure out here now, within a matter of days, whether this is doable in the short term. Because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on,” Rubio told reporters before departing from France.
Moscow has signaled a full ceasefire with Ukraine was highly unlikely, citing Kiev’s violations of previous deals. Speaking to reporters at the UN headquarters on Thursday, Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia said there are “big issues with the comprehensive ceasefire,” recalling the fate of the now-defunct Minsk agreements, which were “misused and abused to prepare Ukraine for the confrontation.”
The diplomat also cited repeated Ukrainian violations of a US-brokered 30-day moratorium on energy infrastructure strikes, implemented on March 18.
“How close we are to the ceasefire is a big question to me personally, because, as I said, we had an attempt at a limited ceasefire on energy infrastructure, which was not observed by the Ukrainian side. So, in these circumstances, to speak about a ceasefire is simply unrealistic at this stage,” Nebenzia said.
GOP states sue NRC to deregulate SMR licensing
17 Apr 25, https://beyondnuclear.org/gop-states-sue-nrc-to-deregulate-smr-licensing/
The GOP governors and their respective offices of state attorneys general (in one case the top GOP state legislators) in Texas, Utah, Florida, Louisiana, and Arizona have joined together with a number of fledgling nuclear start-up companies still in the design development phase for new, unproven small modular reactors (SMR) in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Tyler Division against the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).*
The lawsuit argues that reactor licensing requirements for microreactors and SMRs—with power outputs ranging from 1 to 300 megawatts electric (MWe)—do not need to be as stringent on safety requirements as the nation’s predecessor of behemoth commercial nuclear power plants in operation today. The plaintiffs claim, that because SMRs are significantly smaller they are inherently safer such that states regulatory authorities in collaboration with the nuclear industry would be sufficient to take control of licensing of SMR development from the NRC. This would include reactor independent design safety certification and construction. The plaintiffs have further claimed that offsite radiological emergency planning and environmental protection from a nuclear accident would no longer be necessary much farther than the reactor site exclusion fence line and can be safely operated within denser population zones.
This premise ignores the fact that the intent of the modular design allows for multiple units to be co-located, closely congregated and even operated from a single control room on a power scale potentially larger than even current conventional commercially light water nuclear reactor stations generating thousands of megawatts. Numerous common mode failures from singular, simultaneous and cascading events including internal design and material failures, external events including severe floods, earthquakes, and deliberate acts of malice cannot be totally ruled out.
With various SMR design concepts still in the development phase and some launching pilot ventures in the United States, they still face numerous challenges to demonstrate operational safety, obtain necessary approvals, build supply chains that including higher enriched nuclear fuel and develop a customer base. But the same issues of failure to control projected cost-of-completion and meet projected time-to-completion have already arisen in SMR development even to meet their goals on paper.
For example, the US Department of Energy’s much touted pet project in Idaho, NuScale Power’s 50 MWe VOYGR™ SMR power plant is the only design thus far that managed to eke out a contorted “conditional” design safety certification in 2023 from an obliging NRC and build its projected market with a power purchase agreement with the Utah Municipal Association of Power Suppliers (UAMPS) in several western states. The 50 MWe certified design itself instead turned out to be a “house-of-cards” and collapsed when uncontrolled costs and delays for the implementation of the design proved uneconomical for commercial production. Nevertheless, the state and the nascent industry plaintiffs are proceeding with their argument that it is NRC’s regulations and overly safety-oriented bureaucratic barriers that are stifling the deployment of otherwise innovative and “inherently safe” reactors.
The industry and its supporters have further blamed the NRC’s burdensome regulations as responsible for the collapse of the nation’s first attempt at its so-called “nuclear renaissance” with advanced Generation III reactor projects launched by the congressional passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT). In fact, EPACT was tailored by Congress and a very willing NRC to streamline a new combined operating license process (COL), a one-stop construction and power operations permit. EPACT bolstered the industry launch with billions of dollars in federal production tax credits and loan guarantees. EPACT also ramrodded a twenty year extension of the Price-Anderson Act further indemnifying nuclear corporations with limited liability from the potentially astronomical costly radiological damages of severe nuclear accidents by the so-called “inherently safe” Generation III light water reactor designs.
