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Nuclear power will get the most Energy Department loans, Chris Wright says

Mon, Nov 10 2025, Spencer Kimball, CNBC

Key Points

  • Nuclear power plants will receive the bulk of the money from the Energy Department’s loan office, Secretary Chris Wright said.
  • The Trump administration struck a deal last month with the owners of Westinghouse to invest $80 billion to build nuclear plants across the U.S.

Nuclear power will receive most of the money from the Energy Department’s loan office as the Trump administration pushes to quickly break ground on new reactors, Secretary Chris Wright said on Monday.

“We have significant lending authority at the loan program office,” the Secretary of Energy said at a conference hosted by the American Nuclear Society in Washington D.C. “By far the biggest use of those dollars will be for nuclear power plants — to get those first plants built.”

President Trump signed an executive order in May that called for the U.S. to break ground on 10 large nuclear reactors by 2030. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft are investing billions of dollars to restart old nuclear plants, upgrade existing ones, and deploy new reactor technology to meet the electricity demand from artificial intelligence data centers.

Wright said he expects electricity demand from AI to attract billions of dollars in equity capital to build new nuclear capacity from “very creditworthy providers.” The Energy Department could match those private dollars by as much as four to one with low cost debt financing from the loan office, he said………..

Westinghouse deal

The Trump administration struck a deal last month with the owners of Westinghouse to invest $80 billion to build nuclear plants across the U.S. Westinghouse is owned by uranium miner Cameco and Brookfield Asset Management…………………………….

Cameco Chief Operating Officer Grant Isaac said last week that the U.S. government has a number of options available to facilitate the financing of Westinghouse reactors, including the Energy Department’s loan office.

“We’re assured that there is a lot of interest in investing this minimum $80 billion in order to begin the process,” Isaac told investors on Cameco’s third-quarter earnings call.

Under the terms of the October deal, Westinghouse could spin out as a separate, publicly-traded company with the U.S. government as a shareholder.

But Westinghouse has struggled in the past to build the AP1000 on time and on budget. It went bankrupt in 2017 from cost overruns at big nuclear projects in Georgia and South Carolina.

Two AP1000 reactors entered service at Plant Vogtle in Georgia in 2023 and 2024, years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. The South Carolina project was cancelled. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/10/nuclear-power-energy-department-chris-wright-loan-westinghouse-ai-data-center.html

November 11, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Legalising the theft of Russian assets

There are, I’m afraid to say, still too many truly believers in the Russia total defeat delusion. Ukraine can still win! With what troops and, critically, what money?

With Glenn Diesen, Ian Proud. Nov 10, 2025

Following my recent article on the topic of the so-called EU reparations loan (a cheap ruse to fund the Ukrainian state for another 2-3 catastrophic years of war), I discussed the issue in more detailed with Glenn Diesen,

The more I consider this issue, the more clear it becomes that attempting to exproprirate Russian assets is a desperate measure to prevent EU Member States from giving Ukraine the money themselves, money which they do not have.

The Commission idea, should the Russian asset option continue to be blocked by Belgium, to borrow the money on international markets and then lend it to Ukraine, which can’t borrow money itself, appears similarly desperate. Who will make repayments on that loan? Becauses Ukraine won’t.

Suddenly, the EU idea of common debt becomes more worrying still. Who wants to give Kaja Kallas a blank cheque to fund proxy wars in other countries, with repayments being share among Member States?

Amid all of this, with Pokrovsk falling, Kupiansk and Siversk almost lost, the Russian army pushing into Zaporizhia, does anyone in Brussels take a step back and ask whether, in fact, it would be better to support the US in leveraging Zelensky to settle?

There are, I’m afraid to say, still too many truly believers in the Russia total defeat delusion. Ukraine can still win! With what troops and, critically, what money?

November 11, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The dark side of Zelenskyy’s rule

Opposition lawmakers and civil society activists say Ukraine’s leadership is using lawfare to intimidate opponents and silence critics.

Politico, October 31, 2025, By Jamie Dettmer

As Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, then head of Ukraine’s state-owned national power company Ukrenergo, was scrambling to keep the lights on.

Somehow, he succeeded and continued to do so every year, earning the respect of energy executives worldwide by ensuring the country was able to withstand Russian missile and drone strikes on its power grid and avoid catastrophic blackouts — until he was abruptly forced to resign in 2024, that is.

Kudrytskyi’s dismissal was decried by many in the energy industry and also prompted alarm in Brussels. At the time, Kudrytskyi told POLITICO he was the victim of the relentless centralization of authority that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his powerful head of office Andriy Yermak often pursue. He said he feared “corrupt individuals” would end up taking over the state-owned company.

According to his supporters, it is that kind of talk — and his refusal to remain silent — that explains why Kudrytskyi ended up in a glass-enclosed cubicle in a downtown Kyiv courtroom last week, where he was arraigned on embezzlement charges. Now, opposition lawmakers and civil society activists are up in arms, labeling this yet another example of Ukraine’s leadership using lawfare to intimidate opponents and silence critics by accusing them of corruption or of collaboration with Russia. Zelenskyy’s office declined to comment.

