Why Welsh speakers oppose Wylfa nuclear plant
Letter David Thomas: I was dismayed to see your article (Report, February
8), blithely dismissing the impact of the planned Wylfa Newydd nuclear
power station on Welsh-speaking communities. You parrot the view of the
nuclear industry that nothing should stand in the way of the bulldozers,
with little regard for the wider picture here in Wales.
The valid concerns
of Welsh-speaking communities are deemed illegitimate by the nuclear
industry, and Welsh speakers’ interests are portrayed as akin to those of
bats and newts — as unnecessary “blockers” to progress.
The ongoing survival of the Welsh language is nothing short of a miracle in the face of
the linguistic, economic and political hegemony of our English neighbour.
To dismiss linguistic and cultural concerns that the Wylfa Newydd plan
might entail is to dismiss the very existence of Wales as a linguistic and
cultural entity.
The Welsh government has committed to a target of having
1mn Welsh speakers by 2050. This plan has been ratified on repeated
occasions by the Welsh electorate, and surveys show that an overwhelming
majority of the Welsh population are well disposed to the language, even
among groups of non Welsh speakers.
We might also question why Ynys Môn
(Anglesey) is perceived as a suitable site for a new nuclear power plant.
Wales is already a net exporter of energy, yet Welsh consumers pay more for
electricity than the vast majority of their English counterparts.
Possibilities for renewables in the form of onshore and offshore wind and
tidal energy appear promising, yet attempts to pioneer tidal power in Wales
have been blocked by successive UK governments.
FT 12th Feb 2025
https://www.ft.com/content/3c9045c5-8cb4-4db3-bdf1-734b7cd789bf
NUCLEAR BRIBERY: Nuclear Waste Services funds Cumbrian community projects
More than 260 projects across Cumbria and Lincolnshire have received
financial support from Nuclear Waste Services (NWS). The community projects
have received millions of pounds worth of funding from NWS in the last
three years. The communities in which NWS operates have been supported by
funding that aims to benefit people and projects. Over the last three
years, more than £10 million has been awarded to over 260 initiatives
across Cumbria and Lincolnshire ranging from youth schemes, mental health
initiatives, and mountain rescue.
Carlisle News & Star 13th Feb 2025, https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/24931120.nuclear-waste-services-funds-cumbrian-community-projects/
The Coventry experiment: why were Indian women in Britain given radioactive food without their consent?
When details about a scientific study in the 1960s became public, there was shock, outrage and anxiety. But exactly what happened?
By Samira Shackle, Guardian, 11 Feb 25
In 2019, Shahnaz Akhter, a postdoctoral researcher at Warwick University, was chatting to her sister, who mentioned a documentary that had aired on Channel 4 in the mid-1990s. It was about human radiation experiments, including one that had taken place in 1969 in Coventry. As part of an experiment on iron absorption, 21 Indian women had been fed chapatis baked with radioactive isotopes, apparently without their consent.
Having grown up in Coventry’s tight-knit South Asian community, Akhter was shocked that she had never heard of the experiment. When she looked into it, she found an inquiry by the Coventry Health Authority in 1995 conducted soon after the documentary aired. The inquiry examined whether the experiment put the subjects’ health at risk and whether informed consent was obtained. But the only mention of the women’s perspectives was a single sentence: “At the public meeting, it was stated that two of the participants who had come forward had no recollection of giving informed consent.”
…………………………………… rather than putting out a public call for information, Akhter quietly asked around within her community for people who might know families that had been affected.
By chance, at about the same time, a historian and broadcaster, Dr Louise Raw, came across some old reporting about the radioactive chapatis – specifically, a 1995 story in India Today following up on the documentary, which jogged her memory of watching the film when it aired. Raw is interested in hidden histories and was immediately intrigued.
……………………………………………………….The story provoked major anxiety in Coventry. Though the study only involved 21 women, Owatemi was contacted by scores of people terrified that their mothers or grandmothers had been affected.
………………………………………Desperate for information, Kalbir – an articulate, assertive woman who sees herself as a fighter – tried to get access to her mother’s medical records, only to hit dead ends: the doctor’s surgery no longer existed and medical confidentiality still applied after death. Meanwhile, Akhter and Owatemi’s efforts were stalling too. The Medical Research Council (MRC), the public body that funds and coordinates research into human health in the UK, says it does not have any documentation relating to the study, not even a list of who was experimented on………………………………
The study took place more than 50 years ago, yet it still stirs up strong emotions, tapping into a host of broader anxieties about racial health inequalities and abuses by the medical establishment. After so many years have elapsed, sorting truth from panic is a complex task. What really happened in Coventry in 1969?
……………………………………………………..In the postwar period, doctors used radiation to treat everything from arthritis to ringworm. By the mid-1950s, it had become clear that exposure increases the chance of developing certain cancers and can cause infertility. The use of radiation was pared back, but medical researchers remained excited about the quick, precise experimentation it offered.
……………………………………..a new set of principles for ethical research on humans, known as the Nuremberg Code, had been introduced. The first of its 10 points is: “The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.” The code also sets out other principles: experiments should be for the good of society and carried out by qualified researchers, and the risk should never exceed the potential benefit. But at first the code didn’t have much effect on researchers in the UK and the US, who saw it as something that applied to evil war criminals, not high-minded doctors who wanted to further scientific knowledge. In 1964, the medical researcher Paul Beeson, who had been a professor of medicine at both Yale and Oxford, wrote that the Nuremberg Code was “a wonderful document to say why the war crimes were atrocities, but it’s not a very good guide to clinical investigation which is done with high motives”.
……………………………..There are countless other examples from the US, UK and Canada. A number of these involved radiation exposure: in the 1950s, pregnant women in London and Aberdeen were injected with radioactive iodine to test their thyroid function despite the fact that radiation exposure of any sort poses a risk to a foetus. In Massachusetts in the 1940s and 1950s, boys with learning difficulties at a residential school were fed radioactive oatmeal as part of an experiment to see how Quaker Oats were digested.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………. in Cardiff Elwood hired an Indian housewife to teach a group of Welsh women to make traditional chapatis. Using flour fortified with radioactive iron, they made 200 chapatis to freeze until needed. Meanwhile, Elwood looked for participants. He needed South Asian women who still ate a traditional diet. Eventually he settled on Coventry, where there was a community of migrants from the Punjab region of India. Elwood’s team enlisted a doctor’s surgery in Foleshill, the centre of Coventry’s South Asian community, to identify women who could take part.
………………………………………………………….Despite translation difficulties, and the possibility that the women did not understand what was happening, the study got under way. Every morning for four days, the women were asked to eat one of the irradiated chapatis, which were delivered on dry ice each morning. A few hours later, Tom Benjamin, a field worker on Elwood’s team, would return, visiting all 21 houses to check the women had eaten it and record what foods they’d had with it. Seventeen days later, the women were picked up and driven an hour and a half to Harwell Laboratory for testing,
…………………………………Kalbir finds it upsetting to imagine her mother there. “The terror these women must have gone through,” she said. “They were already struggling in England. Our homes were being attacked by racists, we would get abused on the street, and then the system does this to them.”
The study, published in 1970, found that iron was not absorbed any more effectively from chapatis and the fermented flour they use than from bread. No one informed the women about the results, and no one followed up to check whether the radiation exposure had impacted their health.
………………………………………………In the 1990s, MRC officials insisted that it would be a poor use of public money to do a follow-up study on the women since the level of radiation exposure was so low. But to people who already feel misled, such reassurances can feel like a repetition of the “doctor knows best” mentality. “I feel anger, frustration and massive anxiety,” Kalbir told me. “I’m desperate to get answers and justice.” As it has surfaced and resurfaced, the story of the radioactive chapatis has come to represent something more than itself. “These women had a hard time in England,” said Kalbir. “They didn’t understand the way research and the medical professions worked. They had a great deal of trust. This shouldn’t have happened.” https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/feb/11/the-coventry-experiment-why-were-indian-women-in-britain-given-radioactive-food-without-consent
‘Nothing prepared us for Sizewell C devastation’
Richard Daniel, Environment reporter, BBC East of England, 10 Feb 25
Groundwork for a new nuclear power station on the Suffolk coast is well under way, but the funding needed to build it has still not been agreed.
