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The Unspoken Aspects of Iran’s Nuclear Program

by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 27 June 2025

The implications of Iran’s nuclear program are not what we think. Tehran renounced the atomic bomb in 1988, but is attempting, with Russia’s cooperation, to discover the secrets of nuclear fusion. If it succeeds, it would help the Southern states decolonize by freeing themselves from oil.
As for the implications of the bombing of certain Iranian nuclear sites by the United States, they may also not be what we think.
This affair is all the more opaque because it is not possible today to establish a clear distinction between research on civilian nuclear fusion and military fusion.

ince the fall of Iraq, under the blows of the British and the United States, London and Washington have popularized the myth of Iran’s military nuclear program, following on from the myth of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. This myth has been taken up by Israeli “revisionist Zionists” (not to be confused with “Zionists” per se) and their leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. For twenty years, Westerners have been inundated with this propaganda and have come to believe it, although announcing for such a long period that Tehran will have “the” bomb “next year” makes no sense.—

However, even if Russia, China, and the United States all agree that there is currently no Iranian military program, everyone clearly sees that Iran is doing something at its nuclear power plants. But what?

In 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected President of the Islamic Republic, replacing Sayyed Mohammad Khatami. He is a scientist whose vision is to liberate colonized peoples. He therefore believes that by mastering the atom, he will enable all peoples to free themselves from Western oil transnationals.

Iran then develops training programs for nuclear scientists in numerous universities. It’s not about creating a small elite of a few hundred specialists, but about training battalions of engineers. There are now tens of thousands of them.

Iran intends to discover how to achieve nuclear fusion, whereas Westerners are content with fission. Fission is the splitting of an atom; while fusion is the joining of atoms, which releases immeasurable energy. Fission is used for our power plants, while, for the time being, fusion is only used for thermonuclear bombs. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s project is to use it to generate electricity and share it with developing countries.

This knowledge is revolutionary, in the Khomeinist sense of the term, that is, it allows for an end to the dependence of the Southern states and their economic development. It clashes head-on with the British vision of colonialism, according to which His Majesty had to divide and rule and prevent the development of the colonized. We recall, for example, that London forbade Indians from spinning the cotton they grew themselves so that it could be spun by its factories in Manchester. In response, Mahatma Gandhi set an example for his people and spun his own cotton, defying the British monarchy. Similarly, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s project challenges the power of the West and the Anglo-Saxon oil transnationals. It is perfectly understandable to be concerned about Iranian investment in nuclear power because these technologies are, by definition, dual-use, both civilian and military. It is clear that this is not the usual civilian use, and that the detailed discovery of fusion processes could also be used for military purposes. In any case, Iran is seeking an inexhaustible source of energy.

………………………….It should also be remembered that Iran is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). It is for this reason that it is subject to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Since 1988, the IAEA has never found any evidence suggesting that Iran still has a military nuclear program. However, the Agency has asked numerous questions to clarify certain aspects of its civilian program and has received no answers, which is perfectly understandable given the investment in Iranian-Russian fusion research. In practice, documents released by the Iranian press two days before the Israeli attack attest that the IAEA Director, the Argentinian Rafael Grossi, behaves like a spy in the service of Israel, to which he transmits all information from its inspectors; this is despite the fact that Israel is not a signatory to the NPT and therefore not a member of the IAEA.

Tehran submitted a proposal for the “Establishment of a Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone in the Middle East” to the United Nations Conference of the Parties to the NPT on May 4, 2010 [1]. This proposal was well received by all states in the region, with the exception of Israel. Indeed, Tel Aviv, which benefited from transfers of French technology from senior officials of the Fourth Republic, possesses the atomic bomb [2]…………………………………………………………………………………………https://www.voltairenet.org/article222538.html

June 30, 2025 Posted by | Iran, technology | Leave a comment

Zelensky clings to NATO hopes as Trump meeting looms

The Ukrainian president on Tuesday insisted the alliance would benefit from Kyiv’s joining, even as Washington has so far ruled out its bid.

By Victor Jack, Politico, 24 June,25

THE HAGUE — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is forcefully pushing Kyiv’s NATO bid as he gears up for a high-stakes meeting with Donald Trump in The Hague on Wednesday.

The U.S. president will join his fellow leaders from the military alliance for a state dinner on Tuesday evening as the organization hosts its annual summit — where countries will agree to ramp up their defense spending to 5 percent of economic output by 2035.

Last year’s summit in Washington ended with a pledge to back Ukraine’s “irreversible path” to NATO. But this year’s declaration will focus instead on a broader vow of continued support for Kyiv, alliance officials said. 

Zelenskyy on Tuesday insisted that his country is still looking to join the alliance. While flanked by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, he said: “This direction is not changing.”

The alliance chief emphasized the organization was also working on “building that bridge” for Ukraine, while highlighting that European and Canadian members have pledged €35 billion in aid for Kyiv so far this year.

The U.S. under Trump has not requested any new military aid for Ukraine.

Zalenskyy also underlined that Ukraine’s accession was a “mutual opportunity” for the alliance, arguing his country now has the capacity to produce 8 million drones each year.

“It is an advantageous proposal for NATO today to have an ally like Ukraine, with NATO weapons, with new technology,” he told Sky News. “We have no secrets, and experienced people with 10 years of different types of fighting.”

Still, Trump and his administration have ruled out allowing Ukraine to join NATO. That’s a topic that could arise when the two leaders meet at The Hague………https://www.politico.eu/article/zelenskyy-trump-nato-hague-rutte-ukraine-russia-war/

June 30, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility’s  recommendations opposing the proposed30-year operating licence extension for the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station (DNGS)

27June 25, Gordon Edwards

Recommendation 1: CCNR urges the Commission to grant Darlington no more than a five-year licence, to incentivize the public to remain engaged on matters of radiological safety, and to pressure the staff of OPG and CNSC to improve their practices related to public heath and safety. In our opinion, under no circumstance should a licence of more than ten years be countenanced.

Comments: The CNSC is expected to review the financial guarantee for decommissioning the Darlington plant every five years. The plant’s safety analysis is expected to be reviewed every 10 years. Why should public input be so underappreciated that it only has to be considered once in three decades?

Suspicions of regulatory capture can only be intensified when regulatory staff meets with industry representatives behind closed doors, decade after decade, without any meaningful public involvement. After all, the CNSC’s primary legal obligations are to the Canadian public, the Canadian environment, and the international community – not to the licencee. Without reasonably frequent public hearings, without listening to the concerns of the public directly, staff may come to regard those legislated responsibilities as more abstract than real. The staff of the licensee and the staff of the regulator become of one mind; the public is seen as an unwelcome intruder.

Ultimately, this is not good for the CNSC or for OPG. CCNR believes it is also not good for the public, or for the trust that CNSC wishes to enjoy from the public.

Recommendation 2: CNSC staff should be required to report to the Commissioners and to the public on a regular basis what efforts are being made to drastically reduce the routine releases of radioactive materials into the environment from Darlington.

Comments: On an annual basis, Darlington releases several hundred trillions of becquerels of radioactive hydrogen (tritium). Tritium is readily incorporated into all living things in the form of radioactive water molecules, as a result of ingestion, inhalation, or absorption through the skin. Tritium emissions from Darlington are far greater than corresponding tritium emissions from any other power reactors in the world, except for other CANDU reactors. Although CNSC and OPG staff are both quick to point out that these tritium emissions are “within regulatory limits”, that does not exonerate CNSC from the responsibility of requiring that such emissions be kept “As Low As Reasonably Achievable”, in accordance with the ALARA principle. All radioactive emissions are ionizing. Ionizing radiation is acknowledged to be a Class 1 carcinogen. No genotoxic carcinogenic material should be disseminated freely into the environment without the strictest possible controls, regardless of whatever regulatory limits may have been established arbitrarily by fiat. There is no science-based rationale for Canada’s tritium standards. It is not honourable to allow such very large releases of radioactive hydrogen to continue unabated for another three decades without any discernible effort to drastically reduce those emissions. Indeed, what efforts have been made in the last 30 years or will be made in the next 30 years to cut these emissions by orders of magnitude? Is that even a goal of the Commission? Or is the operating licence for a nuclear power reactor also a licence to freely pollute ad infinitum?