Others who have received the same treatment include Zelenskyy’s predecessor in office, Petro Poroshenko, who was sanctioned and arraigned on corruption charges this year — a move that could prevent him from standing in a future election. Sanctions have frequently been threatened or used against opponents, effectively freezing assets and blocking the sanctioned person from conducting any financial transactions, including using credit cards or accessing bank accounts.

Poroshenko has since accused Zelenskyy of creeping “authoritarianism,” and seeking to “remove any competitor from the political landscape.”

That may also explain why Kudrytskyi has been arraigned, according to opposition lawmaker Mykola Knyazhitskiy, who believes the use of lawfare to discredit opponents is only going to get worse as the presidential office prepares for a possible election next year in the event there’s a ceasefire. They are using the courts “to clear the field of competitors” to shape a dishonest election, he fears.

Others, including prominent Ukrainian activist and head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center Daria Kaleniuk, argue the president and his coterie are using the war to monopolize power to such a degree that it threatens the country’s democracy.

Kaleniuk was in the courtroom for Kudrytskyi’s two-hour arraignment, and echoes the former energy boss’s claim that the prosecution is “political.” According to Kaleniuk, the case doesn’t make any legal sense, and she said it all sounded “even stranger” as the prosecutor detailed the charges against Kudrytskyi: “He failed to show that he had materially benefited in any way” from an infrastructure contract that, in the end, wasn’t completed, she explained……………………………………………………………………………

for former Deputy Prime Minister Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, the case “doesn’t look good from any angle — either domestically or when it comes to international partners.” The timing, she said, is unhelpful for Ukraine, as it coincides with Kyiv’s ongoing appeal for more European energy assistance ahead of what’s likely to be the war’s most perilous winter.

With Russia mounting missile and drone strikes on a far larger scale than before, Ukraine’s energy challenge is likely to be even more formidable. And unlike previous winters, Russia’s attacks have been targeting Ukraine’s drilling, storage and distribution facilities for natural gas in addition to its electrical power grid. Sixty percent of Ukrainians currently rely on natural gas to keep their homes warm.

Some Ukrainian energy executives also fear Kudrytskyi’s prosecution may be part of a preemptive scapegoating tactic to shift blame in the event that the country’s energy system can no longer withstand Russian attacks.

Citing unnamed sources, two weeks ago Ukrainian media outlet Ukrainska Pravda reported that former energy executives fear they are being lined up to be faulted for failing to do enough to boost the energy infrastructure’s resilience and harden facilities.

“They need a scapegoat now,” a foreign policy expert who has counseled the Ukrainian government told POLITICO. “There are parts of Ukraine that probably won’t have any electricity until the spring. It’s already 10 degrees Celsius in Kyiv apartments now, and the city could well have extended blackouts. People are already pissed off about this, so the president’s office needs scapegoats,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter freely.

“The opposition is going to accuse Zelenskyy of failing Ukraine, and argue he should have already had contingencies to prevent prolonged blackouts or a big freeze, they will argue,” he added……..https://www.politico.eu/article/dark-side-zelenskyy-rule-ukraine/

November 11, 2025 Posted by | politics, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Hegseth Vows Wartime Footing For U.S. Weapons Production.

BY DREW FITZGERALD, Wall Street Journal 11/08/25

Pentagon leaders are putting their weapons suppliers in the crosshairs.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday that the U.S. military will shake up the way it buys weaponry, equipment and software by making purchases more quickly, and from a broader range of potential suppliers. The plan would streamline Pentagon program offices, develop incentives for new investments and potentially box out suppliers that miss deadlines.

Hegseth said decadelong weapons-development timelines have put the U.S. military at risk of falling behind rivals such as China. He said he would clear testing requirements that can slow purchasing and empower military officials to order commercial products when custom-made technology takes too long.

“We need to save the bureaucracy from itself,” Hegseth said Friday at an address to dozens of defense-industry executives in Washington.

The Trump administration aims to extend Pentagon efforts to bring into the fold more technology companies. The push has exposed ten-sions between the old-guard contractors such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin and a new crop of politically connected tech companies………………………………………………….

“We need to save the bureaucracy from itself,” Hegseth said Friday at an address to dozens of defense-industry executives in Washington.

The Trump administration aims to extend Pentagon efforts to bring into the fold more technology companies. The push has exposed ten-sions between the old-guard contractors such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin and a new crop of politically connected tech companies…………..

November 11, 2025 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US Again Flies Heavy Bombers Near Venezuela’s Coast

The Senate on Thursday voted against a War Powers Resolution that would have prohibited the president from starting a war with Venezuela without congressional authorization.

The flight marked the fourth time since October 15 that the US has sent bombers into the Caribbean

by Dave DeCamp | November 6, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/11/06/us-again-flies-heavy-bombers-near-venezuelas-coast/

The US has once again flown heavy bombers over the Caribbean and near the coast of Venezuela, according to a report from Newsweek, which cited flight tracking data.