Despite Congress’ thorough greasing of the skid for a new generation of reactor development and deployment, by 2007, the industry had proposed 34+ new units cited to the Congressional Research Service for construction. Of the pledged units, the industry submitted COL applications to the NRC for 25 units. The NRC and industry efforts managed to approve COL permits for 14 units. Of those 14 units, the nuclear industry (even with the taxpayer backed federal loan guarantees and tax credits) only risked the financing for the construction of four units (Vogtle 3 & 4 and V.C. Summer 2 & 3). Only two units of the four units managed to complete construction and go into commercial operation in 2023 and 2024—more than double their original estimated cost-of-completion (roughly $36+ billion for Vogtle Units 3 & 4 in Georgia) and seven years behind schedule. The V.C. Summer units proposed for South Carolina were abandoned mid-construction in July 2017 with uncontrolled costs and recurring delays resulting in nearly $10 billion in sunk costs largely passed onto captured state electric ratepayers. The remainder of the industry applications were suspended or withdrawn by the utilities without the financial confidence to break ground for construction.
In our view, after curtailing streamlining the new licensing process, the NRC steamrolled new combined construction and operations licensing over the public’s due process to fully participate in the process. However, rather than solely fault the NRC, it was the historic, recurrence of uncontrollable cost overruns and prolonged delays in the new reactor licensing process, environmental reviews and unreliable reactor time to completion of construction that actually stifled the deployment of new reactor technologies internationally and not at all unique to the United States and NRC licensing oversight.
This is now compounded by Congress’ 2024 passage of the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act to fundamentally remove any pretense of the NRC mission statement’s focus from,
“The NRC licenses and regulates the nation’s civilian use of radioactive materials to provide reasonable assurance of adequate protection of public health and safety and to promote the common defense and security and to protect the environment”
to now,
“The NRC protects public health and safety and advances the nation’s common defense and security by enabling the safe and secure use and deployment of civilian nuclear energy technologies and radioactive materials through efficient and reliable licensing, oversight, and regulation for the benefit of society and the environment.”
The nuclear industry, including the plaintiffs Last Energy, Next Generation, Deep Fission and Valar Atomics are now calling upon the US federal district court to rule upon a very dangerous and inestimably expensive course to deregulate federal control of commercial nuclear power development essentially by exemption and turn it over to the nuclear industry to instruct the individual states.
*CORRECTION: The two top legislators for the GOP majority Arizona State House [Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) and House Speaker Steve Montenegro (R-Goodyear)] separately filed as parties in the NRC law suit.
Would military strikes kill Iran’s nuclear programme? Probably not.
Reuters By Francois Murphy and John Irish, April 16, 2025, Editing by William Maclean
- Summary
- Israel, US have threatened to take out nuclear sites
- Most hardened ones require firepower Israel seems to lack
- Can’t destroy enrichment know-how Iran already has
- Attack could drive programme underground, end inspections
VIENNA, April 15 (Reuters) – The recent U.S. deployment of B-2 bombers, the only planes able to launch the most powerful bunker-busting bombs, to within range of Iran is a potent signal to Tehran of what could happen to its nuclear programme if no deal is reached to rein it in.
But military and nuclear experts say that even with such massive firepower, U.S.-Israeli military action would probably only temporarily set back a programme the West fears is already aimed at producing atom bombs one day, although Iran denies it.
Worse, an attack could prompt Iran to kick out United Nations nuclear inspectors, drive the already partly buried programme fully underground and race towards becoming a nuclear-armed state, both ensuring and hastening that feared outcome.
“Ultimately, short of regime change or occupation, it’s pretty difficult to see how military strikes could destroy Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon,” said Justin Bronk, senior research fellow for airpower and technology at the Royal United Services Institute, a British defence think-tank.