Similar considerations apply to routine emissions of radioactive carbon-14 from Darlington, which are reported to be at least a trillion becquerels per year or more. Since carbon-14 has a radioactive half-life of 5,700 years, carbon-14 emissions accumulate in the environment year after year as each year’s emissions are simply added to the previous year’s emissions. Carbon-14 from DNGS has been accumulating already for over 30 years, and it will continue to accumulate for the next 30 years if the licence is granted as requested. Thus 1 trillion becquerels per year turns into 60 trillion becquerels overall. What, if anything, is CNSC or OPG doing to prevent this from continuing?

As long ago as 1980, the Select Committee on Ontario Hydro Affairs reported that trium and carbon-14 “are easily incorporated into human tissue. Carbon-14 is incorporated into the carbon that comprises about 18 percent of total body weight, including the fatty tissue, proteins and DNA [molecules]. Tritium is incorporated into all parts of the body…. Thus the radiological significance of both elements is not related to their inherent toxicity, as each is a very low energy form of radiation, but to their easy incorporation in the body.”

Recommendation 3: All radioactive releases from Darlington should be posted on-line in real time so the public can be properly notified of those releases as they happen.

Comments: Testimony before the Select Committee on Ontario Hydro Affairs in 1979 by Dr. Edward Radford (Professor of Environmental Epidemiology at the Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh) indicated that sudden large pulses of tritium absorbed by a pregnant woman can have a life-long effect on her unborn daughter by causing genetic damage to the baby girl’s eggs – damage that will persist throughout her life and could affect her eventual offspring. In 2023, in just one week, 6,469 curies = 239 trillion becquerels of tritium were released from Darlington. That’s comparable to an entire year’s release of tritium from just one unit happening in just one week. Yet the public has no way of knowing about this sudden massive leak of tritium in order to do what they can to protect themselves and their unborn babies. For these reasons, OPG should be required by CNSC to publicly report all radioactive emissions on-line in real time, so that vulnerable citizens such as pregnant women and parents of young children can choose to vacate the area when sudden large releases of triium or other radionuclides occur.

Recommendation 4: In accordance with its mandate to disseminate objective scientific information, CNSC should publicly declare that it is not correct for anyone to say that nuclear energy is “clean” (or non-polluting).

Comments: In addition to the radioactive hydrogen and radioactive carbon released routinely in large amounts from Darlington, as well as the radioactive iodine, other routine emissions occur. Over 100 million becquerels of radioactive iodine vapour is released annually from Darlington, along with more than 10 million becquerels of radioactive particulates. In addition, millions of becquerels of alpha emitters are released every year from Darlington. Bear in mind that alpha-emitters are hundreds to thousands of times more biologically damaging, per becquerel, than beta-emitters or gamma-emitters. For example, elementary arithmetic shows that one becquerel of plutonium inside the body is about 18,000 times more biologically damaging than one becquerel of tritium at the same location. Tens of trillions of Bq-MeVs of radioactive noble gases are released, that are heavier than air and so stay close to the ground, delivering radioactuve exposures from abve by what is called “skyshine”. Does the Commission ever concern itself with  drastically reducing these large routine radioactive emissions? Does the Commission ever feel uneasy when nuclear power is called a “clean” or “non-emitting” energy source in defiance of scientific fact?

Recommendation 5: Darlington Nuclear Generating Station should not be given an operating licence for more than five years. At all future licencing hearings for Darlington, OPG’s detailed plans for dismantling the Darlington reactors should be spelled out in very specific terms and the public should be invited to weigh in on those plans from a community health and safety perspective.

Comments: During a retubing operation at Pickering many years ago, workers were contaminated with carbon-14 dust and carried that contamination into their homes for a period of several weeks. More recently, over 500 workers were contaminated with airborne plutonium dust for a period of several weeks during the refurbishment of Bruce unit 1. In both cases, the contamination was not detected by the standard radiation monitors in place at every nuclear power plant. In both cases, the radioactive contamination was only detected when air samples were analyzed and the offending materials were identified.

Dust that can contaminate the clothing or the lungs of workers, undetected, can equally well blow in the wind and contaminate people and property far from the reactor site. The public should be fully informed of the precise details of OPG’s plans for radioactive demolition, and given a chance to have their own input into those plans. It is possible, indeed likely, that a detailed examination of those plans will lead to the need for a greatly enhanced financial guarantee on the part of OPG to ensure that those plans can be carried out safely and to the complete satisfaction of local residents. It is also important that ratepayers learn the true cost of nuclear decommissioning, which will give a more realistic assessment of the total cost of nuclear-generated electricity.

Recommendation 6: CNSC staff be instructed by the Commission members to commission experts not affiliated with CANDU reactor design, operation, or regulation, to conduct an independent peer review of the calculations that led CNSC staff to conclude that 100 trillion becquerels of cesium-137 is a realistic and acceptable estimate of the “source term” following a severe nuclear accident at Darlington Nuclear Generating Station.

Comments: CCNR has obtained documentary evidence that this number was arbitrarily chosen by CNSC staff without any credible accident scenario to support that number. CCNR analysts have also examined the 2015 CNSC document Study of Consequences of a Hypothetical Severe Nuclear Accident and Effectiveness of Mitigation Measures. In paragraph one of section 3.1, the authors of the report state that a “large release” of radioactivity is, by definition, any release of more than 100 terabecquerels of cesium-137. Anything less than 100 TBq does not even qualify as a large release. Then, in the second paragraph of section 3.1, the authors arbitrarily select that very number, the lowest possible number, namely 100 terabecquerels, as their assumed large release from Darlington. In doing so staff ignores its own definition, that all large releases must be greater than that amount. Please note that the authors of the CNSC report have simply chosen the lowest possible number that can be used to describe a large radioactive release, and they have used that number as an estimate of what a large release at Darlington might actually be. Despite promising to do so, the authors fail to describe or refer to any realistic accident scenario that would in fact result in such a small radioactive release of cesium-137.

Using straightforward calculations, CCNR estimates that a typical Darlington core contains a total of at least 55,000 trillion becquerels of cesium-137. Since there are 480 fuel channels in each Darlington reactor, each channel contains about 114.6 trillion becquerels of cesium-137. At a temperature of 1500 degrees C (well below the melting point of the fuel) the exposed fuel will release about 25% of the cesium inventory in one hour. In the event of severe core damage, all of the cesium released from the overheated fuel will escape from the calandria because the rupture disks on top will have exploded, providing an unfiltered pathway for the cesium vapour to escape into the containment. Given the fact that each of the 480 fuel channels can release 57 trillion becquerels of cesium-137 in one hour, it is impossible to believe that only 100 trillion becquerels of cesium-137 will find its way out into the environment, given the relatively leaky containment system that exists at Darlington.

Recommendation 7: OPG should not be given an operating licence for a period of more than five years, and all future licencing hearings for Darlington should include a detailed re-evaluation of Emergency Measures in accordance with a more realistic estimated source term.