Two US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress aircraft made the provocative flight, marking the fourth time since October 15 that the US has sent bombers near Venezuela’s coast. The first flight also involved B-52s, and the second and third were conducted by B-1B Lancer bombers.

In each case, the US bombers kept their transponders on when flying near Venezuela, meaning they wanted to be seen. It’s been clear that one aspect of the US military activity in the region has been meant as a psychological operation against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, as the Trump administration is hoping he decides to step down or someone in his inner circle turns on him, something that’s unlikely to happen.

The latest bomber flight comes as a US aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, is en route to the region. The Gerald Ford and its strike group will join eight US warships already deployed in the Caribbean.

According to a recent report from The New York Times, President Trump is considering several options for launching attacks on Venezuela, and he isn’t expected to decide until the Gerald Ford is in position. The report also said that the president was worried about failing or putting US troops at risk, and that he hadn’t made a final decision.

The Senate on Thursday voted against a War Powers Resolution that would have prohibited the president from starting a war with Venezuela without congressional authorization.

The US military has continued its bombing campaign against alleged drug-running boats in Latin America, which so far has involved the destruction of 17 vessels and the killing of 66 people. The Trump administration has not provided any evidence to back up its claims about what the boats are carrying and has admitted it doesn’t know the identities of the people it has been extra-judicially executing.

November 11, 2025 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine accuses Russia of targeting its nuclear substations.

A large Russian missile and drone attack that overwhelmed Ukrainian air
defences overnight targeted substations that power two of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, according to the country’s foreign minister and a person with knowledge of the barrage.

Andriy Sybiha, Ukraine’s top diplomat, said the
substations which power the Khmelnytskyi and Rivne nuclear power plants
were targeted in “well planned strikes”. “Russia is deliberately
endangering nuclear safety in Europe,” he said in a statement.

FT 9th Nov 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/474e7f27-87fb-4fb1-9899-d62778a611a4

November 11, 2025 Posted by | Russia, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Declassified cable reinforces proliferation concerns about high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel (HALEU)

in 1977, the US government recommended to the IAEA that, contrary to its previous position, the agency should consider enriched uranium in the HALEU range to be a material “of direct utility in an … explosive device.” That is, the United States advised that HALEU should be treated similarly to HEU and be subject to stricter safeguards

Bulletin, By Edwin Lyman | November 7, 2025

A recently declassified document from nearly 50 years ago provides an important piece of the puzzle for open-source researchers seeking to understand the murky origins of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) system for safeguarding against the diversion of civil nuclear materials for weapons. The document also reinforces concerns about the proliferation potential of small modular reactors that require fuels using uranium enriched from 10 to less than 20 percent uranium 235—that is, fuels that contain the material known as high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU).[1]

HALEU is a subcategory of low-enriched uranium (LEU), which is uranium enriched to below 20 percent uranium 235, and the IAEA has long considered LEU, including HALEU, to be “indirect-use material.” For the agency, HALEU cannot be used to make a nuclear weapon without converting it to highly enriched uranium (HEU) by further enriching it to 20 percent or above—a significant technical barrier for all but a few countries. Consequently, HALEU is subject to far less stringent international safeguards than HEU.

But the newly uncovered document reveals that, in 1977, the US government recommended to the IAEA that, contrary to its previous position, the agency should consider enriched uranium in the HALEU range to be a material “of direct utility in an … explosive device.” That is, the United States advised that HALEU should be treated similarly to HEU and be subject to stricter safeguards—a recommendation that the IAEA apparently rejected. But given the current international push for rapid deployment of reactors that will need large quantities of HALEU fuel, it is time for the IAEA to reconsider that decision.

Proliferation risk of HALEU fuel. The Energy Department, with bipartisan support from Congress, is now vigorously promoting the global deployment of “advanced” nuclear power reactors that require HALEU-based fuels, as well as the facilities needed to enrich and fabricate those fuels. For example, nearly all of the 11 reactor designs selected by the Energy Department for its New Reactor Pilot Program will use HALEU fuel. And Russia, which has already deployed two barge-mounted small modular reactors (SMRs) using HALEU fuel, is planning to deploy others in Uzbekistan and elsewhere around the globe.

But without appropriate constraints, large-scale production and use of HALEU may greatly increase the risks of nuclear proliferation and terrorism…………………………………………………….

 earlier this year, the late Richard Garwin and I—along with professors Scott Kemp of MIT, Mark Deinert of the Colorado School of Mines, and Frank von Hippel of Princeton— presented evidence in a letter to Science that HALEU may be used to make nuclear weapons without the need to enrich it further, and we called for further study of the issue by the US government. The concern is that a state or a terrorist group that illicitly obtained enough HALEU—typically, one reactor core’s worth or less, depending on the design—could have a far easier path to acquiring a bomb than if it only had access to conventional LWR fuel………………………………………………………………………………………

The document reveals that the United States apparently sought to lower the enrichment threshold that the IAEA had formerly used to define direct-use enriched uranium from 20 percent to 10 percent—thereby including the enrichment range now known as HALEU. To my knowledge, this information was not previously known to the public, and a cursory web search does not turn up any other mention of the new terms proposed in the cable………………………………………………………………………….