“It would be a case of essentially trying to reimpose a measure of military deterrence, impose cost and push back breakout times back to where we were a few years ago.”
Breakout time refers to how long it would take to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, currently days or weeks for Iran. Actually making a bomb, should Iran decide to, would take longer.
The landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers placed tough restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities that increased its breakout time to at least a year. After President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018 it then unravelled, and Iran pushed far beyond its limits.
Now Trump wants to negotiate new nuclear restrictions in talks that began last weekend. He also said two weeks ago: “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing.”
Israel has made similar threats. Its Defence Minister Israel Katz said after taking office in November: “Iran is more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities. We have the opportunity to achieve our most important goal – to thwart and eliminate the existential threat to the State of Israel.”
BIG, RISKY
Iran’s nuclear programme is spread over many sites, and an attack would likely have to hit most or all of them. Even the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, does not know where Iran keeps some vital equipment, like parts for centrifuges, the machines that enrich uranium.
Israel could take out most of those sites by itself, military experts say, but it would be a risky operation involving repeated attacks and would have to deal with Russian-supplied anti-aircraft systems – although it managed to do so in far more limited strikes on Iran last year.
Uranium enrichment is at the heart of Iran’s nuclear programme, and its two biggest enrichment sites are the Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz, located about three floors underground, apparently to protect it from bombardment, and Fordow, dug far deeper into a mountain………………………………………………………………… https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/would-military-strikes-kill-irans-nuclear-programme-probably-not-2025-04-15/
Iran has ‘doubts’ about US intentions ahead of nuclear talks
Iran’s FM expresses concern about US motivations but says second round of negotiations will take place in Rome this weekend.
18 Apr 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/18/iran-has-doubts-about-us-intentions-ahead-of-nuclear-talks
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has cast doubt over the intentions of the United States a day before a second round of nuclear talks is set to take place with Washington.
The new round will come a week after the two countries held their highest-level negotiations since US President Donald Trump unilaterally abandoned a 2015 landmark nuclear deal three years later. Iran has since abandoned all limits on its nuclear programme, and enriches uranium to up to 60 percent purity – near weapons-grade levels of 90 percent.
“Although we have serious doubts about the intentions and motivations of the American side, in any case, we will participate in tomorrow’s negotiations,” Araghchi said on Friday during a news conference in Moscow with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.
Araghchi will set off on Saturday for Rome for a new round of Omani-mediated talks with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
“We are fully prepared to pursue a peaceful resolution for Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme,” Araghchi said.
Lavrov said Moscow was ready “to play any role that will be useful from Iran’s point of view and that will be acceptable to the United States”.
Russia, which commands the world’s largest confirmed arsenal of nuclear weapons, has deepened its military ties with Iran since it launched its offensive on Ukraine in February 2022, and has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding United Nations Security Council member.
Western countries, including the US, have long accused Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons – an allegation Tehran has consistently denied, insisting that its programme is for peaceful civilian purposes.
Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said there is “a cloud of mistrust in the air” despite statements made by Araghchi.
“With the talks ahead, there is a perception among Iranians that there is this mistrust that exists pertaining to the United States, but going back to the statement that were heard today … we saw a mix of doubt and hope at the same time,” Asadi said.
“Iran is saying it is not interested in putting other issues … [such as] defence capabilities … on the table of negotiations,” he added.
‘Unrealistic demands’
US President Donald Trump has threatened to attack Iran if it does not agree to a deal with the US.
On Tuesday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the country’s military capabilities were off limits in the discussions.
The official IRNA news agency reported Iran’s regional influence and its missile capabilities, long criticised by Western governments, were among its “red lines” in the talks.
On Wednesday, the Iranian foreign minister said Iran’s enrichment of uranium was not up for discussion, after Witkoff called for it to end.
“If there is similar willingness on the other side, and they refrain from making unreasonable and unrealistic demands, I believe reaching an agreement is likely,” Araghchi said during Friday’s news conference.
Lavrov emphasised that any potential agreement should only pertain to the nuclear issue.