Sizewell C said it was confident a final investment decision on the station would be made this summer.
Meanwhile, the cost of its sister project, Hinkley Point C in Somerset, has risen to as high as £46bn.
Opponents have likened Sizewell C to the beleaguered HS2 rail project and said the government should pull out before it is too late.
So what is the state of play?
In east Suffolk, signs of development are hard to miss.
Thousands of trees have been felled, and a huge swathe of land stretching from the outskirts of Leiston to the coast have been cleared for a new construction compound and access road to the Sizewell C site.
Elsewhere, land is being dug up for a new link road off the A12, a new bypass around the villages of Stratford St Andrew and Farnham, and two park-and-ride sites at Wickham Market and Darsham.
The groundwork started a year ago.
The twin reactors would generate 3.2 GW of electricity, sufficient to power six million homes.
So far the UK government, which has an 85% stake in the project, has pledged £5.5bn towards development work.
Last month, EDF denied reports that the total cost of the project had risen to over £40bn, up from an estimated £20bn in 2018.
It is seeking investors and the government said a final investment decision would be made in June.
‘It’s all gone’
David Grant’s farm at Middleton, near Leiston, has been cut in two by the new Sizewell link road and an access road to the B1122.
He said he had lost 38 acres (15 hectares) of arable land.
Opponents of Sizewell C still argue the project should be scrapped before it is too late.
Alison Downes, from Stop Sizewell C, said: “The taxpayer is being forced to pay for what is basically a bet that this project is a good idea and should go ahead.
“The possibility that Sizewell C could go ahead at whatever price is just completely inconceivable.
“Every penny they spend on Sizewell C is a penny lost to cheaper, quicker renewable energy projects that could get us to net zero more quickly and address our climate crisis.”
“Nothing prepared us for the devastation caused,” he said.
“It’s all gone, dug out with machines completely ruthlessly and without any sympathy.
“I think this is HS2, but bigger, frankly.
“I’ve got friends who were involved in the HS2 cancellation and they haven’t even been able to repurchase their land. Luckily we have the option to repurchase if this doesn’t go ahead.”
‘Every penny they spend is a penny lost’
Opponents of Sizewell C still argue the project should be scrapped before it is too late.
Alison Downes, from Stop Sizewell C, said: “The taxpayer is being forced to pay for what is basically a bet that this project is a good idea and should go ahead.
“The possibility that Sizewell C could go ahead at whatever price is just completely inconceivable.
“Every penny they spend on Sizewell C is a penny lost to cheaper, quicker renewable energy projects that could get us to net zero more quickly and address our climate crisis.”…………………. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd9qwygd5j4o
Trump Promises Billions in Defense Cuts
State of the Union: Trump said that Elon Musk’s DOGE will audit the Pentagon and Department of Education.
Mason Letteau Stallings, Feb 9, 2025 more https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trump-promises-billions-in-defense-cuts/
Trump said that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency would soon lead an audit of the Pentagon and “find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse.”
The Department of Education will be another one of Musk’s targets, Trump said. “I’m going to tell him very soon, like maybe in 24 hours, to go check the Department of Education.”
Trump’s comments came during a pre-Super Bowl interview with Bret Baier of Fox News.
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, in a separate interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” offered that military shipbuilding should be an area of interest for DOGE. “There is plenty to look into in ship building, which is an absolute mess,” he said.
According to Waltz, the Pentagon suffers from widespread problems. “Everything seems to cost too much, take too long, and deliver too little to the soldiers,” he said, adding that “we do need business leaders to go in there and absolutely reform the Pentagon’s acquisition process.”
A New Military-Industrial Complex Arises
This year’s record defense budget of approximately $850 billion includes $143.2 billion for research and development and another $167.5 billion for the procurement of weaponry. That $311 billion, most of which will be funneled to those giant defense firms, exceeds the total amount spent on defense by every other country on Earth.
Now, however, a new force — Silicon Valley startup culture — has entered the fray, and the military-industrial complex equation is suddenly changing dramatically.
The Secret War Within the Pentagon
February 10, 2025 , By Michael Klare / TomDispatch
Last April, in a move generating scant media attention, the Air Force announced that it had chosen two little-known drone manufacturers — Anduril Industries of Costa Mesa, California, and General Atomics of San Diego — to build prototype versions of its proposed Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), a future unmanned plane intended to accompany piloted aircraft on high-risk combat missions. The lack of coverage was surprising, given that the Air Force expects to acquire at least 1,000 CCAs over the coming decade at around $30 million each, making this one of the Pentagon’s costliest new projects. But consider that the least of what the media failed to note. In winning the CCA contract, Anduril and General Atomics beat out three of the country’s largest and most powerful defense contractors — Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman — posing a severe threat to the continued dominance of the existing military-industrial complex, or MIC.
For decades, a handful of giant firms like those three have garnered the lion’s share of Pentagon arms contracts, producing the same planes, ships, and missiles year after year while generating huge profits for their owners. But an assortment of new firms, born in Silicon Valley or incorporating its disruptive ethos, have begun to challenge the older ones for access to lucrative Pentagon awards. In the process, something groundbreaking, though barely covered in the mainstream media, is underway: a new MIC is being born, one that potentially will have very different goals and profit-takers than the existing one. How the inevitable battles between the old and the new MICs play out can’t be foreseen, but count on one thing: they are sure to generate significant political turbulence in the years to come.
The very notion of a “military-industrial complex” linking giant defense contractors to powerful figures in Congress and the military was introduced on January 17, 1961, by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell address to Congress and the American people. In that Cold War moment, in response to powerful foreign threats, he noted that “we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.” Nevertheless, he added, using the phrase for the first time, “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Ever since, debate over the MIC’s accumulating power has roiled American politics. A number of politicians and prominent public figures have portrayed U.S. entry into a catastrophic series of foreign wars — in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere — as a consequence of that complex’s undue influence on policymaking. No such claims and complaints, however, have ever succeeded in loosening the MIC’s iron grip on Pentagon arms procurement. This year’s record defense budget of approximately $850 billion includes $143.2 billion for research and development and another $167.5 billion for the procurement of weaponry. That $311 billion, most of which will be funneled to those giant defense firms, exceeds the total amount spent on defense by every other country on Earth.
Over time, the competition for billion-dollar Pentagon contracts has led to a winnowing of the MIC ecosystem, resulting in the dominance of a few major industrial behemoths. In 2024, just five companies — Lockheed Martin (with $64.7 billion in defense revenues), RTX (formerly Raytheon, with $40.6 billion), Northrop Grumman ($35.2 billion), General Dynamics ($33.7 billion), and Boeing ($32.7 billion) — claimed the vast bulk of Pentagon contracts. (Anduril and General Atomics didn’t even appear on a list of the top 100 contract recipients.)
Typically, these companies are the lead, or “prime,” contractors for major weapons systems that the Pentagon keeps buying year after year. Lockheed Martin, for example, is the prime contractor for the Air Force’s top-priority F-35 stealth fighter (a plane that has often proved distinctly disappointing in operation); Northrop Grumman is building the B-21 stealth bomber; Boeing produces the F-15EX combat jet; and General Dynamics makes the Navy’s Los Angeles-class attack submarines. “Big-ticket” items like these are usually purchased in substantial numbers over many years, ensuring steady profits for their producers. When the initial buys of such systems seem to be nearing completion, their producers usually generate new or upgraded versions of the same weapons, while employing their powerful lobbying arms in Washington to convince Congress to fund the new designs.
Over the years, non-governmental organizations like the National Priorities Project and the Friends Committee on National Legislation have heroically tried to persuade lawmakers to resist the MIC’s lobbying efforts and reduce military spending, but without noticeable success. Now, however, a new force — Silicon Valley startup culture — has entered the fray, and the military-industrial complex equation is suddenly changing dramatically.
Along Came Anduril
Consider Anduril Industries, one of two under-the-radar companies that left three MIC heavyweights in the dust last April by winning the contract to build a prototype of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft. Anduril (named after the sword carried by Aragorn in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings) was founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey, a virtual-reality headset designer, with the goal of incorporating artificial intelligence into novel weapons systems. He was supported in that effort by prominent Silicon Valley investors, including Peter Thiel of the Founders Fund and the head of another defense-oriented startup, Palantir (a name also derived from The Lord of the Rings).