 the cable strongly suggests that other US government agencies were concerned enough about the weapon usability of enriched uranium in the HALEU range to challenge the status quo and recommend that it be safeguarded as intensely as HEU. Such concerns should be even more salient today. An international review of HALEU’s proliferation risks is urgently needed before any more power reactors running on HALEU fuel are deployed. https://thebulletin.org/2025/11/declassified-cable-reinforces-proliferation-concerns-about-high-assay-low-enriched-uranium-fuel/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Can%20Latin%20America%20find%20common%20ground%20at%20COP30%3F&utm_campaign=20251110%20Monday%20Newsletter

November 11, 2025 Posted by | ENERGY, Uranium | Leave a comment

The ‘weird’ catch to Labour’s ‘national security threat’ attack on the Scottish National Party.

LABOUR’S “national security threat” attacks on the SNP reveal how deeply embedded support for nuclear weapons has become in UK politics, a leading security academic has said.

Nick Ritchie, a professor of international security at the University of York, said that by branding opposition to Trident as a danger to the nation, ministers risk “shutting down” democratic debate on defence.

Ritchie, who last year led research
on international nuclear security for the New Zealand government, spoke to
the Sunday National after Labour ministers ramped up their rhetoric against the Scottish Government, suggesting it poses a bigger danger to UK
interests than China.

In the past week, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy,
Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander, and Defence Secretary John Healey
have all described the SNP administration as a “threat” to UK national
security. The Labour ministers’ arguments hinge on the SNP’s opposition to
nuclear weaponry, which Ritchie said “really reduces how you can talk and
think about national security”.

He suggested that national security was
being “conflated with unequivocal support for nuclear weapons”. RITCHIE
said the “weird thing” is that the UK Government is technically legally
bound “under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to work towards the goal of
nuclear disarmament”. He went on: “Of course, the caveat is that the
time is not right now, it’ll be far too difficult and so on and so forth.


But the premise – that nuclear disarmament is where we need to end up – is a premise that is accepted, or has been accepted, by governments of all
stripes. “So there’s a tension there between accepting that on the one
hand and then chastising the SNP for a pretty legitimate position that
nuclear weapons are a security liability. This is the position that the
majority of countries in the world have taken.”

The National 9th Nov 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/news/25606016.weird-catch-labours-national-security-threat-attack-snp/

November 11, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Brian Goodall says no to next stage of submarine dismantling

“Whichever way we deal with all seven of the subs currently at the dockyard I remain completely against any further nuclear submarines being brought to Rosyth.

By Ally McRoberts, Dunfermline Press, 8th Nov 2025

REMOVING the reactor from one of the laid-up nuclear submarines at Rosyth Dockyard is a “stage too far”.

Local SNP councillor Brian Goodall said there was “no need” to cut out the most radioactive parts left in HMS Swiftsure, which is being dismantled as part of an innovative recycling scheme.

He said there was nowhere to safely store the waste and it would also be cheaper to not go ahead – a stance that Labour MP Graeme Downie said was an “insult to the highly skilled team at Rosyth”.

Cllr Goodall said: “The next step will see Babcock cutting out the pressure vessel from the reactor compartment of the decommissioned nuclear submarine Swiftsure, in an experimental process that has never been done anywhere in the world before.

“This part of the submarine dismantling project has required Babcock to seek an increase in the limits to the levels of radioactivity they are allowed to discharge into the environment around the area.

“I believe there’s no clear justification for the cutting out of the pressure vessel, and that the removal for long term storage of the entire reactor compartment would be the more logical, proven, safer and cheaper approach to the next step in the dismantling process.”

There are currently seven old nuclear subs laid up at Rosyth and another 15 at the Devonport naval base in Plymouth.

A further five are due to come out of service.

The dismantling programme at the dockyard began in 2015 – Swiftsure is the first to be cut up – and in September yard bosses said Rosyth could become a “centre of excellence” for dealing with the UK’s old nuclear subs.

The project is doing what no-one else has attempted to do – removing the most radioactive parts left in the vessel, the reactor and steam generators, and recycling up to 90 per cent of the ship.

However, Cllr Goodall said: “The only justification ever given for cutting out the reactor pressure vessels in this way was to reduce the volume of the intermediate level radioactive waste that would be going into the UK’s deep geological radioactive waste facility.

“But such a facility does not exist and it looks like it never will, so long term, near surface storage at a nuclear licensed facility in England, like Capenhurst or Sellafield, is now the most likely outcome.

“And so there’s no need to take forward the experimental stage two part of the proposed procedure, with the increased radioactive discharges associated with it.”

He said he had made the same point at the consultation stage in 2012, before the dismantling of subs at Rosyth got the go ahead.

The councillor continued: “While I support the demonstrator project and, if it’s successful, I’d reluctantly back the on-site dismantling of the six other decommissioned submarines that are currently at Rosyth, I feel it’s not too late to rethink stage two of the process.

“Whichever way we deal with all seven of the subs currently at the dockyard I remain completely against any further nuclear submarines being brought to Rosyth.