“This is a fundamental point that must be taken into account by those who try to burden the negotiations with non-nuclear issues and thus create a very risky situation,” he said.
Iran told the US during last week’s talks it was ready to accept some limits on its uranium enrichment, but needed watertight guarantees Trump would not again ditch the pact, an Iranian official told the Reuters news agency on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official said Tehran’s red lines “mandated by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei” could not be compromised in the talks, adding that those red lines meant Iran would never agree to dismantle its centrifuges for enriching uranium, halt enrichment altogether, or reduce the amount of enriched uranium it stores to a level below the level it agreed in the 2015 deal.
It would also not negotiate over its missile programme, which Tehran views as outside the scope of any nuclear deal, Reuters reported.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier on Friday that the US administration is looking for a peaceful solution with Iran but will never tolerate the country developing a nuclear weapon.
Rubio met with British, French and German officials in Paris and pressed them to maintain sanctions against Iran instead of allowing them to run out.
Israel also reiterated its unwavering commitment to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, saying it had a “clear course of action” to prevent this.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I, along with all relevant bodies, are committed to leading a clear course of action that will prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons,” Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Friday.
Hopes for Iran nuclear talks tempered by threats and mixed messages
Parham Ghobadi, BBC Persian, BBC, 18 Apr 25
As Iran and the United States prepare to hold a second round of high-stakes nuclear talks in Rome, hopes for de-escalation are being tempered by mounting military threats and mixed messages.
US President Donald Trump reminds Tehran nearly every day of its options: a deal or war.
He has previously said Israel would lead a military response if the talks failed.
On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Trump had “waved off” an Israeli plan to strike Iranian nuclear sites as early as next month.
“I wouldn’t say waved off. I’m not in a rush to do it,” Trump told reporters in response to the article on Thursday, adding that he preferred to give diplomacy a chance.
“I think that Iran has a chance to have a great country and to live happily without death… That’s my first option. If there’s a second option, I think it would be very bad for Iran.”
After both sides described the first round of talks in Oman last weekend as constructive, Trump had said he would be “making a decision on Iran very quickly”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Atmosphere of distrust
Since Trump returned to office this year, Ayatollah Khamenei has consistently denounced negotiations with Washington.
“Negotiating with this administration is not logical, not wise, nor honourable,” he said in a February speech, just two months before agreeing to the current round of talks.
The supreme leader’s distrust stems from Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, the “maximum pressure” campaign that followed, and the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani in a US strike in Iraq in 2020.
Ayatollah Khamenei expressed satisfaction with the first round of talks, saying it was “implemented well”.
But he cautioned that he was “neither overly optimistic nor overly pessimistic”……………………………………………………. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy7n905jqdo
Trump’s Latest Executive Order is Blatant Attack on States’ Rightful Action to Protect Communities and the Climate
“We will pursue all legal avenues to ensure that states are not harmed by this shameful assault on health and the environment.”
On Tuesday the Trump administration issued an executive order that seeks to initiate an attack on state laws and policies that address the environmental pollution and climate-wrecking emissions resulting from fossil fuel and nuclear energy development.
In response, Food & Water Watch Legal Director Tarah Heinzen issued the following statement:
“This malicious and destructive order goes further than ever before in proving that President Trump cares nothing about states’ rights, or clean air, or healthy people, or anything else of any virtue that he has ever claimed to prioritize. It proves that Trump cares only about doing the bidding of filthy, polluting industries that poison our air and water, sicken our communities and wreck our climate.
“This executive order baselessly threatens to weaponize the justice department against state climate protections adopted with broad public support. States have clear authority to act to protect people and communities from toxic pollution – including carbon emissions that drive climate chaos.
“Laws like the Climate Change Superfund Acts in New York and Vermont, which ensure that the largest industrial polluters are held responsible for their harmful impacts on the land and communities, are currently at the vanguard of responsible environmental protection in the country. Trump’s attack on these common-sense laws are an attack on everyday Americans who bear the brunt of toxic pollution and climate change-fueled weather catastrophes.