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Buttressed by such arguments, as well as the influence of key figures like Thiel, Anduril began to secure modest but strategic contracts from the military and the Department of Homeland Security.
……………………………………………………………………………… Anduril’s success in winning ever-larger Pentagon contracts has attracted the interest of wealthy investors looking for opportunities to profit from the expected growth of defense-oriented startups. ……………………………………………………………………..
The Replicator Initiative
Along with its success in attracting big defense contracts and capital infusions, Anduril has succeeded in convincing many senior Pentagon officials of the need to reform the department’s contracting operations so as to make more room for defense startups and tech firms. On August 28, 2023, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, then the department’s second-highest official, announced the inauguration of the “Replicator” initiative, designed to speed the delivery of advanced weaponry to the armed forces.
“[Our] budgeting and bureaucratic processes are slow, cumbersome, and byzantine,” she acknowledged. To overcome such obstacles, she indicated, the Replicator initiative would cut through red tape and award contracts directly to startups for the rapid development and delivery of cutting-edge weaponry. “Our goal,” she declared, “is to seed, spark, and stoke the flames of innovation.”
As Hicks suggested, Replicator contracts would indeed be awarded in successive batches, or “tranches.” The first tranche, announced last May, included AeroVironment Switchblade 600 kamikaze drones (called that because they are supposed to crash into their intended targets, exploding on contact). Anduril was a triple winner in the second tranche, announced on November 13th…………………………………………………………………….
Enter the Trumpians
Kathleen Hicks stepped down as deputy secretary of defense on January 20th when Donald Trump reoccupied the White House, as did many of her top aides. Exactly how the incoming administration will address the issue of military procurement remains to be seen, but many in Trump’s inner circle, including Elon Musk and Vice President J.D. Vance, have strong ties to Silicon Valley and so are likely to favor Replicator-like policies.
Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News host who recently won confirmation as secretary of defense, has no background in weapons development and has said little about the topic. However, Trump’s choice as deputy secretary (and Hick’s replacement) is billionaire investor Stephen A. Feinberg who, as chief investment officer of Cerberus Capital Management, acquired the military startup Stratolaunch — suggesting that he might favor extending programs like Replicator.
In a sense, the Trump moment will fit past Washington patterns when it comes to the Pentagon in that the president and his Republican allies in Congress will undoubtedly push for a massive increase in military spending, despite the fact that the military budget is already at a staggering all-time high. Every arms producer is likely to profit from such a move, whether traditional prime contractors or Silicon Valley startups. If, however, defense spending is kept at current levels — in order to finance the tax cuts and other costly measures favored by Trump and the Republicans — fierce competition between the two versions of the military-industrial complex could easily arise again. That, in turn, might trigger divisions within Trump’s inner circle, pitting loyalists to the old MIC against adherents to the new one.
Most Republican lawmakers, who generally rely on contributions from the old MIC companies to finance their campaigns, are bound to support the major prime contractors in such a rivalry. But two of Trump’s key advisers, J.D. Vance and Elon Musk, could push him in the opposite direction. Vance, a former Silicon Valley functionary who reportedly became Trump’s running mate only after heavy lobbying by Peter Thiel and other tech billionaires, is likely to be encouraged by his former allies to steer more Pentagon contracts to Anduril, Palantir, and related companies. And that would hardly be surprising, since Vance’s private venture fund, Narya Capital (yes, another name derived from The Lord of the Rings!), has invested in Anduril and other military/space ventures.
Michael Klare, Droning Washington
Posted on February 9, 2025
Yes, some of us still remember that the now-famous (or do I mean infamous?) phrase “the military-industrial complex” actually came from the farewell address of former World War II general and then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 17, 1961. But how often do any of us remember the all-too-painfully appropriate context in which he offered it to the American people — as a warning about a future that today is so much ours, as the budget of the Department of Defense (so it’s still called despite the many disastrous and anything but “defensive” wars the U.S. military has fought in this century) heads for the trillion-dollar mark? Here, then, to introduce military expert and TomDispatch regular Michael Klare’s eye-opening account of where the MIC (the shorthand version of that phrase) is heading in the age of the drone and artificial intelligence, is the larger context for Eisenhower’s first use of the term:
“Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.”
And more than 60 years later, with Eisenhower’s grimly visionary statement in mind, let Klare suggest just how eerily on target he was. If you don’t believe me, note that tech giant Anduril is now setting up its first factory in the Midwest — Columbus, Ohio, to be exact — at the cost of an initial billion dollars to produce “autonomous systems and weapons,” as artificial intelligence prepares to go to war. Tom
A New Military-Industrial Complex Arises
The Secret War Within the Pentagon
Last April, in a move generating scant media attention, the Air Force announced that it had chosen two little-known drone manufacturers — Anduril Industries of Costa Mesa, California, and General Atomics of San Diego — to build prototype versions of its proposed Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), a future unmanned plane intended to accompany piloted aircraft on high-risk combat missions. The lack of coverage was surprising, given that the Air Force expects to acquire at least 1,000 CCAs over the coming decade at around $30 million each, making this one of the Pentagon’s costliest new projects. But consider that the least of what the media failed to note. In winning the CCA contract, Anduril and General Atomics beat out three of the country’s largest and most powerful defense contractors — Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman — posing a severe threat to the continued dominance of the existing military-industrial complex, or MIC.
For decades, a handful of giant firms like those three have garnered the lion’s share of Pentagon arms contracts, producing the same planes, ships, and missiles year after year while generating huge profits for their owners. But an assortment of new firms, born in Silicon Valley or incorporating its disruptive ethos, have begun to challenge the older ones for access to lucrative Pentagon awards. In the process, something groundbreaking, though barely covered in the mainstream media, is underway: a new MIC is being born, one that potentially will have very different goals and profit-takers than the existing one. How the inevitable battles between the old and the new MICs play out can’t be foreseen, but count on one thing: they are sure to generate significant political turbulence in the years to come.
The very notion of a “military-industrial complex” linking giant defense contractors to powerful figures in Congress and the military was introduced on January 17, 1961, by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell address to Congress and the American people. In that Cold War moment, in response to powerful foreign threats, he noted that “we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.” Nevertheless, he added, using the phrase for the first time, “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Ever since, debate over the MIC’s accumulating power has roiled American politics. A number of politicians and prominent public figures have portrayed U.S. entry into a catastrophic series of foreign wars — in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere — as a consequence of that complex’s undue influence on policymaking. No such claims and complaints, however, have ever succeeded in loosening the MIC’s iron grip on Pentagon arms procurement. This year’s record defense budget of approximately $850 billion includes $143.2 billion for research and development and another $167.5 billion for the procurement of weaponry. That $311 billion, most of which will be funneled to those giant defense firms, exceeds the total amount spent on defense by every other country on Earth.
Over time, the competition for billion-dollar Pentagon contracts has led to a winnowing of the MIC ecosystem, resulting in the dominance of a few major industrial behemoths. In 2024, just five companies — Lockheed Martin (with $64.7 billion in defense revenues), RTX (formerly Raytheon, with $40.6 billion), Northrop Grumman ($35.2 billion), General Dynamics ($33.7 billion), and Boeing ($32.7 billion) — claimed the vast bulk of Pentagon contracts. (Anduril and General Atomics didn’t even appear on a list of the top 100 contract recipients.)
Typically, these companies are the lead, or “prime,” contractors for major weapons systems that the Pentagon keeps buying year after year. Lockheed Martin, for example, is the prime contractor for the Air Force’s top-priority F-35 stealth fighter (a plane that has often proved distinctly disappointing in operation); Northrop Grumman is building the B-21 stealth bomber; Boeing produces the F-15EX combat jet; and General Dynamics makes the Navy’s Los Angeles-class attack submarines. “Big-ticket” items like these are usually purchased in substantial numbers over many years, ensuring steady profits for their producers. When the initial buys of such systems seem to be nearing completion, their producers usually generate new or upgraded versions of the same weapons, while employing their powerful lobbying arms in Washington to convince Congress to fund the new designs.