“With homes within metres of the site and schools, shops and countless other businesses right next door, Rosyth should never have become a nuclear facility and radioactive waste store.

“We should now be doing all we can to create a long positive, clean, green future for the dockyard.”…………………https://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/25606854.brian-goodall-says-no-next-stage-submarine-dismantling/

November 11, 2025 Posted by | decommission reactor, UK | Leave a comment

‘Dangerous for humanity’: Nuclear testing truth exposed

As the world reacts to US President Donald Trump’s huge nuclear weapons call, this is what an arms race could really mean for the future of humanity.

Jamie Seidel, news.com.au November 11, 2025 

ANALYSIS

Nuclear tests? Or testing nukes?

The difference is profound. And has dire global implications.

So the future may hinge on US President Donald Trump’s ability to comprehend the difference, whether or not he’s playing “madman” politics, and the advice he’s getting from his intelligence agency appointees.

“Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” the US president proclaimed recently.

“That process will begin immediately.”

Since then, strategic analysts worldwide have been struggling to come to grips with what he means.

“And it certainly perplexed those who follow these matters as Trump’s announcement appeared to be based on a misapprehension about what other nations are doing and made little strategic or practical sense,” notes British strategist Lawrence Freedman.

“As is often the case with some of Trump’s more dramatic announcements, [this] did not betray extensive staff work or fact-checking.”

Was it about testing nuclear warheads? That’s what the words seem to say.

Was it about testing means of delivering nuclear warheads? That’s what Russia’s just done.

Was it about China’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal? The statement was made immediately before Mr Trump met with Mr Xi.

“Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” the US president proclaimed recently.

“That process will begin immediately.”

Since then, strategic analysts worldwide have been struggling to come to grips with what he means.

“And it certainly perplexed those who follow these matters as Trump’s announcement appeared to be based on a misapprehension about what other nations are doing and made little strategic or practical sense,” notes British strategist Lawrence Freedman.

“As is often the case with some of Trump’s more dramatic announcements, [this] did not betray extensive staff work or fact-checking.”

Was it about testing nuclear warheads? That’s what the words seem to say.

Was it about testing means of delivering nuclear warheads? That’s what Russia’s just done.

Was it about China’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal? The statement was made immediately before Mr Trump met with Mr Xi.

President Donald Trump greets Chinese President Xi Jinping. Picture: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

“There are concerns that Russia and China may have been cheating, essentially conducting nuclear explosive tests in a way that is undetectable to the international community,” notes the vice president of international affairs US think tank Atlantic Council Matthew Kroenig.

But evidence supporting this claim is yet to be presented.

Meanwhile, President Trump appears certain in his own mind as to what’s going on.

“You’ll find out very soon”, he told reporters aboard Air Force One recently.

“But we’re going to do some testing, yeah. Other countries do it. If they’re going to do it, we’re going to do it.”

Mutually assured disruption

“The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country,” President Trump stated in a Truth Social post.

“This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice!”

“They seem to all be nuclear testing. We have more nuclear weapons than anybody,” the President later added on Air Force One. “We don’t do testing, and we halted it many years ago, but with others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also.”

Despite repeating his assertions, Trump’s meaning remains unclear.

“Every sentence is problematic,” writes Sir Freedman.……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Put simply, the United States doesn’t need to explode a bomb to test its nuclear capabilities.

It has already conducted 1054 carefully monitored tests. Russia has set off 715. And China 47.

So the only winner in a renewed nuclear warhead testing scenario is Beijing.

“This asymmetry in test data has been a sore spot for Chinese officials who felt disadvantaged by arms control agreements such as the Partial Test Ban Treaty,” Ms Williams explains. “If one country returns to nuclear testing, others are likely to follow.”……………………………………………………https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/dangerous-for-humanity-nuclear-testing-truth-exposed/news-story/e7fc61137ea5bd747352088f7bf9eca0

November 11, 2025 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

This week’s Nuclear news – not from the military-industrial-political-media complex.

Some bits of good news – 

Christiana Figueres: The global south is now leading the clean-energy revolution.   

Mozambique has reached a milestone in women’s health, vaccinating nearly 3 million girls aged 12–18 against HPV.

  Migratory Birds and Rice Farmers Are Helping Each Other Soar


TOP STORIES. The Gaza Laboratory: How War is Being Marketed and How the World is Fig

hting Back. 

The rise of the US ‘digital-military-industrial complex’ 

Trump’s 20 point plan to end the war in Gaza is the usual Israeli ultimatum: surrender or be murdered. 

Trump and the Deep State: The Tomahawk deadlock and the illusion of presidential autonomy. 

Resuming U.S. Nuclear Tests Is Reckless and Dangerous, One Expert Says. 

The Risky Movement to Make America Nuclear Again– (very long -but useful extracts at https://nuclear-news.net/2025/11/04/1-a-the-risky-movement-to-make-america-nuclear-again/ 

Who is paying for Britain’s nuclear revival? 

The SMR boom will soon go bust. 