“We will monitor closely how the administration may seek to implement this preposterous order, and we will pursue any and all legal avenues to help ensure that states and communities are not harmed by this shameful assault on public health, environmental protection and climate stability.”
DOE report: Cost to finish cleaning up Hanford site could exceed $589 billion
The cost to complete the cleanup of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state could cost as much as $589.4 billion, according to the 2025 Hanford Lifecycle Scope, Schedule, and Cost Report, which was released by the DOE on April 15. While that estimate is $44.2 billion lower than the DOE’s 2022 estimate of $640.6 billion, a separate, low-end estimate has since grown by more than 21 percent, to $364 billion.
The life cycle report, which the DOE is legally required to issue every three years under agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology), summarizes the remaining work scope, schedule, and cost estimates for the nuclear site. For more than 40 years, Hanford’s reactors produced plutonium for America’s defense program.
The DOE’s cost estimates assume an active site cleanup schedule lasting until 2086, with long-term site stewardship until 2100. The DOE, however, said the federal government plans to have a presence at Hanford well beyond 2100.
The details: The report provides both a baseline (low-range) and a high-range cost estimate for completing the Hanford cleanup work. For this latest report, the DOE estimates a baseline cost of approximately $364 billion and a high-range cost estimate of approximately $589.4 billion. In 2022, the DOE reported an estimated cost range of $300.2 billion to $640.6 billion. The estimates include active cleanup, decommissioning, and remediation work, along with the final disposition of Hanford’s remaining reactors and long-term stewardship of the site.
According to the DOE, the cost range reflects the high degree of technical complexity and uncertainty associated with the large volume of work to be completed at the site, which includes the treatment and disposal of Hanford’s radioactive and chemical tank waste, Hanford’s largest liability. The estimates also include risk reduction work along with mission and site infrastructure costs.
According to the DOE, the high-range estimate reflects an 80 percent confidence level and is intended to ensure transparency among Hanford stakeholders of the inherent risks in achieving the agreed-upon cleanup goals.
While the Hanford life cycle report is not a decision-making document on the actions the DOE will take to meet its cleanup obligations, it does act as a foundation for preparing budget requests and for informational briefings with stakeholders. It also supports the DOE’s discussions with the EPA and Ecology on the progress it is making in cleaning up the site.
Feedback: The DOE is collecting public feedback on the report in writing until June 16. Received feedback will be considered when the department drafts its 2028 life cycle report.
Comments can be emailed to lifecyclereport@rl.gov (preferred) or mailed to:
Dana Gribble, Hanford Mission Integration Solutions
U.S. Department of Energy
P.O. Box 450, H5-20
Richland, WA 99354
Unprecedented number of B-2 bombers amassed for Iran strike
Ken Klippenstein, Apr 08, 2025
In the largest single deployment of stealth bombers in U.S. history, the Pentagon has sent six B-2 “Spirit” aircraft to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
The long-range bombers, which are uniquely suited to evade Iranian air defenses and can carry America’s most potent bunker busting weapons, flew in from Missouri last week in a little noticed operation.
The B-2s carry not just bombs, but a message for Iran: “do you see our sword?,” as one retired general told Newsmax this week.
President Donald Trump hasn’t been shy in threatening Iran, saying that if Tehran doesn’t close the door on a nuclear capability they will experience “bombing the likes of which they haven’t seen.”
“Hell” will “rain down” on the country, Trump has also said. Just today, amidst the stock market meltdown Trump again reiterated his threat, saying that “doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious” — which to the president is undertaking a massive strike.
Blatant as the threat is, the U.S. government has not otherwise publicly acknowledged the bomber buildup. Though B-2 bombers were used to carry out strikes on underground Houthi facilities in Yemen (both under the Biden and Trump administration), the forward deployment of the bombers to the island of Diego Garcia was only reported when commercial satellite images of the airbase there revealed the six on the runway.
“To my knowledge, this is the largest B-2 deployment to a forward location,” Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists told me. Kristensen is the world’s leading tracker of nuclear comings and goings.
