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Remembering Chernobyl: Why not developing Wylfa B is a no-brainer.

26 Apr 2025, Robat Idris, https://nation.cymru/opinion/remembering-chernobyl-why-not-developing-wylfa-b-is-a-no-brainer/

26th April 2025 marks the 39th anniversary of the catastrophic nuclear explosion in Chernobyl, Ukraine – which, at the time, was part of the Soviet Union.

It’s worth reminding people of the effects of that horrific event. Tens of thousands of children and adolescents developed thyroid cancer in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, and children from affected areas have been welcomed here for respite holidays.

Genetic problems have been observed in the wildlife of the area. The area around the nuclear plant is still uninhabited.

Moreover, the rain that fell in Wales following the explosion caused radioactive pollution, even though we were 1,600 miles away. As a result, there was a serious impact on the agricultural industry, with upland lamb being banned from entering the food chain until tests showed that the level of Caesium-137 radiation had been adequately reduced.

Restrictions were placed on 9,800 farms, most of them in Wales and Cumbria. The final restrictions were not lifted until 2012 – 26 years after the explosion.

Why mention this now?

Because Chernobyl is in a country that is in the middle of war; a country that contains other nuclear reactors such as Zaporizhzhia, the largest nuclear complex in Europe. Because a shell built over the reactor at Chernobyl in order to prevent radiation from escaping was hit by a drone on the 14th of February this year. Because it is the first war that is being fought in a country where there are active nuclear reactors.

And because this nightmare could happen to us.

War target

With all the talk of preparing for war by political parties in Westminster, the British State’s obsession with nuclear energy and nuclear weapons is extremely dangerous. Consider that Starmer wants to see nuclear plants all over the State! All would be a target in war. And all need to be protected by special police.

All of this is another reason for opposing nuclear, though there are enough already – the radioactive waste without a long-term solution; the fact that waste would be on site for over a century; the dangers of fire; the fact that it will not be possible to build enough nuclear to have an impact on climate change; the diversion of funds and resources from renewable energy; the environmental mess associated with uranium mining; the threat to the Welsh language by thousands of workers for a large station; the likelihood that relatively few workers would be needed for operating a Modular Reactor (SMR); the extreme cost.

No-brainer

Yet as reported in Nation Cymru, Llinos Medi, the Member of Parliament for Ynys Môn at Westminster, has claimed in the House of Commons on 8 April 2025 that the development of a site at Wylfa is a ‘no-brainer’.

We respectfully ask her to reconsider this statement, and see why NOT building Wylfa B is a ‘no-brainer’. Here are, in short, 10 additional reasons.

The people of Anglesey need work – Llinos and PAWB at least agree on this! Nevertheless, since Tony Blair’s Energy Review in 2006, the main political emphasis of all levels of government has been on supporting Wylfa B. Where is the evidence that nuclear work is what the people want? The portraying of nuclear power over so many years as essential is economic recklessness.

In a world where there is uncertainty about the relationship with the United States, shouldn’t we be as wary of American investment in infrastructure as we are with investments from China?

As there are no licensed Modular Reactors (SMR’s), wouldn’t it be foolish for Ynys Môn to be a laboratory for this untested technology? And where are the reliable figures for how many permanent jobs would be needed?

The link between civil and military nuclear is undeniable, and is recognized by none other than Rolls-Royce, which is in the race to build SMR’s. As a representative of Plaid Cymru, a party that opposes nuclear weapons, this should be an essential consideration. Llinos, to her credit, is in the Welsh tradition of raising a voice against war, as she has done for Gaza.

A nuclear power station at Wylfa would create more dependence on the Westminster government, as huge public funding would be required, not only for construction, but for eventual decommissioning for tens of years.

On the other hand, sustainable energy could not only create jobs, but also generate income. The marine energy project, Morlais, shows what is possible.

Energy ownership

Energy ownership is crucial – the profit from nuclear would be exported. Similarly, sustainable energy must be in our hands, or we will export the profits that we generate. Green energy in the right place, not on hundreds of agricultural acres for the benefit of multinational companies.

It must be asked in whose interests the Starmer Government is working. Large American companies such as BlackRock are favored to invest in infrastructure. It intends to undermine the right of local communities to oppose major plans. What democracy is this?