Cheaper, greener power is on the way – ALSO AT https://antinuclear.net/2025/11/03/cheaper-greener-power-is-on-the-way/    Australia is getting free electricity – will other countries follow?

Climate. THE CORRUPTION OF COP30: DODGY CLIMATE DOSSIERS How thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists got access to UN climate talks – and then kept drilling. 

Six pieces of data that give hope for the future of the climate.

Noel’s note for today – When will the public in each country wake up? Governments don’t care – they’re happy to waste taxpayers money on things nuclear, and especially weaponry. 

AUSTRALIA. 

NUCLEAR iTEMS

ATROCITIES. Israel Is Still Starving Gaza, And Other Notes.
CLIMATE. Can France’s nuclear legacy weather climate change?-ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/11/09/1-a-can-frances-nuclear-legacy-weather-climate-change/
Siting new nuclear at Oldbury deemed ‘problematic’ due to high level of flood risk -ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/11/08/1-b1-siting-new-nuclear-at-oldbury-deemed-problematic-due-to-high-level-of-flood-risk/

ECONOMICS.

EMPLOYMENT. Fears raised that specialist Vulcan MoD work could shift to Sellafield
ENVIRONMENT. Nuclear Tests and Their Legacy of Harms in Asia-Pacific.The Silicon Thirst: When Data Drinks the World Dry.
EVENTS. 19th and 20th November – Online Event- Holding the Memories: Communities Leading the Fight for Nuclear Archival Justice
HEALTH. The men who stared at mushroom clouds .
MEDIA. Atomic testing must not resume.YouTube deletes hundreds of videos documenting Israeli war crimes.
OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . No to Nuclear, Yes to Renewables for Wales. Going Nuclear Free: The Early History of the Nuclear Free Local Authorities.
PERSONAL STORIES. Israel Still Controls Over Half of Gaza — Including the Rubble of My Home.
PLUTONIUM. Los Alamos National Laboratory Prioritizes Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Core Production Over Safety.Some 890 tons of Tepco nuclear fuel kept at Aomori reprocessing plant.

POLITICS

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.

SAFETY. IAEA chief condemns Trump’s nuclear test plan. Trump’s Big Nuclear Reactor Push Raises Safety Concerns.

Remediation work through £4.6bn Sellafield framework. Officials launch investigation after hazardous incident at shut-down nuclear plant: ‘Deeply concerning’.

SECRETS and LIES. The AI Drones Used In Gaza Now Surveilling American Cities.
TECHNOLOGY. Artificial Intelligence Is Making Everything Dumber
URANIUM. Don’t fuel Riyadh’s nuclear weapons cravings
WASTES
Nuclear waste removal under way at silo.
Decommissioning.EDF’s plan to decommission Hinkley Point B approved despite regulator’s concerns. Hinkley Point B to begin 95-year decommissioning plan.
UK’s nuclear waste problem lacks a coherent plan.
Radioactive waste from Canada would be buried in Utah under EnergySolutions proposal.
The iodine-129 paradox in nuclear waste management strategies.

WAR and CONFLICT.

Hegseth Declines To Say Whether the US Is Planning To Bomb Venezuela. US amassing 16,000 troops off Venezuelan coast – Washington Post.

The moment of truth: The West confronts Russian military advances.

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.

November 10, 2025 Posted by | Weekly Newsletter | Leave a comment

The US Empire Keeps Getting Creepier

Caitlin Johnstone, Nov 09, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-us-empire-keeps-getting-creepier?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=178388003&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Secretary of War™ Pete Hegseth said during a speech on Friday that the US is at “a 1939 moment” of “mounting urgency” in which “enemies gather, threats grow,” adding, “We are not building for peacetime. We are pivoting the Pentagon and our industrial base to a wartime footing.”

Everything’s getting darker and creepier in the shadow of the empire.

Nate Bear has a report out on his newsletter titled “The AI Drones Used In Gaza Now Surveilling American Cities” about a new company called Skydio which “in the last few years has gone from relative obscurity to quietly become a multi-billion dollar company and the largest drone manufacturer in the US.” Bear reports that Skydio now has contracts with police departments in almost every large US city to use these Gaza-tested drones for surveillance of American civilians.

Haaretz reports that Israel’s efforts to manipulate American minds back into supporting the Zionist entity include pouring millions into influence operations targeting Christian churchgoers and efforts to change responses to Palestine-related queries on popular AI services like ChatGPT. It’s crazy how you can literally just be minding your own business in your own church on a Sunday morning and then suddenly find yourself getting throat fucked by propaganda paid for by the state of Israel.

The Intercept reports that YouTube, which is owned by Google, quietly deleted more than 700 videos documenting Israel’s atrocities in Gaza in a purge of pro-Palestine human rights groups from the platform. Mass Silicon Valley deletions like this combined with the sudden influx of fake AI-generated video content polluting the information ecosystem could serve to erase and obfuscate the evidence of the Gaza holocaust for future generations.

A new report from Reuters says that last year the US had intelligence showing Israel’s own lawyers warning that the IDF’s mass atrocities in the Gaza Strip could result in war crimes charges. This is yet more evidence that the Biden administration knew it was backing a genocide the entire time, including during election season when left-leaning Americans were being told they needed to vote for then-Vice President Kamala Harris if they wanted to save Gaza.