Over the years, non-governmental organizations like the National Priorities Project and the Friends Committee on National Legislation have heroically tried to persuade lawmakers to resist the MIC’s lobbying efforts and reduce military spending, but without noticeable success. Now, however, a new force — Silicon Valley startup culture — has entered the fray, and the military-industrial complex equation is suddenly changing dramatically.
Along Came Anduril
Consider Anduril Industries, one of two under-the-radar companies that left three MIC heavyweights in the dust last April by winning the contract to build a prototype of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft. Anduril (named after the sword carried by Aragorn in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings) was founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey, a virtual-reality headset designer, with the goal of incorporating artificial intelligence into novel weapons systems. He was supported in that effort by prominent Silicon Valley investors, including Peter Thiel of the Founders Fund and the head of another defense-oriented startup, Palantir (a name also derived from The Lord of the Rings).
From the start, Luckey and his associates sought to shoulder aside traditional defense contractors to make room for their high-tech startups. Those two companies and other new-fledged tech firms often found themselves frozen out of major Pentagon contracts that had long been written to favor the MIC giants with their bevies of lawyers and mastery of government paperwork. In 2016, Palantir even sued the U.S. Army for refusing to consider it for a large data-processing contract and later prevailed in court, opening the door for future Department of Defense awards.
In addition to its aggressive legal stance, Anduril has also gained notoriety thanks to the outspokenness of its founder, Palmer Luckey. Whereas other corporate leaders were usually restrained in their language when discussing Department of Defense operations, Luckey openly criticized the Pentagon’s inbred preference for working with traditional defense contractors at the expense of investments in the advanced technologies he believes are needed to overpower China and Russia in some future conflict.
Such technology, he insisted, was only available from the commercial tech industry. “The largest defense contractors are staffed with patriots who nevertheless do not have the software expertise or business model to build the technology we need,” Luckey and his top associates claimed in their 2022 Mission Document. “These companies work slowly, while the best [software] engineers relish working at speed. And the software engineering talent who can build faster than our adversaries resides in the commercial sector, not at large defense primes.”
To overcome obstacles to military modernization, Luckey argued, the government needed to loosen its contracting rules and make it easier for defense startups and software companies to do business with the Pentagon. “We need defense companies that are fast. That won’t happen simply by wishing it to be so: it will only happen if companies are incentivized to move” by far more permissive Pentagon policies.
Buttressed by such arguments, as well as the influence of key figures like Thiel, Anduril began to secure modest but strategic contracts from the military and the Department of Homeland Security. In 2019, it received a small Marine Corps contract to install AI-enabled perimeter surveillance systems at bases in Japan and the United States. A year later, it won a five-year, $25 million contract to build surveillance towers on the U.S.-Mexican border for Customs and Border Protection (CBP). In September 2020, it also received a $36 million CBP contract to build additional sentry towers along that border.
After that, bigger awards began to roll in. In February 2023, the Department of Defense started buying Anduril’s Altius-600 surveillance/attack drone for delivery to the Ukrainian military and, last September, the Army announced that it would purchase its Ghost-X drone for battlefield surveillance operations. Anduril is also now one of four companies selected by the Air Force to develop prototypes for its proposed Enterprise Test Vehicle, a medium-sized drone intended to launch salvos of smaller surveillance and attack drones.
Anduril’s success in winning ever-larger Pentagon contracts has attracted the interest of wealthy investors looking for opportunities to profit from the expected growth of defense-oriented startups. In July 2020, it received fresh investments of $200 million from Thiel’s Founders Fund and prominent Silicon Valley investor Andreessen Horowitz, raising the company’s valuation to nearly $2 billion. A year later, Anduril obtained another $450 million from those and other venture capital firms, bringing its estimated valuation to $4.5 billion (double what it had been in 2020). More finance capital has flowed into Anduril since then, spearheading a major drive by private investors to fuel the rise of defense startups — and profit from their growth as it materializes.
The Replicator Initiative
Along with its success in attracting big defense contracts and capital infusions, Anduril has succeeded in convincing many senior Pentagon officials of the need to reform the department’s contracting operations so as to make more room for defense startups and tech firms. On August 28, 2023, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, then the department’s second-highest official, announced the inauguration of the “Replicator” initiative, designed to speed the delivery of advanced weaponry to the armed forces.
“[Our] budgeting and bureaucratic processes are slow, cumbersome, and byzantine,” she acknowledged. To overcome such obstacles, she indicated, the Replicator initiative would cut through red tape and award contracts directly to startups for the rapid development and delivery of cutting-edge weaponry. “Our goal,” she declared, “is to seed, spark, and stoke the flames of innovation.”
As Hicks suggested, Replicator contracts would indeed be awarded in successive batches, or “tranches.” The first tranche, announced last May, included AeroVironment Switchblade 600 kamikaze drones (called that because they are supposed to crash into their intended targets, exploding on contact). Anduril was a triple winner in the second tranche, announced on November 13th. According to the Department of Defense, that batch included funding for the Army’s purchase of Ghost-X surveillance drones, the Marine Corps’ acquisition of Altius-600 kamikaze drones, and development of the Air Force’s Enterprise Test Vehicle, of which Anduril is one of four participating vendors.
Just as important, perhaps, was Hicks’ embrace of Palmer Luckey’s blueprint for reforming Pentagon purchasing. “The Replicator initiative is demonstrably reducing barriers to innovation, and delivering capabilities to warfighters at a rapid pace,” she affirmed in November. “We are creating opportunities for a broad range of traditional and nontraditional defense and technology companies… and we are building the capability to do that again and again.”
Enter the Trumpians
Kathleen Hicks stepped down as deputy secretary of defense on January 20th when Donald Trump reoccupied the White House, as did many of her top aides. Exactly how the incoming administration will address the issue of military procurement remains to be seen, but many in Trump’s inner circle, including Elon Musk and Vice President J.D. Vance, have strong ties to Silicon Valley and so are likely to favor Replicator-like policies.
Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News host who recently won confirmation as secretary of defense, has no background in weapons development and has said little about the topic. However, Trump’s choice as deputy secretary (and Hick’s replacement) is billionaire investor Stephen A. Feinberg who, as chief investment officer of Cerberus Capital Management, acquired the military startup Stratolaunch — suggesting that he might favor extending programs like Replicator.
In a sense, the Trump moment will fit past Washington patterns when it comes to the Pentagon in that the president and his Republican allies in Congress will undoubtedly push for a massive increase in military spending, despite the fact that the military budget is already at a staggering all-time high. Every arms producer is likely to profit from such a move, whether traditional prime contractors or Silicon Valley startups. If, however, defense spending is kept at current levels — in order to finance the tax cuts and other costly measures favored by Trump and the Republicans — fierce competition between the two versions of the military-industrial complex could easily arise again. That, in turn, might trigger divisions within Trump’s inner circle, pitting loyalists to the old MIC against adherents to the new one.
Most Republican lawmakers, who generally rely on contributions from the old MIC companies to finance their campaigns, are bound to support the major prime contractors in such a rivalry. But two of Trump’s key advisers, J.D. Vance and Elon Musk, could push him in the opposite direction. Vance, a former Silicon Valley functionary who reportedly became Trump’s running mate only after heavy lobbying by Peter Thiel and other tech billionaires, is likely to be encouraged by his former allies to steer more Pentagon contracts to Anduril, Palantir, and related companies. And that would hardly be surprising, since Vance’s private venture fund, Narya Capital (yes, another name derived from The Lord of the Rings!), has invested in Anduril and other military/space ventures.
Named by Trump to direct the as-yet-to-be-established Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, like Anduril’s Palmer Luckey, fought the Department of Defense to obtain contracts for one of his companies, SpaceX, and has expressed deep contempt for the Pentagon’s traditional way of doing things. In particular, he has denigrated the costly, generally ill-performing Lockheed-made F-35 jet fighter at a time when AI-governed drones are becoming ever more capable. Despite that progress, as he wrote on X, the social media platform he now owns, “some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35.” In a subsequent post, he added that “manned fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones anyway.”