Comments: In the event of a severe accident in a CANDU reactor, leading to a truly large release of radioactivity, emergency measures that are currently predicated on a maximum release of 100 trillion becquerels of cesium-137 will be woefully inadequate. Radioactive cesium contamination of homes and properties will be far greater, more extensive, and persistent, than currently considered possible. Residential and commercial areas closest to the Darlington plant may well remain uninhabitable for decades, as we learned from bitter experiuence at Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi. Considering the enormous volume of radioactively contaminated water that was flushed into the Pacific Ocean following the Fukushima accident, including the 1.2 million tons of radioactive water that is currently being dumped into the Pacific, one can only wonder about the deleterious effects on Lake Ontario and the millions of people that draw their drinking water from the Lake. Canadians deserve an honest, science-based, realistic assessment of what the consequences of a severe nuclear accident might be in Canada. The CNSC has an obligation to provide them with objective scientifically based information, not self-serving efforts to low-ball the risk estimates for public relations purposes. The public will have to be consuilted more frequently rather than less frequently. Their right to a healthy body and a healthy environment cannot be taken for granted for thirty yeards at a time. Shame on OPG for even suggesting such a thing.

One final word. CCNR fully supports the position of Dr. Frank Greening against wasting valuable hearing time by allowing private profit-making parties or other project-supporting groups to have equal time with public or indigenous intervenors who are addressing legitimate matters of public health and safety or environmental integrity that are fundamental to the core mission of CNSC as a regulator. The time saved by eliminating such promotional testimony can be used to extend the time available for other presenters to make their interventions, or to provide closing argumants near the end of the proceedings as would be permitted in a judicial setting.

June 30, 2025 Posted by | Canada, safety | Leave a comment

Netanyahu Says It’s Antisemitic For Israeli Soldiers To Describe Their Own Atrocities

Caitlin Johnstone, Jun 28, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/netanyahu-says-its-antisemitic-for?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=167017991&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Sometimes I’ll write a headline that looks odd on its face, but then I’ll lay out facts and arguments which allow the reader to understand the validity of the claim by the end of the essay. This is not one of those times.

This headline is just me saying the thing that happened. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz are publicly denouncing a report from an Israeli newspaper quoting Israeli soldiers who describe atrocities they were ordered to commit in the Israeli military, accusing the report of “blood libels”.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has published an article titled “‘It’s a Killing Field’: IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid”, subtitled “IDF officers and soldiers told Haaretz they were ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near food distribution sites in Gaza, even when no threat was present. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, prompting the military prosecution to call for a review into possible war crimes.”

One Israeli soldier attests that civilians seeking aid are “treated like a hostile force — no crowd-control measures, no tear gas — just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars.”

“We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there’s no danger to the forces,” the soldier says, adding, “I’m not aware of a single instance of return fire. There’s no enemy, no weapons.”

IDF sources tell Haaretz that Gaza has become “a place with its own set of rules” where they are interacting with civilians with whom “your only means of interaction is opening fire”. Deadly military weapons are used as crowd control to steer the starving populace wherever it’s determined they’re supposed to be, routinely killing desperate aid seekers.

Another soldier describes being instructed to fire artillery shells at a crowd to keep them at a distance, saying, “Every time we fire, there are casualties and deaths, and when someone asks why a shell is necessary, there’s never a good answer. Sometimes, merely asking the question annoys the commanders.”

In quote after quote after quote we read Israeli soldiers describing atrocities they were ordered to commit which they knew were wrong. I guess Israel’s PR machine never counted on some of the soldiers they sent in to perpetrate the Gaza holocaust having an actual conscience.

A joint statement from Netanyahu and Katz denounced the report, accusing Haaretz of publishing “blood libels”.

“The State of Israel absolutely rejects the contemptible blood libels that have been published in the Ha’aretz newspaper, according to which ‘IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid.’ These are malicious falsehoods designed to defame the IDF, the most moral military in the world,” the statement reads.

“Blood libel” refers to the way medieval Europeans used to falsely accuse Jews of murdering Christian children in blood sacrifices — an early form of atrocity propaganda used to justify the persecution of Jews.

So again, just to be absolutely clear, the leader of the Israeli government is claiming that an Israeli newspaper quoting Israeli soldiers describing their own atrocities is antisemitic. And that mountains of testimony from inside the IDF is “designed to defame the IDF, the most moral military in the world.”

What can I even say about that here? It speaks for itself. I have nothing to add.

The more exposed Israel’s criminality becomes, the more absurd the arguments made in its defense are getting.

June 29, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel | Leave a comment

How Iran could build a bomb in secret – despite Trump’s $30bn offer

Iran enters ‘era of nuclear ambiguity’ with its capabilities ‘hidden and unverifiable’

Radina Gigova, 27 June 25, https://inews.co.uk/news/world/how-iran-build-bomb-secret-despite-trumps-30bn-offer-3775501

Despite US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, the Trump administration is reportedly prepared to offer Tehran financial incentives to strike a deal over its nuclear programme.

Sources familiar with current plans told CNN that Washington could offer investment in a civilian energy worth up to $30bn (£21.9bn) if the regime is willing to abandon uranium enrichment and adopt transparency measures, as well as sanctions relief.

But Iran has signaled that it intends to rebuild the programme after acknowledging heavy damage by US strikes, and it could do so in secret after passing a law to suspend co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which would block inspections on its nuclear sites and pave the way to withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

How far Iran has progressed towards nuclear weapons, and what steps it could take next, could now be hidden from view, experts say.

“The truth is, no one really knows – and that’s exactly the problem,” said Sina Toossi, an Iran specialist and senior fellow at the Centre for International Policy, a Washington DC think-tank.

“Iran is entering an era of nuclear ambiguity, where its capabilities are deliberately hidden and unverifiable,” he said.

The ambiguity has been heightened after President Donald Trump said he would consider bombing Iran again.

Trump said he had spared Khamanei’s life during the original raids. US officials told the Reuters news agency on June 15 that Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to kill the supreme leader.

“His Country was decimated, his three evil Nuclear Sites were OBLITERATED, and I knew EXACTLY where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces, by far the Greatest and Most Powerful in the World, terminate his life,” Trump said in a social media post.

“I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH,” he said.

Iran’s decision to suspend IAEA co-operation just two days after a ceasefire “marks a turning point in the decades-long nuclear dispute”, and is “a strategic setback for both the United States and Israel”, Toossi added.

Iran retains nuclear capabilities

Donald Trump claimed last Saturday that US “bunker-buster” bombs had thoroughly destroyed Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, including sites at Natanz and Fordo – the latter located deep underground – and a storage site in Isfahan.

“The strikes were a spectacular military success,” the US President declared, adding that Iran’s core enrichment infrastructure had been “completely and totally obliterated”.

Iranian officials, for their part, continue to deny any intention of developing a nuclear bomb.

But experts caution that Iran retains the potential to weaponise.

“Yes, Iran retains the technical capability and infrastructure to eventually build a nuclear bomb behind the scenes, despite the recent Israeli and US strikes,” said Dr Andreas Krieg, senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, Royal College of Defence Studies and fellow at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies.

The strikes caused substantial damage to critical nuclear facilities, including the enrichment and conversion sites at Natanz, Fordo, and Esfahan, according to US officials. However, intelligence reports and satellite imagery indicate that Iran likely relocated a large portion of its enriched uranium stockpile – and possibly even advanced centrifuges – to secret locations ahead of the attacks.

“This preserved the most critical elements of its breakout capability. Moreover, Iran’s knowledge base – its cadre of nuclear scientists and engineers – is intact. Human capital, unlike physical infrastructure, is difficult to eliminate and can reconstitute programmes even after significant setbacks,” said Dr Krieg.