“All the bombers, they’re not in hangers, they’re underneath satellites where they can be photographed and seen; and the idea is, do you see our sword?” retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt, who served as Deputy U.S. Military Representative to NATO, said in an interview with Newsmax last week. Holt also said that the B-2 deployment “gives the president a military option that he can actually use these weapons against Iran if needed.”
This is a highly visible threat to Tehran, but at least one party isn’t supposed to notice: the American people.
The Pentagon refuses to acknowledge that the deployment is even happening. Trump’s new Pentagon Press Secretary Sean Parnell has only vaguely alluded to “other air assets” being deployed it has announced that two aircraft carriers will stay in the region, the result of a delay in sending one home after its current deployment.
According to Google Trends, searches for terms like “B-2” and “war with Iran” have only modestly increased, indicating that public curiosity has been suppressed despite Donald Trump’s many threats to attack his enemies.
Why B-2s?
The B-2 was first designed during the Cold War to penetrate deep into Russian territory for a nuclear attack. The aircraft’s stealth features (making it all but “invisible” to conventional radar) allow it to evade even the most sophisticated air defenses. Subsequent to its deployment, the bomber was modified so that it could take on unique conventional roles as well, especially in attacking underground facilities.
Though the U.S. has a variety of long-range fighters in the region — F-16s, F/A-18s, F-15Es, and F-35s — deployed on aircraft carriers and based in countries like Jordan and the UAE, the B-2s also allow the Trump administration to carry out unilateral strikes. That is, without the permission or involvement of any other Middle East countries. (Diego Garcia continues to be militarily controlled by the U.K.)……………………………………………………………………………………………https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/pentagon-prepares-for-trump-to-go?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=7677&post_id=160827397&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=191n6&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
DOGE’s staff firing fiasco at the nuclear weapon agency means everything but efficiency
Bulletin, By Stephen Young | April 16, 2025
According to a recent press report, the Energy Department has identified 8,500 employees who are “nonessential” and therefore vulnerable to being laid off by Elon Musk’s chainsaw-welding wrecking crew known as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Of those 8,500 employees, 500 work in the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the agency responsible for maintaining the US nuclear weapons stockpile. This follows on from a chaotic period in February, when 177 NNSA employees were summarily fired by DOGE. Following a bipartisan uproar, DOGE reversed course, rehiring all but about 27 of the staff who had been laid off.
The media coverage of those forced-then-reversed departures was extensive, with the Washington Post and the New York Times each reporting later the details of the Trump administration operation. But all the coverage, including the latest news, misses two important aspects of this debacle.
Creating chaos in an agency responsible for the safety and security of nuclear weapons is already concerning; the early DOGE firing plan and any new layoffs are very inefficient ways to save taxpayers’ money. According to DOGE, the average salary of the Energy Department’s staff, including the NNSA, is $116,739. If the 500 “nonessential” employees are laid off and all those initially let go were not rehired, it would save approximately $79 million—or about one-third of a percent of the NNSA’s $25 billion budget.
More important, the United States could save tens to hundreds of billions of dollars if it had a sensible and sustainable nuclear modernization plan rather than one that seeks to replace every single weapon in the arsenal—and even create new ones. Such a plan would also have the benefit of removing fuel from the nuclear arms race that President Donald Trump himself has decried.
New security environment. Right now, the NNSA is in the middle of an unnecessary multi-billion-dollar effort to build new and expanded facilities that will produce plutonium pits for new nuclear weapons—the first being made since the end of the Cold War.
The push for new pits usually relies on two arguments—neither of which makes much sense even as they ignore the very high economic, environmental, and geopolitical risks of the path the United States is taking.
First, supporters of new nuclear weapons argue that, as plutonium pits age, they will stop working as expected. In the early 2000s, pit lifetime was estimated at 45 to 60 years. Given that pit production stopped in 1989, that estimate could be a cause for concern, if true. Fortunately, pit lifetime estimates were significantly updated in 2007, when JASON, the federal government’s independent science advisory committee, concluded that most plutonium pits “have credible minimum lifetimes in excess of 100 years as regards aging of plutonium” and that “those with assessed minimum lifetimes of 100 years or less have clear mitigation paths.”