His critique of the F-35 ruffled feathers at the Air Force and caused Lockheed’s stock to fall by more than 3%. …………………………
President Trump has yet to indicate his stance on the F-35 or other high-priced items in the Pentagon’s budget lineup. He may (or may not) call for a slowdown in purchases of that plane and seek greater investment in other projects. Still, the divide exposed by Musk — between costly manned weapons made by traditional defense contractors and more affordable unmanned systems made by the likes of Anduril, General Atomics, and AeroVironment — is bound to widen in the years to come as the new version of the military-industrial complex only grows in wealth and power. How the old MIC will address such a threat to its primacy remains to be seen, but multibillion-dollar weapons companies are not likely to step aside without a fight. And that fight will likely divide the Trumpian universe.
South Korea increases support for domestic nuclear industry
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy has announced KRW150 billion
(USD103 million) of financial support this year to companies within South
Korea’s nuclear power industry – an increase of KRW50 billion compared with
last year.
World Nuclear News 10th Feb 2025,
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/south-korea-increases-support-for-domestic-nuclear-industry
Engineer who worked on Hinkley Point C nuclear project quizzed on suspicion of being a Russian spy
By LETTICE BROMOVSKY, 4 February 2025 , https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14355483/Nuclear-power-worker-suspicion-Russian-spy.html?openWebLoggedIn=true&login
An engineer who worked on a UK nuclear project was quizzed on suspicion of being a spy after he returned to the UK from Russia.
Mario Zadra, a 67-year-old Italian national, who worked as an engineer on the Hinkley Point C project from 2020 to 2023 from their headquarters in Bristol, was questioned by counter-terrorism police after he flew into Heathrow airport on April 12, 2023.
It was reported that potentially sensitive documents were found in his possession and were seized by the authorities to prevent them being ‘used to carry out a hostile attack’.
Zadra was arrested under Schedule Three, which gives police the power to search, question, and detain a person to determine whether they are engaged in hostile activity, Burnham & Highbridge Weekly News first reported.
Hinkley Point C is currently constructing two new nuclear reactors, which will provide zero-carbon electricity for around six million homes, and is expected to cost a massive £46billion.
Zadra was later dismissed by his employer, Alten Ltd, a supplier for EDF’s Hinkley Point C – settling for more than £37,000 in an employment tribunal, local media reported.
Counter terrorism police retained Mr Zadra’s hard drives for national security reasons. He was not charged with any offence.
A spokesperson for Hinkley Point C said: ‘Hinkley Point C takes information security very seriously and there are rigorous measures in place to protect sensitive data.
‘This individual did not have access to sensitive nuclear information. The information he removed was outdated.
‘Allegations made by this person were thoroughly investigated and independently reviewed. His contract with Alten Ltd ended as a result of increasingly inappropriate and disruptive behaviour.’
The Met police and the Home Office have been approached for comment.
Octopus Energy launches renewables investment platform for consumers
Octopus Energy, the UK’s largest energy supplier, has launched an
investment platform allowing consumers to buy shares of a renewable energy
project. Octopus has launched ‘the Collective’ which it says is a
first-of-its-kind initiative that enables customers to invest in renewables
themselves. There is a minimum investment requirement of £25 but, since
there are no fees and the Collective is free to join, all returns go to the
investor. A YouGov survey revealed that 33% of Brits want to invest in
green power; Octopus says that by becoming the first energy company in the
UK with a retail investment platform regulated by the Financial Conduct
Authority (FCA), it will meet this demand.
Current 10th Feb 2025 https://www.current-news.co.uk/octopus-energy-launches-renewables-investment-platform-for-consumers/
The £40bn nuclear project at risk of becoming another British white elephant.
Telegraph 9th Feb 2025, Matt Oliver. Industry Editor,
On the Suffolk coast, an army of yellow diggers and dump
trucks are levelling fields and preparing the ground for one of Britain’s
biggest infrastructure projects. It is here that thousands of workers plan
to raise Sizewell C, a multibillion-pound nuclear power station, in the
late 2030s, eventually providing power for some 6m homes. If approved in
the coming months, the scheme would replace capacity lost elsewhere over
the next decade as other nuclear plants from the 1970s and 80s gradually
shut down.
Yet that is still a big “if”, with Labour ministers
currently weighing up whether the benefits of Sizewell C are worth the
gargantuan costs, which will reportedly exceed £40bn (the original budget
given to HS2). On one hand, it is a shovel-ready project that promises to
boost energy security and economic growth – something Rachel Reeves, the
Chancellor, is in desperate need of.
Hanging over the project, however, is
the shadow of its sister scheme: Hinkley Point C in Somerset, which is
running years behind schedule and has gone dramatically over-budget.
Should Sizewell C spiral into disaster, like Hinkley, it could easily become a
white elephant that kills off the prospects of any future successors. And
unlike its sister scheme, which was funded entirely by EDF and other
investors, British taxpayers will be on the hook if things go wrong, with
the Government playing the role of anchor investor.
“There is no transparency around Sizewell C,” says spokesman Alison Downes, who lives
nearby. “Why, despite government support, does its likely eye-watering
cost and impact on households remain shrouded in secrecy? Hinkley has
morphed into the most expensive nuclear power station ever built, by some
distance. Originally budgeted at £18bn, it is now estimated to cost
£46bn. Miliband quietly initiated a review of the nuclear programme last
year and there is speculation he could soon axe the Wylfa proposal in
favour of focusing on mini nuclear plants known as small modular reactors
(SMR) instead.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/02/09/sizewell-c-becoming-another-british-white-elephant/
Trident nuclear submarine project rated “unachievable” third year running
The IPA’s latest report for 2023-24 was published in January 2025, six months late. It assessed the feasibility of 227 major government projects, including 44 run by the MoD with a total cost of £298bn.
A new submarine programme, known as Aukus, to eventually replace the Astute-class boats, is under development with the US and Australia. Its budget for 2023-24 was £495m, but its total cost and delivery date have been kept secret to protect “national security” and “international relations”.
Aukus was rated as amber for 2023-24 and 2022-23. The IPA suggested that the MoD might be over-stretching itself on the project.
Rob Edwards, The Ferret 10th Feb 2025
A £4bn project to help replace nuclear-armed Trident submarines on the Clyde has been branded as “unachievable” for the third year running by a UK government watchdog.
The Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) has again given the manufacture of new reactors to power replacement submarines its lowest rating of “red” for 2023-24. There are “major issues” that do not seem to be “manageable or resolvable”, it said.
The IPA has badged eight other major UK nuclear weapons projects, with a combined overall cost of over £55bn, as “amber”. This means they are facing “significant issues” which require “management attention”.
These include building new facilities at the Faslane nuclear base, near Helensburgh, and dismantling nuclear submarines at Rosyth in Fife. The construction of the entire future nuclear-powered fleets of submarines – Astute, Dreadnought and Aukus – was also rated amber.
Campaigners attacked the UK nuclear weapons programme as “an unaffordable shambles” and a “disastrous money pit”. They have demanded its cancellation, and asked for the money saved to be spent on public services.
The Scottish National Party (SNP) accused the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of being “totally unable” to deliver a cost-effective replacement for Trident on time. The Scottish Greens said that public money shouldn’t be wasted on “deadly Cold War hangovers.”…………………………………..
The IPA’s latest report for 2023-24 was published in January 2025, six months late. It assessed the feasibility of 227 major government projects, including 44 run by the MoD with a total cost of £298bn.
Nine of the MoD projects were related to nuclear weapons and submarine programmes, with a total cost of at least £59bn. The one that was given a red rating was to construct reactors to be installed in four Trident-armed Dreadnought submarines to replace ageing Vanguard submarines at Faslane in the 2030s.
The project was also rated as red in 2022-23 and 2021-22, as The Ferret reported. According to the IPA, that means that “successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable” and it may need its “overall viability reassessed”.
It said: “There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable.”
The Dreadnought reactors, which are being built by Rolls-Royce in Derby, faced “ongoing challenges associated with achieving the required delivery date” in 2028, the IPA added. This was an “important milestone” for the UK’s policy of keeping at least one nuclear-armed submarine on patrol all the time, known as “continuous at sea deterrent”.