Krieg noted that the IAEA has acknowledged that although inspections at declared sites have been hindered, there is only limited visibility into any potential undisclosed or secret facilities.

“This opens the possibility of a clandestine parallel programme – especially given that Iran has previously experimented with such pathways during the AMAD programme in the early 2000s,” he said, referring to an alleged secret Iranian nuclear weapons development project believed to have been active at the start of the century.

“Therefore, while recent military operations may have delayed Iran’s ability to assemble a bomb, they have not eliminated the potential,” he said.

“If Iran were to exit the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or reduce co-operation with the IAEA, concerns about a hidden weapons programme would intensify. In the absence of a durable diplomatic solution, Iran’s latent capability remains a central strategic risk in the region.”

Dr Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher and nuclear specialist at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, said the US and Israel could struggle to keep track of a hidden programme.

“It would be very difficult without IAEA access,” he said. “Look at North Korea – and North Korea wasn’t really making a special effort to hide facilities underground.”

A clandestine “breakout” would prioritise storage of any remaining highly enriched uranium, he added, which could potentially be further enriched to weapons-grade at an unknown facility.

Basis of a deal may already exist

Krieg believes “it is imperative that the Trump administration, through mediators like Qatar, is transforming this current momentum of the ceasefire into a sustainable and mutually acceptable nuclear deal, including enrichment constraints and effective oversight mechanisms”.

Uranium is the central element in question, and according to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, no other country has as much enriched uranium at this level as Iran does without also engaging in a nuclear weapons programme.

John Erath, senior policy director at the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, agrees that Iran may have the capability to build a nuclear weapon and that negotiating a new agreement, similar to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal reached in 2015 and abandoned by Trump in 2018 – could be the basis of a new deal.

“We have an example of an arrangement that provided confidence that closed off the path to nuclear weapons for Iran,” he said, referring to the JCPOA, “and so, if I were negotiating a new arrangement, I would use that as a starting point but I would have something that would not have an expiration date.”

“If you want to demonstrate that you do not have nuclear weapons, be completely transparent, be completely open, and they were not that,” Erath claimed, referring to the Iranian government. “They were doing things that they wanted to keep hidden, that they wanted to keep in secret, that were only things that you could do if you were considering a nuclear weapons programme.”

Iranian officials have indicated reluctance to re-enter talks after the US and Israeli attacks, citing a lack of trust, although Tehran’s ambassador to the UN left the door open to a regional nuclear consortium involving Gulf states – a previous proposal floated by the US.

The 12-day war has “certainly put the possibility of further negotiations under serious threat”, Erath said. “[But that’s] what happened, and we have to live with the consequences.”

June 29, 2025 Posted by | Iran, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

“Midnight Hammer” – a Fordow’s Bunker Buster or just Busted [i]

The reality is that the location of Iran’s 60% enriched uranium, along with key components of the program, is known only to a select few within Iran. Moreover, there are underground facilities believed to be even deeper than those at Natanz or Fordow — capable of continuing enrichment activities beyond the reach of current conventional weapons.

In short, the nuclear game is far from over.

The USA bombing the Iranian Nuclear facilities – Aftermath

– EXCELLENT ILLUSTRATIONS on original

Mike Mihajlovic, Jun 28, 2025, Black Mountain Analysis

The United States has conducted a series of airstrikes targeting key Iranian nuclear facilities – specifically, three high-value sites, with at least three B-2 Spirit bombers as well as a salvo of Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from submarines. In total, 14 GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) ( 12 for Fordow and 2 for Natanz) were deployed, along with 30 cruise missiles.

According to President Trump, who often portrays himself as a strongman unafraid to use force, the operation was extremely successful and all goals achieved, meaning the Iranian nuclear program went up in ashes. However, beneath the rhetoric and posturing, serious doubts remain about whether such strikes could meaningfully degrade Iran’s nuclear capabilities, especially when it comes to deeply embedded sites like Fordow. cspsbilities

At best, this could amount to little more than strategic theater, a carefully orchestrated display of power aimed at sending a political message rather than achieving lasting military results. In effect, the U.S. may have executed a strike based on an Israeli wish list: using bombs to project strength while avoiding actions that could trigger broader conflict.

For neoconservatives and proponents of an aggressive foreign policy, such a scenario would be hailed as a success—proof that decisive military action can shape geopolitical outcomes. Yet, Iran, a nation known for its strategic patience and resilience, chose to respond publicly in a controlled manner, targeting the US bases in Qatar. What will happen next is that they quietly assess the damage, reinforce their underground infrastructure, and continue their nuclear work beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional weapons.

The world may be led to believe that the “threat” has been neutralized, for now. But history suggests that such illusions rarely last. Eventually, the same concerns will resurface, bringing the crisis back into the global spotlight.

“The roaring mountain just gave birth to a mouse.”

In the case of a high-profile strike, such as the one on Fordow, the symbolic value often overshadows the physical outcome. A site as hardened and deeply buried as Fordow—originally constructed within a mountain to withstand conventional attacks. It can’t be easily neutralized even with specialized munitions like the MOP or a direct hit from a hypersonic ballistic missile.

Yet, even then, the effectiveness depends on:

  • Intelligence accuracy: Was the target still active?
  • Timing: Was the infrastructure recently evacuated or relocated?
  • Munition capability: Did the weapon used have sufficient penetration depth and explosive yield?

If the facility was decommissioned, emptied, or redundant, then the operation becomes more about message than material damage, a geopolitical performance aimed at deterring adversaries and reassuring allies.

Optical Effect Over Outcome

Such events often produce more theater than transformation. The media cycle amplifies the action, leaders issue statements of resolve, flags are waved, and bombs and missiles are launched – but the real question remains: What was actually destroyed?

This is where the gap between perception and reality widens. If core infrastructure remains intact or the targeted regime adapts quickly, the long-term strategic balance may not shift significantly. In this light, the operation resembles a symbolic punctuation mark in an ongoing diplomatic struggle rather than a decisive blow.

While political rhetoric and military parades dominate headlines, financial markets often act as the first honest arbiter of whether a crisis has real economic consequences, including:


  • A spike in oil prices could signal concerns over regional stability.
  • Currency fluctuations could reflect investor confidence (or lack thereof) in involved nations.
  • Defense stocks may rise on expectations of increased military spending.

Markets don’t care about slogans or intercepted missiles shown in shaky phone videos; rather, they react to risk, uncertainty, and real shifts in power dynamics. So far, as the punches were exchanged, the market is not reacting “violently”.

The Depth

How deep is Fordow?

Open sources provide at least three distinct estimates for the depth of the Fordow facility: approximately 60–90 meters, 80–100 meters, and even up to 500–800 meters. These discrepancies arise from differences in measurement methodologies, limitations of satellite imagery, and deliberate information obfuscation by the Iranian government. Until engineering plans are leaked or the IAEA gains direct access to the site for inspection, the precise depth of Fordow remains uncertain.

Still, it is worth examining why Iran might engineer such a deeply buried facility, possibly extending toward the half-kilometer mark, and why that possibility alarms the Pentagon more than it does Israel.

The 60–90 Meter Estimate:
Outlets such as Deutsche Welle, Economic Times, and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) estimate Fordow’s depth based on the thickness of the mountain rock layer above the main halls. In practical terms, this reflects the vertical cover, like measuring the height of “floor-1” from the surface. Their estimates place the depth at 60–90 meters.

The 80–100 Meter Estimate:
Moneycontrol cites a slightly deeper figure, likely accounting for a broader interpretation of structural depth rather than just the overhead rock.