In Italy a journalist was fired from the news agency Nova for asking an EU official if she thought Israel should be responsible for the reconstruction of Gaza in the same way she’s said Russia should have to fund the reconstruction of Ukraine. A Nova spokesperson confirmed to The Intercept that the journalist was indeed fired for asking the inconvenient question on the basis that “Russia had invaded a sovereign country unprovoked, whereas Israel was responding to an attack.”

Reuters reports that the US is preparing to establish a military base in Damascus. For years the empire waged a complex regime change operation in Syria to oust Assad, first by backing proxy forces to destroy the country and then via sanctions and US military occupation to prevent reconstruction. And it worked. The empire’s dirty war in Syria will be cited by warmongering swamp monsters for years to come as evidence that regime change interventionism can succeed if you just stick at it and do whatever evil things need to be done.

These are just a few of the disturbing stories from the last few days that I hadn’t had a chance to write about yet. This is the kind of world we are being offered by the US empire. There is nothing on the menu for us but more war, more genocide, more surveillance, more censorship, more tyranny, and more abuse.

Things are going to keep getting more and more dystopian for everyone who lives under the thumb of the imperial power structure until enough of us decide that the empire needs to end.

November 10, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Artificial Intelligence Is Making Everything Dumber

Caitlin Johnstone, Nov 08, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/artificial-intelligence-is-making?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=178344210&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

So it turns out Israel’s mistake was starting its genocide right after Palestinians gained the ability to quickly share video footage of what’s happening in Gaza, but right before the moment when any video footage shared online could easily be dismissed as AI.

Just today I saw two viral tweets that had received Community Notes from Twitter users warning that the posts featured AI-generated videos. Both were shared by right wing accounts with large followings, and both were used to spread Islamophobia.

The first was shared by Israeli-American pundit Emily Schrader, who has 194,000 followers on Twitter. The tweet features a fake CCTV video of a man in Muslim garb approaching a non-Muslim woman on the street in a way that’s meant to look intimidating before getting attacked by a house cat. As of this writing Schrader’s tweet has more than 612,000 views, and carries a Community Note that reads “AI generated. Time at top is a telltale sign. Also she starts off with a white and black bag then only black.”

The second was from a right wing British account called Basil the Great, which has over 210,000 followers. Their tweet features a fake video of an English-speaking teacher showing white children how to pray a Muslim prayer, captioned “I‘ve been sent this footage twice today. It shows a Muslim Teacher instructing British children in the ways of Islam in school. I hope it’s fake but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was real. In fact the left will probably say they don’t see anything wrong with this.”

It is not real. As of this writing the tweet carries a Community Note which reads “Video is AI generated. The teacher ‘sits’ on an invisible chair at the end of the video, which was not there at the beginning.” The video has had 1.7 million views.

This is Twitter, not Facebook, which had already been ravaged by fake AI content that’s been duping older users for nearly two years now.

Fake AI videos are now getting so good that they’re able to fool younger people who are much more aware of what’s out there. Australia’s ABC recently ran a segment where they showed different video clips to teens and asked them to determine which ones were real and which ones were AI, and they couldn’t do much better than randomly guessing.

For decades, video footage was the gold standard for evidence that something had occurred. For a few sweet years there was a period when anything significant that happened in public would usually be recorded on video, because in any group there was bound to be a few people with a smartphone in their pocket, and then those videos could be shared with the world as evidence that the significant thing had occurred. Now whenever there’s footage of a crime, or an act of government tyranny, or just a famous person doing something ridiculous in public, people aren’t going to believe it happened unless it’s corroborated by eyewitness testimony.

So in that sense we’ve sort of backslid to where we were before the invention of photography, when eyewitness reports were the only thing we had to go by. A video can help illustrate what the eyewitness is talking about, but without a physical witness willing to attest to its veracity, it’s often not going to be worth much in terms of proving that something happened.

Which of course serves the powerful just fine. Videos of genocidal atrocities, police brutality, and authoritarian abuses have been causing a lot of headaches for our rulers these past few years, so they’ll be happy to see the information ecosystem entering a new era where inconvenient video footage can be dismissed with a scoff.

Generative AI is making everything dumber. It’s crippling people’s ability to write, research, think critically and create art for themselves. It’s making it harder for us to discern truth from falsehood. It’s causing people to become divorced from their own humanity in weirder and weirder ways.

It’s getting harder and harder to know what’s real on the internet. That photo could be fake. That video could be fake. That song could have been made without any actual artist behind it. That essay could have been written by a chatbot. That social media account you’re interacting with could be a chatbot themselves. This is going to have a massively alienating effect on networking technologies whose initial promise was to help bring us all together.

When the internet first showed up people rejoiced at their ability to connect with others around the world who had the same interests and passions, saying “At long last, I’m not alone!” When AI showed up people started logging on to the internet and wondering, “Uhh… am I alone?”

Because you can’t be sure there’s anyone in there.