Among the eight other nuclear projects rated as amber, was a £1.9bn scheme to build new facilities at Faslane and nearby Coulport, on the Clyde, to support new submarines. Its rating was kept secret in 2022-23 and it was red in 2021-22.
Amber is defined by the IPA as: “successful delivery appears feasible but significant issues already exist, requiring management attention”. The issues “appear resolvable at this stage” and should not cause delay or increased costs “if addressed promptly”.
The Clyde infrastructure project was entering its “most complex phase” over the next four years, the IPA said. It highlighted “two main issues affecting delivery confidence”.
One was rebuilding existing facilities while they continue to be used for submarine operations. The other was attracting and retaining suitably skilled staff “to a remote site in a very tight labour market in western Scotland.”
Costs of some nuclear projects kept secret
A £362m project to begin dismantling defunct nuclear submarines at the Rosyth naval base on the Firth of Forth, was also rated as amber for 2023-24, as it was for 2022-23 and 2021-22. “This is a novel and complex project and learning by doing encounters difficulty and challenge that cannot necessarily be planned for,” commented the IPA.
A £37bn project to build the four Dreadnought submarines, other than the reactors, has been rated as amber for the last six years. An £11bn project to finish building seven nuclear-powered but conventionally-armed Astute submarines has been amber for the last three years.
A new submarine programme, known as Aukus, to eventually replace the Astute-class boats, is under development with the US and Australia. Its budget for 2023-24 was £495m, but its total cost and delivery date have been kept secret to protect “national security” and “international relations”.
Aukus was rated as amber for 2023-24 and 2022-23. The IPA suggested that the MoD might be over-stretching itself on the project.
There was “a degree of risk relating to the ability of the defence nuclear enterprise and the wider UK supply chain to resource the programme with the necessary skills, experience and infrastructure to deliver against a demanding schedule, without adversely impacting the delivery of the Dreadnought programme,” it said.
A new programme repackaging previous projects for making and storing nuclear materials at Aldermaston in Berkshire has been rated as amber for the last two years. Its total cost and delivery date have been kept under wraps.
The rating, costs and comments on another project to test nuclear weapons in France and England, known as Teutates, have also been kept secret for national security and international relations reasons.
The SNP highlighted the MoD’s record of radioactive leaks and rising costs on the Clyde. “It is disappointing but not surprising that the MoD seems to be totally unable to manufacture a replacement for Trident in a timely or cost-effective manner,” said SNP MSP Keith Brown.
“The UK’s nuclear weapons aren’t safe for workers and wildlife, they don’t work when tested, and their manufacture is not efficient. Nor are they delivering a good deal for taxpayers.”
The Scottish Greens described nuclear weapons as a “moral abomination” that should be opposed. “The fact that they have also proven to be a disastrous money pit only underlines the urgent need to remove them for good,” said Green MSP Maggie Chapman.
“We could do so much good with this money, investing in services that make our lives safer and better, rather than wasting it on these deadly Cold War hangovers.”
The Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (SCND) blasted the UK’s nuclear weapons as “a colonial hangover, an unaffordable shambles, a danger to us and the world”.
SCND chair, Lynn Jamieson, said: “The combined cost of keeping the nuclear weapon system going and of building a replacement escalates while public services are drastically cut.”
The Nuclear Information Service, which researches and criticises nuclear weapons, argued that the UK nuclear programme was unsustainable. “The case for cancelling badly run and unaffordable weapons projects is compelling,” said research manager, Tim Street……………………
https://theferret.scot/trident-nuclear-unachievable-third-year/
Anatomy of an AI Coup
It is political offloading, shifting the messy work of winning political debates to the false authority of machine analytics. It’s a way of displacing the collective decision-making at the core of representative politics.
Tech Policy Press, Eryk Salvaggio / Feb 9, 2025
DOGE is gutting federal agencies to install AI across the government. Democracy is on the line, writes Tech Policy Press fellow Eryk Salvaggio.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology for manufacturing excuses. While lacking clear definitions or tools for assessment, AI has nonetheless seized the imagination of politicians and managers across government, academia, and industry. But what AI is best at producing is justifications. If you want a labor force, a regulatory bureaucracy, or accountability to disappear, you simply say, “AI can do it.” Then, the conversation shifts from explaining why these things should or should not go away to questions about how AI would work in their place.
We are in the midst of a political coup that, if successful, would forever change the nature of American government. It is not taking place in the streets. There is no martial law. It is taking place cubicle by cubicle in federal agencies and in the mundane automation of bureaucracy. The rationale is based on a productivity myth that the goal of bureaucracy is merely what it produces (services, information, governance) and can be isolated from the process through which democracy achieves those ends: debate, deliberation, and consensus.
AI then becomes a tool for replacing politics. The Trump administration frames generative AI as a remedy to “government waste.” However, what it seeks to automate is not paperwork but democratic decision-making. Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are banking on a popular but false delusion that word prediction technologies make meaningful inferences about the world. They are using it to sidestep Congressional oversight of the budget, which is, Constitutionally, the allotment of resources to government programs through representative politics.
While discussing an AI coup may seem conspiratorial or paranoid, it’s banal. In contrast to Musk and his acolytes’ ongoing claims of “existential risk,” which envision AI taking over the world through brute force, an AI coup rises from collective decisions about how much power we hand to machines. It is political offloading, shifting the messy work of winning political debates to the false authority of machine analytics. It’s a way of displacing the collective decision-making at the core of representative politics.
The Cast
We can set the stage by describing the cast. In Elon Musk’s part-time job at DOGE, he takes the lead role. His team aims to use generative AI to find budget efficiencies even as he eviscerates the civil service. The DOGE entity has already attempted to take over the Treasury Department’s computer system to distribute funds and effectively disbanded USAID. Musk hopes to deliver an “AI-first strategy” for government agencies, such as GSAi, “a custom generative AI chatbot for the US General Services Administration.”
…………………………Then there is the supporting cast. ………………………………………………………………….
The Plan
Amidst the chaos in Washington, Silicon Valley firms will continue to build their case that they are the answer…………………………………………………………………………………. The solution will be a “centralized data repository” hooked to a chatbot and a suite of promises.
………………………………………………………….. OpenAI’s ChatGPTGov is a prime example of a system that is ready to come into play. By shifting government decisions to AI systems they must know are unsuitable, these tech elites avoid a political debate they would probably lose. Instead, they create a nationwide IT crisis that they alone can fix.
Weaken the Opposition
As the technical elite embeds generative AI into hollowed-out institutions, the administration will carry on its effort to eviscerate independent research institutions. Trump campaigned in 2023 for an “American University,” an online resource presenting “study groups, mentors, industry partnerships, and the latest breakthrough in computing” that “will be strictly non-political, and there will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed.” Trump proposed that American University would be funded by “taxing, fining, and suing excessively large private university endowments.”
………………………………………….. Eventually, this would create a crisis through which higher education, with its commitments to diversity already neutered, could be starved to death. A weakened university research ecosystem would strengthen the private sector by luring scientists to their labs, diminishing independent research oversight.
……………………………………………….DOGE aims to replace government bureaucracy with technical infrastructure. Reversing and dismantling dependencies embedded in infrastructure is slow and difficult, especially when efforts to study systemic bias are prohibited. The ingredients for “technofascism” will be assembled.
Generating a Crisis
Eventually, the shoddy infrastructure of these automated government agencies and services will produce language or code that creates an AI-driven national crisis. Because no AI system is presently suited to the complex task of governance, failure is inevitable. Deploying that system anyway is a human decision, and humans should be held accountable.
The designers of AI have repeatedly told us that it poses a threat akin to the atomic bomb.
……………………………………….. Years of bipartisan lobbying by groups focused narrowly on AI’s “existential risks” have positioned it as a security threat controllable only by Silicon Valley’s technical elite. They now stand poised to benefit from any crisis……………………………………………….
Algorithmic Resistance
The AI coup emerged not just from the union of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. It is born of practices and beliefs now standard among Silicon Valley ideologues that are obscure to most Americans. However, the tech industry’s weakness is that it has never understood the emotional and social complexity of actual human beings.
…………………….Speed is essential to their work. They know they cannot create a public consensus for this effort and must move before it takes shape. By moving fast and breaking things, DOGE forces a collapse of the system where unanswered questions are met with technological solutions. Shifting the conversation to the technical is a way of locking policymakers and the public out of decisions and shifting that power to the code they write.