The ~100 Meter Estimate via Satellite DEM:
Bloomberg reportedly used digital elevation models (DEMs) from commercial satellite imagery (Planet Labs and Maxar) to measure the distance from the entrance tunnel’s opening to the presumed facility roof. This method places Fordow around 100 meters deep. However, it should be noted that small angular errors, such as a ±3° deviation in tunnel slope, can introduce measurement discrepancies of dozens of meters. Additionally, some sources introduce further variance when rounding feet to meters.

Given these limitations, depth estimates are best treated as approximations unless corroborated by direct data……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Conclusion

Israel, acting without direct U.S. involvement, does not possess the necessary means to guarantee the destruction of the Fordow facility, even if its depth is “only” around 90 meters. While Israel has advanced airpower and precision munitions, it lacks the deep-penetration capability required to reach and neutralize such hardened underground infrastructure.

By contrast, the United States is undoubtedly capable of achieving a “mission kill”—disabling the site by targeting entrances, ventilation systems, and power nodes. However, a “layout kill” (the complete structural destruction of the underground halls) can only be reliably achieved if the facility is no deeper than approximately 35-40 m. Beyond that depth, even the GBU-57 MOP’s effectiveness is significantly reduced by the geological protection offered by dense rock formations.

So, how does the MOP manufacturer claim penetration of 60 m of concrete?

The U.S. spent considerable time and resources developing the MOP. Testing was conducted not far from the site where the first nuclear bomb test was previously carried out.

I am not aware of the Pentagon publicly sharing extensive results of these tests, but it is reasonable to believe that the intention was to demonstrate the MOP’s ability to penetrate to a depth comparable to the estimated depths of key Iranian nuclear sites, as well as underground facilities in North Korea and China.

It is reasonable to assume that U.S. assessments of destruction are based not only on classified intelligence but also on rudimentary analysis of test results shown in publicly released videos. However, the question remains: who should we believe?

The media landscape offers little clarity, with both pro-Trump and anti-Trump outlets presenting conflicting narratives. Analysts continue to assess the situation from multiple angles, and it may take time before a more definitive picture emerges.

Iranian sources contribute to the confusion, often contradicting themselves, with reports ranging from minimal damage to claims of major destruction. This inconsistency raises questions about intent: Is Iran attempting to downplay the impact of any strikes, or is it deliberately obscuring the true status of its nuclear infrastructure?

From a strategic perspective, there are clear incentives for each side to shape the narrative in their favor. By asserting total destruction, the U.S. can project military dominance and suggest the permanent end of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, at least for public consumption.

Meanwhile, Iranian claims of localized damage could serve as a deliberate distraction, shifting attention away from deeper, more resilient parts of its program. In this context, everyone has a stake in letting the dust settle, allowing ambiguity to work in their favor.

The reality is that the location of Iran’s 60% enriched uranium, along with key components of the program, is known only to a select few within Iran. Moreover, there are underground facilities believed to be even deeper than those at Natanz or Fordow — capable of continuing enrichment activities beyond the reach of current conventional weapons.

In short, the nuclear game is far from over. If anything, it has merely entered a new phase—one marked by strategic misdirection, information warfare, and long-term resilience planning.

The bottom line, summed up in one sentence about the current equation between the U.S., Israel, and Iran: “the wolves are fed, and all the cattle are accounted for”.

Edited by Piquet (EditPiquet@gmail.com)

References…. https://bmanalysis.substack.com/p/midnight-hammer-a-fordows-bunker?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1105422&post_id=166540747&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

June 29, 2025 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

What if Iran withdraws from the NPT?

Bulletin. By Mark Goodman, Mark Fitzpatrick | June 25, 2025

As the Iranian nuclear program saga plays out, one diplomatic action has been widely expected: Iran may declare its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).[1] Such a withdrawal would eliminate the legal prohibition on Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons and the requirement that Iran accept international safeguards monitoring. Over the past decade, Iran has threatened many times to play this card in retaliation for far less serious assaults.

NPT withdrawal is one of the few actions available to Iran that would have a significant effect. It would facilitate reconstitution of Iran’s bombed nuclear capabilities and enable Tehran to use them to develop nuclear weapons without international oversight.[2] Even with the loss of the 14 nuclear scientists and engineers assassinated by Israel this month, Iran surely retains the knowledge on how to build centrifuges and assemble them into cascades, plus the expertise acquired during the secret work to date on weapons development. Iran may also have taken steps to remove equipment and material from its enrichment facilities before the US attacks against three Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend.

Given these realities, Iran likely will be able to build and operate a secret underground enrichment plant capable of producing significant quantities of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU). This process will be sped if Iran was able to protect from Israeli bombing the over 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent uranium 235 content the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says Iran had as of May[3] and, until recently at least, stored in easily transportable cylinders. At a time when much of the world sees Iran as the victim of Israeli aggression, NPT withdrawal could be accomplished with less political blowback than if it were employed in response to economic sanctions.

Iran’s adversaries would see NPT withdrawal as tantamount to a declaration of nuclear weapons intent. There is no such legal connection, however, and the logical case is not airtight. It is conceivable that Iran could withdraw from the treaty and maintain a policy of nuclear hedging, even as it reconstituted its enrichment program in secret. A decision to actually build a nuclear weapon could be made down the road when the capabilities are again in place. Invoking the NPT’s withdrawal clause in the near term would risk military escalation with few immediate benefits, though ending IAEA inspections would reduce the transparency and vulnerability of a reconstituted nuclear program.

Iran’s NPT status. Iran signed the NPT in 1968 and became one of its original parties when the treaty entered into force in 1970. As a non-nuclear-weapon state, Iran is prohibited from acquiring nuclear weapons and from seeking or receiving assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. As an NPT party, Iran is also required to accept IAEA safeguards—international monitoring and inspections—on all its peaceful nuclear activities. To that end, Iran concluded a comprehensive safeguards agreement with the IAEA in 1974…………………………………………………………………………………….

Implications of withdrawal. Article X of the NPT allows withdrawal from the treaty if a party “decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country.” To do so, it must give three months’ advance notice to all other NPT Parties and to the UN Security Council, including a statement of those “extraordinary events.” After those three months, the obligations not to acquire nuclear weapons and to accept safeguards would cease.

…………………………………………………………………Some NPT parties have never accepted North Korea’s withdrawal as valid in meeting the requirements of Article X, questioning whether its notification cited “extraordinary events” that were “related to the subject matter of the [NPT].”[13]

In Iran’s case, such questions are unlikely to be raised, since the “extraordinary events” are obvious.

…………………………………………………………… There is little prospect of effective multilateral responses to an Iranian withdrawal notification, aside from toothless requests for Iran to reconsider its decisions.  Such responses would require consensus at least among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

……………………………………………….There is little prospect of effective multilateral responses to an Iranian withdrawal notification, aside from toothless requests for Iran to reconsider its decisions.  Such responses would require consensus at least among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

……………………………….. The NPT-based nonproliferation regime has often worked best by slowing developments and giving countries time and incentives to reconsider fateful decisions. In Iran’s case, Israel’s war of choice is likely to have the opposite effect of speeding up a step off the cliff. If Iran announces formal withdrawal from the NPT, other members should do whatever they can during the three months’ notification period to persuade it not to follow through.
https://thebulletin.org/2025/06/what-if-iran-withdraws-from-the-npt/

June 29, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

British billpayers saved £300m through energy flexibility in 2024, figures show

Savings were driven by lower contributions to infrastructure costs, reduced connection charges and the increased use of low-carbon energy sources.

Rebecca Speare-Cole, Independent 26th June 2025

.Many customers reduced their bills by changing the time or
day that they used electricity. British billpayers saved more than £300
million by switching the time at which they turned on their washing
machines or ovens, according to figures released by the industry body for
network operators.