It reminds me of a passage from Charlotte Joko Beck’s “Everyday Zen”:

“Suppose we are out on a lake and it’s a bit foggy — not too foggy, but a bit foggy — and we’re rowing along in our little boat having a good time. And then, all of a sudden, coming out of the fog, there’s this other rowboat and it’s heading right at us. And…crash! Well, for a second we’re really angry — what is that fool doing? I just painted my boat! And here he comes — crash! — right into it. And then suddenly we notice that the rowboat is empty. What happens to our anger? Well, the anger collapses…I’ll just have to paint my boat again, that’s all. But if that rowboat that hit ours had another person in it, how would we react? You know what would happen!”

Beck is touching on the Buddhist doctrine of no-self here, which is a discussion for another day, but this parable has so many layers that say so much about humanity and human connection. The only reason we put so much mental energy and attention into our day-to-day interactions and relationships is because we assume we’re relating to other human beings like ourselves. We assume there’s somebody in the other rowboat.

Nearly all of the love, lust, anger, hatred, shame, guilt, passion, enthusiasm, attraction, aversion, delight and disgust we feel from moment to moment throughout this human adventure has to do with other humans. We don’t experience those big feelings toward inanimate objects like rowboats, cars or shopping carts, because we know there’s nobody in them. There’s no real connection to be had with them. Our big feelings come from our meetings with real people, real family, real lovers, real enemies, and real art from real artists.

AI is an empty rowboat, and the more it takes over the internet, the emptier it’s going to feel. People won’t feel like they can find the connection they’re craving in any of the areas that are dominated by artificial intelligence, and they’re going to go looking for it elsewhere. Maybe they’ll start going looking for it in places where there are physical people in physical bodies they can touch and make eye contact with, who they know for a fact are real people with real feelings and hopes and dreams like themselves.

And maybe that would be a good thing. Humanity is becoming too disconnected and dissociated as it is. We could all benefit from digging our roots into reality a bit deeper.

There are some technological developments where as an individual you have to draw a line for yourself. Modern civilization has made it possible to work from home and eat ten thousand calories a day without ever exercising or leaving your apartment, but most of us have the good sense not to do this because we know it would be very bad for our health. We’re going to have to start looking at AI the same way we look at McDonald’s: sure it’s there, but that doesn’t mean you have to consume it, because it’s really not good for you.

November 10, 2025 Posted by | technology | Leave a comment

Australia is getting free electricity – will other countries follow?

As one of the most advanced solar nations in the world, Australia is well placed to experiment with giving people free power – and if it succeeds, other countries may look to copy its approach

By James Woodford, New Scientist 7th Nov 2025

Australians received a welcome surprise this week with the news that every household will soon receive 3 hours of free electricity every day, as part of a world-first initiative to share the benefits of solar power. If successful, it could be a model for other to follow in a future that will increasingly be powered by sunshine.

The Australian electricity grid is zinging with excess capacity during the day thanks to solar power, but it is strained at night when people return from work and use most of their appliances. To address this, the Australian government says its “Solar Sharer” scheme will be rolled out from July 2026 in three states – New South Wales, South Australia and the south-east corner of Queensland – with the rest of the country joining in 2027…………………..(Subscribers only)..…………………. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2503532-australia-is-getting-free-electricity-will-other-countries-follow/

November 10, 2025 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, renewable | Leave a comment

Holding the Memories Webinar

Join us for our webinar co-hosted with Labrats, Holding the Memories: Communities Leading the Fight for Nuclear Archival Justice a panel presentation exploring barriers to accessing nuclear archives and expose the power of community-held memory.

WHEN
NEW YORK Wednesday November 19, 4pm, EST
LONDON    Wednesday November 19, 9pm, GMT
MELBOURNE   Thursday, November 20, 8am, AEST
FIJI/MARSHALL ISLANDS  Thursday 20 Nov – 9am FJT & MHT

For more timezones please view here

View or event on our new website and help us share the webinar out on Instagram, Facebook & Linkedin

REGISTER – https://events.humanitix.com/holding-the-memories

Featuring: 

  • Dimity Hawkins (Nuclear Truth Project, Australia)
  • Alan Owen (LabRats International, UK)
  • Karina Lester (Yankunytjatjara-Anangu community leader, Australia)
  • Dr Chris Hill (University of South Wales, UK)
  • Dr Jon Hogg (University of Liverpool, UK)

Building on the Nuclear Truth Project’s Challenging Nuclear Secrecy report (2025), this international collaboration brings together affected community members, nuclear justice advocates and organisations from the UK and Australia. 

The webinar will explore barriers to accessing nuclear archives and expose the power of community-held memory.

Focusing on British nuclear weapons testing in Australia and the Pacific (1952–1963), the discussion will focus on archival access as a core part of nuclear justice, victim assistance, and environmental restoration.

How do communities impacted by nuclear weapons testing overcome systemic barriers to accessing official records of harm to Peoples and Country? 

Join us to learn how memory is held — and fought for — by those most affected.

November 10, 2025 Posted by | Events | Leave a comment

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