…………………………………..Do not fall for the trap. Democratic participation and representative politics in government are not “waste.” Nor should arguments focus on the technical limits of particular systems, as the tech elites are constantly revising expectations upward through endless promises of exponential improvements. The argument must be that no computerized system should replace the voice of voters. Do not ask if the machine can be trusted. Ask who controls them.
https://www.techpolicy.press/anatomy-of-an-ai-coup/
It’s money that has stopped nuclear power, not planning problems
David Toke, Feb 09, 2025, https://davidtoke.substack.com/p/its-money-that-has-stopped-nuclear
Of all the nonsense about nuclear power that one hears, the idea that somehow it is planning problems rather than financial issues that stop its development surely takes the biscuit. The Government bats away any formal planning objection made to its nuclear plant when companies want to build them. Yet the UK government is flogging nuclear planning problems as a scapegoat for the technology’s failure for all it is worth. And it is talking about the non-existent concept of small modular reactors (see HERE). Is this a smokescreen to hide its problems with financing Sizewell C?
The real reason for the failure of the Wylfa project
There was a silly story published in most leading newspapers about the proposed Wylfa plant in North Wales being knocked back in 2019 because of ‘language’ objections (see HERE). The reality was that the proposal was scrapped for financial reasons. This involved the Government being unable to offer enough incentives to keep Hitachi interested in developing the project. In January 2019 the BBC reported that ‘Japanese tech giant Hitachi said it was suspending construction of the new plant in north Wales as the project’s cost continues to spiral.’ (see HERE). The National Grid cancelled plans for pylons needed for the project (see HERE).
The reporting at the time failed to mention any planning issues, only the financial ones. Indeed, once Hitachi announced its withdrawal, that was the effective end of the plans. However, the company set up to make the planning application continued what looks to me like it was going through the motions. It didn’t matter that the Planning Inspector rejected the application. If the proposal was a real one (in an economic sense), the government would surely have overruled the Inspector without delay. -As indeed happened in 20122 with the planning application for Sizewell C.
By contrast, the recent coverage of the planning objections to the Hitachi proposal seems to completely omit any mention of the real reason why the project was abandoned.
Problems with the Government’s nuclear programme
Hitachi originally bought the ‘Horizon’ option from RWE and E.On. It consisted of the proposed development at Wylfa and another at Oldbury in Gloucestershire. RWE/E.ON had withdrawn from the proposal in 2012. This (Horizon) was one of three consortia set up in 2009 to constitute the Government’s new nuclear programme. This was announced by Ed Miliband in 2009 in his last manifestation as Energy Secretary.
The second consortium to fall apart, the so-called ‘NuGen’ consortium, was supposed to build a new nuclear project at Sellafield called ‘Moorside’. This consortium was originally owned by Iberdrola, the Spanish company and the French company GDF Suez (now Engie). However, they lost interest and the consortium was bought up instead by Toshiba in 2013. Then in 2017, Toshiba decided to ‘mothball’ the project. Again, financial reasons were always cited as the reason for this. Once again this had nothing to do with planning issues.
This left the third consortium led by EDF. They advanced their Hinkley C project. Eventually, they agreed the controversial deal whereby they would receive £92.50 per MWh over 35 years in 2012 prices, now worth over £130 power MWh in today’s money. They also agreed on a contract for Sizewell C so that if that went ahead as well both projects would receive £89.50 per MWh.
I knew at the time this was a bit of PR and that EDF would never go ahead with the agreement in respect of Sizewell C. They did not. Instead, they have agreed on a deal whereby, in effect, most of the costs, including the inevitable large overruns, will be paid by the British taxpayer or electricity consumer.
So, none of the privately owned companies originally involved in the British nuclear programme went ahead with the proposals. Centrica was also involved with the Hinkley C proposal at one stage, but it withdrew in 2013. Only the French-state-owned EDF has gone ahead with building a nuclear power plant, ie Hinkley C. EDF can carry on the construction. This is despite the mounting construction cost overruns. The French state pays!
Planning and paying for Sizewell
In effect, the French taxpayer is paying for a British nuclear power plant in the shape of Hinkley C. However, the French have said that this cannot happen again (ie they paying (most of) the cost overruns for a British nuclear power station). Hence Sizewell C will be funded mostly by the British taxpayer and electricity consumer, with the Brits taking the main liabilities, not the French.
The UK Government is currently arguing within itself and with EDF about how much Treasury funding the UK Government is going to put into the project. There has been a charade of looking for private investors. The only way private investment could be achieved would be for the investors to be effectively guaranteed their profits at the taxpayers’ or energy consumers’ expense.
Interestingly, in 2022 the Planning Inspector said they could not recommend the Sizewell C project without a more convincing plan to ensure a sustainable water supply. However, this objection was batted aside by the then Energy Secretary, Kwasi Kwateng, in 2022 (see HERE). This affair received little publicity because everybody knew that the Government could easily dismiss this problem, and override recommendations by Planning Inspectors. The Government saw no reason at the time to make a big deal out of it. After all, why would the Government want to publicise doubts about the water supply for Hinkley C when it wanted the project to go ahead?
Indeed in the summer of 2022, all the talk was on how to pay for Sizewell C. With planning consent having been sorted, Boris Johnson wanted to go full steam ahead and give the final go-ahead, something that did not please the Treasury. According to a report in The Times (see HERE) ‘Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury……………. wrote to Johnson and Zahawi warning that a signoff for Sizewell would compromise the new prime minister’s ability to cut taxes or spend more on the cost of living’. Apparently, even Liz Truss did not want to take on the costs of Sizewell C.
But fast forward to February 2025 (with still no final go-ahead for Sizewell C), and the Government saw fit to make a very big deal out of a planning debating point regarding an already-abandoned project in Wales. Why? Maybe, I think to distract attention from the fact that it is the financing of nuclear power and its delivery that is the big problem. One can almost hear Sir Humphrey intoning ‘The public does not need to be overloaded with such details’. Otherwise, the politicians might stop blaming each other about things (eg costs of nuclear power) over which they have no control and focus on things that they do have some control.
Planning (or not?) for heat pumps
One thing that the politicians do control are the building regulations which could be making heat pumps and solar PV mandatory in new buildings. Alas, this has been kicked into the long grass by a press release a few weeks ago (see HERE). The Government has full control over the regulations, but it has given way to pressures from the construction industry. Yes, that is the same industry who are so keen on building nuclear power stations.
Nimbys. Naysayers. Traitors. Children take note, why learn oracy when insults will do?
Catherine Bennett, Guardian, 9th Feb 2025
Keir Starmer’s rhetoric against green campaigners appears to have taken a playground turn.
Before the last election, in what was billed as his “most personal interview yet”, Keir Starmer said: “I’m not in the habit of bandying insults around”. It was once part of his appeal, or meant to be, that his speech was polite, even to the point of colourless, in contrast to the ugly gibberish streaming out of Boris Johnson, then Liz Truss. When the Tories went low, Starmer went sorrowful headteacher. “I don’t think Boris Johnson is a bad man,” he said in one speech, “I think he is a trivial man.”
His favourite word, these days, is “nimbys”. Starmer uses it so freely he’s personally breathed new life into the original acronym (“not in my back yard”), revealing along the way its largely unexplored potential to create national disharmony. Why restrict such a genius jibe to arguments about ring roads and executive homes?
Last week’s headlines about his plan for nuclear power expansion – typically, “Starmer to ‘push past nimbyism’ in pledge to expand nuclear power sites” – are only the latest in which Starmer demonstrates how any opposition to any scheme with environmental consequences can be represented, by a skilled litigator like himself, as nimbyism: purely selfish, irrational and against the common good. Unlike the visionary tech overlords such as Google, Meta and Amazon, which Starmer invited, in the same speech, to profit, with their data centres, from the UK nimbys’ certain defeat. His government’s pro-nuclear press release featured praise from similarly patriotic, non-nimby-infested corporations, such as EDF and Microsoft.