The data shows households and businesses reduced their
bills by changing the time or day they used electricity – such as by
cooking or washing earlier or later in the day, or setting electric cars to
charge at specific times. In the past when most of the UK’s electricity
generators were fossil-fuel power plants, supply of electricity adapted to
demand.

Today as the wind and the sun influence when renewables are being
produced, incentivising users to adapt their demand to when there is a lot
of supply can help take pressure off the grid. Flexibility can also be a
valuable tool to optimise capacity while longer-term infrastructure
upgrades are planned and delivered.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/british-ofgem-mps-b2777498.html

 Independent 26th June 2025

June 29, 2025 Posted by | ENERGY, UK | Leave a comment

‘It looks more likely with each day we burn fossil fuels’: polar scientist on Antarctic tipping points

  Despite working on polar science for the British Antarctic Survey for 20 years, Louise Sime finds the magnitude of potential sea-level rise hard to comprehend. Up until 2016, the sea ice
in Antarctica seemed relatively stable. Then everything started to change.
At first, the decline was mostly in line with climate models.

But suddenly, in 2023, there was an enormous drop. About 2.5 million sq km of Antarctic
sea ice went missing relative to the average before 2023. The anomaly was
of such a magnitude that it’s quite hard for scientists to know what to
make of it. It has been described as a five sigma event.

The potential for Antarctica to increase global sea levels is scarier than for Greenland.
Right now, they’re both contributing similar amounts to sea-level rise,
but in future, it could be Greenland goes up a bit and then Antarctica goes
up catastrophically. Greenland has the potential to raise sea levels by
five or six metres, but we don’t expect this will come in the form of an
absolutely catastrophic, abrupt loss. Most of the ice in Greenland is not
below sea level so we can see what is happening and we expect it will melt
in a linear fashion.

By contrast, Antarctica has 80 metres of potential
sea-level rise. We don’t expect all of that, but it is harder to know
exactly what is happening.

 Guardian 27th June 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2025/jun/27/tipping-points-antarctica-arctic-sea-ice-polar-scientist

June 29, 2025 Posted by | ANTARCTICA, climate change | Leave a comment

The president who talks like a child

28 June 2025 Roswell, https://theaimn.net/the-president-who-talks-like-a-child/

Watching President Trump respond to questions is like watching a child give a report on a book they didn’t read. He rambles, repeats himself, and jumps from topic to topic with little connection to the original question. Ask about the economy, and you might get a story about how everyone says he’s done more than Lincoln. Ask about foreign policy, and he’s suddenly reminiscing about crowd sizes or a golf course he owns.

It’s cringeworthy – not just because it’s embarrassing to witness, but because it’s dangerous. The world sees it. Allies shake their heads; adversaries take notes. His speech patterns aren’t just odd – they reveal a mind that struggles with depth, nuance, or even basic coherence.

He often sounds like someone who needs constant validation, like a child needing applause. Every sentence is laced with “the best,” “nobody knew,” or “a lot of people are saying.” But the substance? Missing in action.

What’s even more concerning is that this isn’t new. His speaking style has always raised eyebrows, but in his second term, it seems to have become even more unhinged. When asked a direct question – about inflation, war, or national security – he responds with something entirely unrelated. He pivots to grievances, boasts about his supposed achievements, or launches into a tirade about the media. It’s not just deflection. It’s a fundamental inability to engage with the question at hand.

This is not a partisan complaint. It’s not about policy. It’s about the basics of leadership: coherence, focus, responsibility. A functioning adult in the Oval Office should be able to answer a question without wandering into fantasy, nostalgia, or conspiracy. Trump rarely does.

Supporters (both MAGAs and media) might claim it’s part of his charm – that he’s just speaking off the cuff, unscripted. But there’s a difference between authenticity and incoherence. When every answer sounds like a poorly rehearsed rally speech, it’s not refreshing – it’s exhausting.

Even his defenders have learned to lower the bar. “That’s just Trump being Trump,” they shrug, as if we should expect the most powerful man in the world to behave like a distracted child. If this were a reality show, it might be entertaining. But it’s not. It’s the presidency. And the stakes are real.

What does it say about America when its president communicates like a confused child? When complexity is replaced with slogans, when questions are treated as insults, and when leadership is reduced to soundbites?

A president doesn’t need to be a poet or a scholar. But they do need to be able to think, listen, and respond like an adult. On that front, Trump continues to fail – loudly.

June 29, 2025 Posted by | PERSONAL STORIES, USA | Leave a comment

Greenham Common women urge new generation to ‘rise up’ against nuclear threat

Those who set up protest camp in 1980s hope its spirit can be revived to oppose UK’s plan to buy nuclear-carrying jets

Alexandra Topping, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/27/greenham-common-women-urge-new-generation-rise-up-nuclear-threat

In August 1981, 36 people, mainly women, walked from Wales to RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire to protest against the storing of US cruise missiles in the UK. They were alarmed about the imminent threat the weapons posed for themselves and for their children, they later said.

More than 40 years on, the prospect of American nuclear weapons stationed on British soil has returned with urgent focus. And for some of the women who were at the Greenham Common women’s peace camp, it is time for dissenting UK citizens to rise up again.

In the wake of the UK government’s announcement this week that it plans to significantly expand its nuclear arsenal by buying a squadron of American fighter jets capable of carrying US tactical warheads, key figures at Greenham hope a new generation of campaigners will take up the baton.

Ann Pettitt, now 78, devised the original idea for a march that led to the formation of the camp. At its height, more than 70,000 women were there and it became the biggest female-led protest since women’s suffrage. It was, as Pettitt says, “actually successful” in managing to hugely raise awareness of the presence of US nuclear warheads in the UK – the last of which left RAF Lakenheath in 2008. The camp went on after the Greenham Common missiles had gone in 1991 and the base was closed in 1992. The remaining campaigners left Greenham Common after exactly 19 years.

Pettitt said this week’s news had left her “disillusioned” but she was hopeful that a younger generation would protest. “It certainly calls for protest, because it’s so stupid,” she said. “Nuclear weapons are like the emperor’s new clothes, they can’t be used and if they are they backfire because of radiation spreads and they target civilians. We should simply not have them.”

The decision to buy 12 F-35A jets, which are capable of carrying conventional arms and also the US B61-12 gravity bomb, a variant of which has more than three times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb, has energised the anti-nuclear movement, said Sophie Bolt, the general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

The group has organised a protest on Saturday at RAF Marham in Norfolk, and Bolt said Greenham women – many of whom are in their 70s – still form the “backbone” of the resistance.

“These are women who have got a huge history and totally understand how high the stakes are,” she said. “Their determination, creativity and strategic thinking is just really incredible. They are a massive inspiration and so enriching to the campaign.”

One of those women, Angie Zelter, 74, went on to found the civil disobedience campaign Snowball and the anti-nuclear weapons group Trident Ploughshares. In 2019, aged 68, she was found guilty of a minor public order offence for protesting with Extinction Rebellion. “We had a saying, ‘carry Greenham home’, and from the moment I was there that’s what I’ve done,” she said.

But Zelter said it was also time for a new generation of Greenham women. “I think we need a new women’s movement, but I think actually we need everybody to rise up, quite frankly. All we can do as elders is support younger activists and give advice, solidarity and support.”

There was no time for squabbles in despondency, she added. “I hope it is a moment of mass realisation when we come together now and say, look, enough is enough … It is a moment of hope that people will realise that they’ve got to come together and protest loud and clearly.”