In 2014, Congress passed legislation mandating pit production “driven by the requirement to hedge against technical and geopolitical risk and not solely by the needs of life extension programs.” The law called for demonstrating the capacity to make 80 pits per year by 2027. The “technical” risk highlighted appears tied to pit lifetime—an argument thoroughly refuted by JASON’s reassuring conclusions.
The geopolitical risk perception is more complicated………………………………………………………………………………………………….
DOGE’s arbitrary cuts in NNSA staffing were an ill-informed and very poor choice. The US government could save vastly more money by reconsidering the bloated defense programs that the NNSA is responsible for executing compared to the relatively insignificant savings from the haphazard elimination of staff critical for national security.
The NNSA firing debacle questions whether DOGE is serious about reducing wasteful government programs and promoting efficiency. But if Congress and the Trump administration are, they could easily find tens of billions of dollars to save from the NNSA budget so no more taxpayer is used for a new nuclear arms race that the president has said he does not want. https://thebulletin.org/2025/04/doges-staff-firing-fiasco-at-the-nuclear-weapon-agency-means-everything-but-efficiency/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Behind%20the%20US-Iran%20talks&utm_campaign=20250417%20Thursday%20Newsletter
US envoy calls for Iran to ‘eliminate’ nuclear programme
US envoy Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday that Iran “must stop and
eliminate” its nuclear enrichment programme to secure a deal with Donald
Trump after previously hinting that Washington might be willing to soften
its stance. “A deal with Iran will only be completed if it is a Trump
deal,” Witkoff said on social media platform X as he appeared to
backtrack on his previous comments. “It is imperative for the world that
we create a tough, fair deal that will endure.”
FT 15th April 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/5fa3707d-7952-464f-a67c-37ddfc061ed5
Second Annual WIPP Plutonium Trail Caravan on Saturday, April 26th
April 17th, 2025, nuclearactive,org
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) promised the People of New Mexico that it would cleanup and dispose of its plutonium-contaminated nuclear bomb waste by depositing it into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) over 25 years and close. DOE broke its promise when that deadline passed on March 26th, But DOE has a new plan to keep the deep geologic nuclear waste disposal facility at WIPP open for 60 more years for legacy bomb waste and for newly-generated bomb waste from fabricating new weapons. https://wipp.energy.gov/
To alert the public about DOE’s plans, the Stop Forever WIPP Coalition will host the Second Annual WIPP Plutonium Caravan on Saturday, April 26th beginning at 9 am at the DeVargas Mall in Santa Fe. The Caravan will travel south on St. Francis Drive to Interstate 25 and towards Las Vegas, New Mexico with stops along the way. You are invited to be part of the Caravan. For more information, please visit https://stopforeverwipp.org/……………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://nuclearactive.org/
Saying It’s Antisemitic To Oppose Genocide Is Like Saying It’s Anti-Catholic To Oppose Pedophilia
Caitlin Johnstone, Apr 15, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/saying-its-antisemitic-to-oppose?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=161378744&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
On Sunday Israel bombed the al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital, which readers may remember as the hospital that Israel ferociously insisted it didn’t bomb in October 2023 and accused anyone who said otherwise of antisemitic blood libel. According to a statement from the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of Jerusalem, this is now the fifth time this hospital has been bombed since the beginning of the Gaza onslaught.
The IDF is predictably claiming there was a Hamas base in the hospital, because that’s what they always do. The hospitals are Hamas, the ambulances are Hamas, the journalists are Hamas, the UN is Hamas, the schools are Hamas, the children are Hamas, every building in Gaza is Hamas, and anyone who disputes this is also Hamas.
God this gets old.
❖
Israel, October 2023: How dare you say we bombed Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital? We would never bomb a hospital!