It is thanks to Starmer we now understand that Greenpeace and other environmental campaigners – actually anyone with questions about, for instance, the disposal of nuclear waste – are essentially indistinguishable from other varieties of nimby he has been insulting for a while, so as to trivialise in advance any disquiet about Labour’s plans to tear up planning regulations.
Look beyond the acronym’s “back yard” element: now any non-local objection to 150 infrastructure projects, all evidently beyond criticism, also identifies a person as, in his eyes, the enemy of his “working people”.
…………………………..“There are countless more examples of Nimbys and zealots gumming up the legal system,” he wrote, “often for their own ideological blindspots to stop the Government building the infrastructure the country needs.” Anti-growth traitors, the lot of them. “They want to win for themselves,” Starmer raved, “not for the country.”………………………………………..
For prominent Tory idealists, there must be validation in Starmer’s promise to fulfil their dreams, never properly realised, of humbling environmentalists and trashing planning restrictions (in places where they don’t live). Not forgetting the satisfaction of seeing Starmer recycle, for Labour, their exact same phrases, sometimes wearing the same accessories – hard hats and hi-vis jackets – for the benefit of vanity photographers recently declassified as a Tory outrage.
Since it can’t be plagiarism, only shared passion can explain why Starmer and David Cameron have phrased their ambitions in identical terms, in wanting, say, a “bonfire of red tape” (Starmer 2024; Cameron 2014). Starmer thinks regulations are “suffocating” (likewise Cameron); Starmer says “we are the builders” (ditto George Osborne); Starmer wants to end “dithering” (Cameron, “cut through the dither”); Starmer declares Britain “open for business” (Cameron, same, 2012); Starmer confronts those “talking our country down” (so did Cameron, 2011).
To judge by their interchangeable expressions of annoyance, hostility to environmental protections is also common ground for Reeves and Osborne. For him, they placed “ridiculous costs on British businesses”; for her, they make “delivering major infrastructure in our country far too expensive”. In 2012, the vice-president of the RSPB, Britain’s largest nature conservation charity, called Osborne “a bloody idiot”.
…………………………The teaching of “oracy” in schools was once a priority for Starmer. Confident speaking, he said, gives “an inner belief to make your case in any environment”. Whatever explains his recent change in style, the debacle is not without educational value. Kids, if you go in for name-calling, offensive misrepresentation and unconvincing assertions of your superior judgement, the finest voice coach may struggle to transform it into persuasive oracy. Even when, as with Starmer’s nimbys, your targets were, only months ago, your friends. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/09/nimbys-naysayers-traitors-children-take-note-why-learn-oracy-when-insults-will-do
Opposition mounts to planned nuclear plant as Starmer confirms new policy of ‘Build, baby, build’
Martin Shipton Nation Cymru 9th Feb 2025
Opposition to a proposed nuclear energy plant in Bridgend is mounting, with the local Green Party saying it is “unnecessary, unwanted and unsafe”.
But doubts about the proposal come as Keir Starmer confirmed that the UK Government intends to change the planning system to make it easier for such projects to go ahead.
An American-owned company called Last Energy intends to build the SMR (small modular reactor) plant next to the River Llynfi, just to the north of Bridgend.
The Green Party argues that If the development goes ahead, it will be funded by venture capitalists who are not likely to be citizens of Wales. The nuclear power plant will operate for profit, as a private enterprise.
Untested
A party spokesperson said: “It is based on a new design which if built will be the first of its kind. So the design is untested in the real world. Locals, including Green Party members, have several credible reasons for concern.
“The Green Party questions the need for a nuclear power plant, when Wales has the natural resources required to produce all its energy from a mixture of solar power, onshore and off-shore wind generation.
“It is true that people need secure energy supplies which can be quickly restored, and that Wales needs investment in improving the grid infrastructure. But nuclear power is not the solution to Wales’ energy needs.
“As was proved in the December 2024 storm, we desperately need improvements to our energy resilience – such as the ability to restore power after severe climate events, and this should be the focus of any energy investment.
“Do locals want a nuclear power plant in Bridgend? Last Energy has hosted two community consultations, one in Bettws and one in Pencoed. Debra Cooper, the Green Party Chair for Bridgend, attended both events and asked how the locals had been invited to these meetings, given that many were unaware that they were taking place.
“The speaker gave a vague reply that Facebook had been used, and that Last Energy had outsourced the invitations. More consultation events are planned, and we demand that Last Energy genuinely seeks to invite the community to their consultations.
“Is nuclear power safe? The risk of nuclear leaks from the onsite nuclear waste storage is not acceptable.
“Who will pay for future nuclear waste storage? There is a risk that no other region of the UK will be willing to store the nuclear waste, and that this area will become a long term nuclear waste storage site. The consequences of accidental leakage and terrorist targeting have not been fully considered.”
Nuclear waste
Brian Jones, CND Cymru Vice Chair, said: ““Last Energy, despite having never built a nuclear reactor, is proposing to build four nuclear reactors near Bridgend which, like all nuclear reactors, will produce nuclear waste which needs to be safely contained and monitored for thousands of years. Nuclear power stations have consistently cost more and taken longer to build than originally proposed.”
Tony Cooke, who leads on Wales energy policy development for the Green Party, said: “Green Party policy is clearly opposed to any new nuclear power stations. The developers haven’t actually built any to their proposed design and they don’t have a design licensed by the UK Office for Nuclear Regulation which would be required. Their website claims more than 300 are operating globally – but this is misleading – there are more than 300 pressurised water reactors), but PWR refers to a generic ‘family’ approach to design – not a specific one. Licensing is not likely to be quick. (years not months)
“The developers are presumably targeting an ex coal fired power station site because it has a now unused grid connection. These are valuable, given the time lag in getting new grid connections. The site should be prioritised for battery storage, which is needed and complements renewable generation. Because of the small scale of the proposal it is in the powers of the local authority to reject it. We should lobby for them to do so.”
Planning approvals
Richard Outram, secretary of the Britain / Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities group said: “Nuclear energy can never be 100% safe and is never ‘clean’ whatever the industry claims. Last Energy has a long way to go before securing the necessary regulatory or planning approvals to begin its project by 2027. The Office for Nuclear Regulation said this was ‘very ambitious’. And Last Energy does not even appear to have any working reactors – just mock ups! Nuclear at Bridgend would be more Lost Energy – renewables are the future.”
Last Energy says it hopes the pressurised water reactors will supply power to “mid-size manufacturers throughout the region, providing 24/7 baseload power and putting the local economy on a path toward industrial decarbonisation”.
It says the project will not need taxpayer cash, with the company estimating it would be making a £300m investment, £30m of which would benefit the local economy, excluding business rates collected by Bridgend County Borough Council. It also expects to create at least 100 local full-time jobs.
Last Energy UK CEO Michael Jenner said: “Last Energy’s Llynfi project will not only transform a vacant coal site into a hub for clean energy production, it will also create economic opportunity for companies throughout South Wales.
“The benefits of nuclear power speak for themselves, so our focus must be on delivering those benefits on time and on budget. Last Energy’s emphasis on mass-manufacturability allows us to deliver significantly smaller plants in under 24 months with purely private financing.
“We look forward to engaging with the public, meeting local suppliers, and being an active partner in south Wales’ path towards energy security and industrial decarbonisation.”
Nato
In June 2024, Last Energy announced it was working with Nato to research opportunities for the future deployment of micro-nuclear power technologies at military installations.
The partnership between Last Energy and Nato Energy Security Centre of Excellence (Ensec Coe) will see the two parties research military applications for the micro-reactors and look into potential deployment.
In October 2024, independent nuclear experts told New Civil Engineer magazine that SMRs could be used to produce weapons-grade material, but various practical, legal and moral challenges made this unlikely to be done in reality.
On February 6 Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged to “build baby build”, as he announced plans to make it easier to construct mini nuclear power stations in England and Wales.
He told the BBC the government was going to “take on the blockers” and change planning rules so new reactors could be built in more parts of the country.
Sir Keir said he wanted the country to return to being “one of the world leaders on nuclear”, helping to create thousands of highly skilled jobs and boosting economic growth. https://nation.cymru/news/opposition-mounts-to-planned-nuclear-plant-as-starmer-confirms-new-policy-of-build-baby-build/
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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