Pettitt said those not ready to man the barricades could still join the struggle – by the simple act of writing a letter to MPs to protest about the “outrageous” decision to buy the jets without parliamentary debate. “The way to get it discussed in parliament is to write your MP a letter,” she said. “Parliament is still very archaic … the humble letter is part of that kind of archaic functioning that is surprisingly effective.”

Another original walker, Sue Lent, now 73 and a councillor on Cardiff council, said the general public had lost sight of the anti-nuclear movement, but she hoped that a silver lining from the news this week was that younger and older activists would start “joining the dots”.

“1981 is a long time ago,” she said. “But hopefully the spirit still lives on and can be revived.”

June 28, 2025 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK, Women | Leave a comment

UK schools and offices not equipped for impact of global heating, report warns

 The UK’s schools, care homes and offices are not equipped for the
effects of global heating and face lengthy heatwaves even in optimistic
scenarios, according to a groundbreaking report that calls for climate
resilience to be declared a national emergency.

The report by the UK Green
Building Council also predicts that towns including Peterborough and
Fairbourne will be uninhabitable by the end of the century because of
flooding.

Produced over two years, the roadmap sets out a blueprint for
action and warns that without the adaptation of millions of buildings,
there will be increased injury, health impacts, deaths and untold economic
damage. Five key threats are examined by the roadmap: overheating,
wildfires, flooding, drought and storms. Detailed thermodynamic modelling
on school buildings reveals that schools across London and the south-east
will face 10 weeks of extreme heat a year – defined as 28C and above –
in a low-warming scenario, defined as 2C above preindustrial levels. The
world is on track for 2.7C of heating.

 Guardian 26th June 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/26/uk-care-homes-schools-and-offices-not-equipped-to-deal-with-global-heating

June 28, 2025 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

Revealed: 585 cracks in Torness nuclear reactor

Rob Edwards,  The Ferret 26th June 2025

The estimated number of cracks in the graphite core of a nuclear reactor at Torness in East Lothian has risen to 585 – the highest so far – prompting fears of a nuclear “meltdown” and calls for its early closure.

In documents released under freedom of information law, the UK Government’s safety watchdog, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), said that the state of the graphite core posed a “significant challenge” to plans to keep Torness and other ageing nuclear stations running over the next five years.

In November 2024 ONR advised the French operator, EDF Energy, to “pause for thought” before deciding to extend the lives of Torness and other nuclear stations in England. Less than a week later EDF decided to extend the life of Torness from 2028 to 2030.

Campaigners accused EDF of putting profits before safety, and warned that keeping “clapped out reactors” running would endanger the public. It was “time for these ageing reactors to be closed”, they said.

EDF, however, insisted that nuclear safety was its “overriding priority” and that it would not consider operating Torness unless it was “confident it was safe”. Planned closure dates for reactors were “kept under review”, it said. 

ONR said that cracking was “a well known phenomenon”, and that the number of cracks was “acceptable”. It stressed that the risks were “tolerable”, and that it would not allow any nuclear plant to operate “unless we are satisfied that it is safe.”

The Ferret previously reported that 46 cracks had been detected in April 2024 in the graphite bricks that surround the highly radioactive uranium fuel powering one of the two reactors at Torness. The first three cracks were found in February 2022. 

But only a small proportion of the bricks were actually inspected, and no estimate has previously been given for the total number of cracks across the core. Following a freedom of information request by The Ferret, ONR has now disclosed that 59 cracks were found in a similarly limited inspection in March 2025.

In its response, ONR said that this “equated to around 585 cracks when forecast across the central area of the core where cracking is expected”. The high number of cracks did not “challenge safety margins” at Torness, it said.

EDF confirmed that it had found 59 cracks in the graphite bricks it sampled in March 2025. This suggested that in total around a third of the central part of the core had cracking, equivalent to about 585 cracks, it said.

ONR also revealed that another inspection in May 2025 discovered the first crack in the second reactor at Torness. It started generating electricity later than the first reactor.

Torness nuclear power station, near Dunbar, was officially opened in May 1989 by the then Conservative prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. The site had been the target of anti-nuclear protests since 1978.

Scotland’s other nuclear power station at Hunterston in North Ayrshire was closed down in January 2022, more than a year earlier than planned. This followed the discovery of an estimated 586 cracks in its two reactors.

‘Pause for thought’ on Torness

ONR also released to The Ferret the results of its assessment of EDF’s 2024 review of extending the lives of Torness, and other advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs) at Heysham, near Lancaster, and Hartlepool, on the north east coast of England. 

Three scenarios were reviewed. One assumed Torness closed as planned in 2028, a second assumed its operation was extended to 2030, and a third envisaged keeping it going until 2032.

ONR concluded that because of cracking and other issues, “graphite represents one of EDF’s significant challenges for lifetime extension”. It also highlighted a series of other potential ageing problems with AGRs, including risks from leaking boilers, failing equipment, and corrosion.

“It is possible that safe operation of certain components might be undermined due to life extension,” ONR said. There were a number of issues which had not been fully covered in EDF’s review, it argued.

“Although these are not considered a blocker to potential life extensions, ONR expects EDF to manage and resolve these issues as part of its lifetime management of the AGRs,” ONR added.

“Moreover, coupled with the aspects identified by EDF in the submissions, this should give EDF pause for thought when reaching a decision on AGR lifetime extensions.”

ONR wrote to EDF with its advice on 27 November 2024. On 3 December – less than a week later – EDF decided to extend the life of Torness from 2028 to 2030, and to extend the lives of its English AGR stations.

Another document released by ONR was a June 2024 assessment of the “structural integrity” of the graphite core of the more badly cracked reactor at Torness. The majority of the 35-page document was redacted “for the purposes of safeguarding national security”.

The ONR assessment found “shortfalls” in the crack predictions made by EDF, and concluded that this “raises a question” over the company’s “ability to predict the future core state”. At the time ONR nevertheless gave EDF permission to keep running Torness on the grounds that the risks were “tolerable”.

The nuclear critic and consultant, Peter Roche, argued that there was “a significant design difference” which could make cracking at Torness worse than at Hunterston. “Graphite debris in the fuel channels or misshapen bricks could compromise the operator’s ability to keep the fuel cool and in a worst case lead to a meltdown,” he claimed.

This risked releasing radioactivity into the environment. “Clearly it’s time for these ageing reactors to be closed,” Roche said. “Keeping them open would be gambling with public safety.” 

The veteran environmental campaigner, Dr Richard Dixon, accused EDF of trying to cover the costs of building new nuclear plants. “It cannot be a coincidence that running Torness for an extra two years would ease EDF’s major financial woes caused by the massive delays to its reactor projects elsewhere,” he said

“EDF’s inability to complete reactor projects anything remotely like on time or on budget should not mean that the public in Scotland face the extra risk of running clapped out reactors ever further past their sell-by date.”

The Scottish Greens described the Torness cracks as “potentially dangerous”. It was “deeply concerning” that EDF was planning to keep the station going until 2030, according to the party’s energy spokesperson and retiring co-leader, Patrick Harvie MSP.  

“It appears that the profits of a giant energy company are being put ahead of safety here in Scotland,” he told The Ferret. EDF is owned by the French government, and earnt £15.6bn (€18.3bn) before interest and taxes in 2024…………………………………………………………..
https://theferret.scot/nuclear-reactor-torness-585-cracks/

June 28, 2025 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Torness ideal for small modular nuclear reactor, says Britain Remade.

a recent analysis of the technology in the United States said that SMR are projected
to be the most expensive of all electricity technologies per KW. The report
by management consultancy firm ICF found that they would cost more than any
other source of electricity, including battery energy storage systems,
solar, wind, combustion turbines and gas.