Israel, 2023–2025: *bombs all hospitals in Gaza*
Israel, April 2025: We just bombed Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital again.
❖
Saying that opposing genocide is hateful toward Jews is like saying that opposing child molestation is hateful toward Catholics.
Western Zionists will be like, “All this hate for Israel makes me feel anxious and unsafe!”
Really? Are you sure that’s what you’re feeling? Are you sure it’s not guilt? Gut-wrenching guilt about all those dead kids in the genocide you support? Or cognitive dissonance, because your entire worldview is wrong?
❖
People often say I hate Israel, but what’s weird is they say it like it’s a bad thing.
So far the “President of Peace” has started a relentless bombing campaign in Yemen, reignited the Gaza holocaust, and shifted more US war machinery to west Asia in preparation for war with Iran, all while getting ready to announce the first ever trillion-dollar Pentagon budget.
Trump is just as awful a warmonger as Biden. If there’s a war with Iran he’ll be far worse. He hasn’t even gotten a Ukraine ceasefire.
❖
The western political faction that’s doing the most to help murder children in Gaza are not the “Yeehaw kill them Arabs” fanatics of the far right, but the “Gosh it’s so complicated, both sides hate each other and they’ve been at war for millennia” fence-sitting of the so-called moderate.
So far the “President of Peace” has started a relentless bombing campaign in Yemen, reignited the Gaza holocaust, and shifted more US war machinery to west Asia in preparation for war with Iran, all while getting ready to announce the first ever trillion-dollar Pentagon budget.
Trump is just as awful a warmonger as Biden. If there’s a war with Iran he’ll be far worse. He hasn’t even gotten a Ukraine ceasefire.
❖
The western political faction that’s doing the most to help murder children in Gaza are not the “Yeehaw kill them Arabs” fanatics of the far right, but the “Gosh it’s so complicated, both sides hate each other and they’ve been at war for millennia” fence-sitting of the so-called moderate.
And this isn’t an ancient conflict, it’s the culmination of abuses which were initiated by western powers dropping a brand new settler-colonialist ethnostate on top of a pre-existing civilization after the second world war. There was no reason to believe the middle east would not have joined the rest of the world in settling into a more peaceful status quo after WWII without western imperialists forcefully inserting an artificial apartheid state into the region like a shard of glass into a foot and then keeping it there by any amount of violence necessary.
Sure the middle east had plenty of violence prior to the world wars, but if you’ve ever read American and European history you’ll know this wasn’t anything unique to the middle east; it was the norm around the world. It wasn’t until after WWII that things settled down a bit and westerners grew accustomed to a more peaceful status quo; the only reason the middle east wasn’t allowed to join in that movement was because of aggressive western intervention.
By just shrugging saying “Yeah the Israelis hate the Palestinians and the Palestinians hate the Israelis, who’s to say who’s right,” this mainstream line tacitly promotes the notion that we should just let things play out as they are rather than doing everything we can to stop an active genocide that’s being backed by our own leaders. And this is the position put forward by most of the people with prominent voices in our society. They’re not just not helping, they’re discouraging everyone else from helping too.
Lawsuit on Nuclear Regulation
Nuclear Start-up Valar Atomics is suing the US Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC), claiming in essence that the NRC doesn’t have the right
to regulate small reactors, and instead the states should have oversight.
Let’s skip over for a moment what a nightmare it would be to have 50
different regulators to deal with just for one country. Their claim —
that small reactors are not capable of accidents posing public health and
safety concerns — is dangerous baloney. It seems after decades of
fighting rampant radiophobia from anti-nuclear activists and scared
normies, the pro-nuclear community must now also contend with a new
problem: nukebros who have become too cavalier about radiation.
Elemental 15th April 2025
1 This Month
of the week – Shut Down Drone Warfare!
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
Petition to revoke the licensing of the Near Surface Nuclear Disposal Facility (NSDF) at Chalk River. https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7247
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
-
Archives
- March 2026 (237)
- February 2026 (268)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (257)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
- April 2025 (305)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 