 A UK campaign for accelerated infrastructure-building has said that
Torness is “a prime site” for the next generation of small nuclear
reactors. Britain Remade, a group co-founded by a former energy and climate
advisor to Boris Johnson, says Torness as an ideal target for small modular
reactors of the type the UK Government recently backed. ………………………………….

Britain Remade, which is strongly focussed on campaigning
for “nuclear power alongside the rapid roll-out of renewables” and
infrastructure-building to drive growth, hosted a public meeting in Dunbar
in April. The campaign also conducted a poll which found that half of the
SNP’s voters believe nuclear power should be part of Scotland’s mix of
clean energy generation.

But many in Scotland still maintain a strong objection to nuclear.

Pete Roche, who campaigned against Torness in the
1970s, founding the Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace, said:
“The last thing Scotland needs at Torness is more reactors, whether large
or small. Incidentally Rolls Royce’s so-called small reactors at 470MW are
only slightly smaller than Torness’s two 660MW reactors.”

Earlier this month, the UK Government announced its selection of Rolls-Royce SMR as the
preferred bidder “to develop small modular reactors, subject to final
government approvals and contract signature – marking a new golden age of
nuclear in the UK”. Dumitriu said: “SMRs are already being deployed in
Canada. The idea behind them is that because you build them in a factory
and 90% of the construction of them is done in a factory, you’re rolling
them off a production line and because of that you get all of the cost
reductions of economies of scale, of learning by doing and you’re able to
build them a lot cheaper than the current design.”

However a recent analysis of the technology in the United States said that SMR are projected
to be the most expensive of all electricity technologies per KW. The report
by management consultancy firm ICF found that they would cost more than any
other source of electricity, including battery energy storage systems,
solar, wind, combustion turbines and gas.

Campaigner Pete Roche said:
“There is no evidence that small modular reactors will be cheaper,
because almost none have ever been built. In fact it is beginning to look
like small reactors will be even more expensive than large reactors because
they won’t benefit from economies of scale.”

Energy Secretary Gillian Martin said: “Decommissioning Scotland’s nuclear sites will take
decades and will require the retention of a highly skilled workforce.
Meanwhile, the significant growth in renewables, storage hydrogen, carbon
capture and decommissioning are key opportunities for our future energy
workforce in Scotland – with independent scenarios from Ernst and Young
(EY), showing that with the right support, Scotland’s low carbon and
renewable energy sector could support nearly 80,000 jobs by 2050.“

 Herald 28th June 2025,
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25261384.torness-ideal-small-modular-reactor-says-britain-remade/

June 28, 2025 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | Leave a comment

As NATO Countries Pledge to Up Defense Spending, Will Food and Climate Security Have a Seat at the Table?

By Siena Cicarelli and Tom Ellison, https://climateandsecurity.org/2025/06/as-nato-countries-pledge-to-up-defense-spending-will-food-and-climate-security-have-a-seat-at-the-table/

This summer marks a critical juncture for European food and climate security. Before heading off on their summer holidays, leaders will attempt to navigate burgeoning crises in the Middle East, an unpredictable US government, growing defense needs, and an unstable global economy. 

Several key political decision points are unfolding this summer, starting with this week’s NATO Summit, where a number of member state leaders committed to a new defense and security spending target of 5 percent of GDP by 2035, which, if implemented by the target date, could entail roughly hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending. However, given that the text of the commitment changed from “all Allies” to just “Allies,” in the final hours of negotiations, commitments will likely vary by member state. Furthermore, given the current combination of budget deficits, national politics, and a collective shift towards “competitiveness,” the European Union risks falling prey to false dichotomies and short-termism, placing climate and food security priorities essential to sustainable security on the back burner in favor of “hard” security goals. While 1.5% GDP of the new spending target can come from non-defense resilience, infrastructure, and civil preparedness spending, food and climate security were not prominent at the NATO Summit.

There are some positive signs, however, that countries are considering climate resilience as a core part of their defense and security strategies. This includes an explicit climate security pledge in the recent EU-UK defense partnership announcement and reported plans from some NATO members, like Spain and Southern Mediterranean states, to use the 1.5% resilience carveout for disaster response and climate investments.

A key indicator of how Europe will prioritize and balance food security, climate resilience, and defense needs will be the next five-year EU budget, also known as the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and updates to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – the initial proposals for which are expected to be released in mid-July. The CAP is a complex structure of subsidies and schemes related to farming, environmental protection, and rural development that aims to keep European farmers competitive, enhance food security, and protect biodiversity. It remains the EU’s second-largest budgetary line item at €387/$450 billion in the current MFF period (roughly 25% of the EU budget). The formation of the MFF is notoriously opaque, but initial reporting suggests a limited commitment from national governments to additional expenditures and a strong desire from the largest net contributors to allocate more to joint procurement and defense spending. This raises doubts about whether the bloc’s food security ambitions are feasible, or if policies will be fractured across EU member states in a so-called “27-speed” system. 

While the topline goals of the CAP are relatively clear, implementation remains a perennial political challenge for the European Union. In 2024, farmers’ protests spread across Europe over concerns about fuel subsidy reductions, safety net cuts, and environmental regulations in the CAP. The protests at times featured misinformation, threats to political leaders, and property damage, and were exploited by right wing extremists and Russian propagandists to build influence and stoke division. This year, Commissioners have tried to reassure farmers that direct subsidies (which are €291/$338 billion, about three-quarters of the CAP budget) will likely remain protected in the next MFF, but concerns about cuts to rural development and national-level programs have already set top farming groups on edge.

More broadly, Europe cannot afford to ignore food and climate risks amid new defense spending obligations. Staple crops that underpin European food security and local agricultural economies are endangered in the coming decades, even with robust adaptation. In 2024, the European Environment Agency’s European Climate Risk Assessment rated risks from extreme weather disruptions to crop production and climate-driven food price spikes as rising from “substantial” to “critical” over the next two decades. Recent studies have showcased that agricultural vulnerability – and potential losses – are EU-wide. While the risks are severe in southern European states like Spain and Italy, they don’t stop there. The Benelux states, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, as well as southern regions of the Nordics, also face unusually hot and dry conditions. Drought alone currently drives over 50% of agricultural climate risk and is expected to contribute heavily to the EIB-estimated 42-66% increase in annual average crop losses (from EUR 17.4 billion to 24.8-28.9 billion annually) over the next 25 years. When incorporating other agricultural outputs, such as livestock or aquaculture, estimated annual losses reach EUR 40+ billion by 2050. These losses have cascading effects outside of the food and agricultural sector, straining supply chains and potentially boosting prices for consumers across the bloc. 

With climate change contributing to rising food, energy, and insurance prices, demands for military disaster relief, and overseas instability risks and migration, turning a blind eye to these risks could intensify a vicious cycle of affordability crises and nativist politics that already constrain Europe’s security investments. Under-resourced or disorderly approaches to these challenges would hinder Europe’s resilience and security, with climate and economic shocks to food exacerbating divisions that could precipitate another round of protests and even political shifts in upcoming elections, undermining European unity.

The Center for Climate and Security (CCS) will be watching for how key issues play out as these challenges come into focus this summer and over the coming years, including:


  • How does the EU balance its commitments to the CAP and the MFF with the budgetary demands of the new NATO target?
  • To what extent are any reforms or substantial changes to the CAP structure done in consultations with producers, consumers and other stakeholders navigating the green transition, to insulate against green backlash or disinformation?
  • What role can food and climate security investments play in the 1.5% of GDP portion of the NATO spending target that includes non-defense resilience, infrastructure, and civil preparedness?

June 28, 2025 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE | Leave a comment

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