Why do companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google have investments in nuclear energy? The reason is data centers, which use electricity on an enormous scale, and moreover require a large amount of water to keep them from overheating. 21% of Ireland’s electricity goes to data centres (2023). Water demand is at its peak when the weather is hot and dry – which is exactly when water is scarce in reservoirs. A warning to Ynys Môn!

The growth agenda – represented in Ynys Môn by Wylfa B – runs counter to the needs of the planet, and the needs of Ynys Môn and Wales. Sooner or later, politicians will have to recognize how dire the situation is before it’s too late.

Prosperous future

The challenge for Llinos Medi is to find a way to make a reality of what we ALL would fully support – a prosperous future for Ynys Môn and its people – but without a nuclear power station. After almost two decades of supporting Wylfa B, our economic situation is desperate. The legacy she wishes the children of the island to inherit are good and sustainable jobs, with the ability to afford to live here instead of having to leave. That’s our hope too.

PAWB (People Against Wylfa B), as ever, is ready to offer constructive ideas, as it did with the ‘Maniffesto Môn’ written by the late Dr Carl Clowes back in 2012. How about it, Llinos?

April 28, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

UK to scrap plans for Ukraine troop deployment – The Times

RT.com 25 Apr 25

London and Paris had previously lead an effort to send a European contingent if a ceasefire is reached.

The UK has ditched plans to deploy a military contingent to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, The Times has reported, citing anonymous sources.

The defense chiefs from a number of European NATO states had in recent weeks been discussing sending military personnel to Ukraine, under a so-called “coalition of the willing.” Russia has strongly objected to the prospect of Western troops appearing in the neighboring country under any pretext.

In an article on Thursday, The Times quoted an unnamed source as saying that the “risks are too high and the forces inadequate for” a deployment that had been previously under consideration. According to the publication, “it was France who wanted a more muscular approach.”

Instead of coalition forces guarding key Ukrainian cities, ports, and nuclear power plants, the grouping now envisages more emphasis on Western military instructors training Ukrainian troops in the west of the country, who would “‘reassure’ by being there but aren’t a deterrence or protection force,” The Times reported, citing an anonymous source.

The softened vision for a Western military presence in Ukraine does, however, reportedly include the coalition’s aircraft patrolling Ukraine’s airspace and Türkiye providing maritime cover…………………………………..https://www.rt.com/news/616330-uk-scraps-ukraine-troop-deployment/

April 28, 2025 Posted by | UK, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US prepares $100bn arms deal with Saudi Arabia ahead of Trump visit

The mega deal comes as Washington continues to push for the normalization of ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel

APR 25, 2025, The Cradle,

Washington is preparing a major arms package for Saudi Arabia worth over $100 billion, according to six sources cited by Reuters.
The deal is expected to be announced during US President Donald Trump’s upcoming visit to the kingdom in May.
This proposed package follows a failed attempt by the former US president Joe Biden government to broker a broader security agreement that included Saudi normalization with Israel in exchange for advanced US arms, assistance in developing a civilian nuclear program, and reduced Chinese influence in the region.
While it remains unclear whether Trump’s proposal includes similar conditions, the package is expected to feature a range of advanced weaponry.

This includes C-130 transport aircraft, missiles, and radars supplied by major US defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies), Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and General Atomics.

Lockheed is reportedly involved in a potential $20 billion drone deal involving MQ-9B SeaGuardian-style aircraft – an agreement discussed since 2018.
Defense company executives are reportedly considering traveling to Saudi Arabia as part of the US delegation. The Pentagon emphasized that the US–Saudi defense relationship remains strong under Trump’s leadership.

The US has a longstanding history of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, highlighted by Trump’s 2017 proposal of $110 billion in weapons deals. However, only $14.5 billion of those sales had been initiated by 2018, and Congress raised concerns following the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. These concerns led to a 2021 congressional ban on offensive weapons sales under president Biden.

The Biden administration began softening its stance in 2022 due to shifting geopolitical dynamics, including the Ukraine war’s impact on oil markets. The ban on offensive weapons sales was lifted in 2024, as the US worked more closely with Riyadh after Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.

Meanwhile, Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman visited Tehran on April 17, meeting Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and conveying a message from King Salman.

The visit resulted from renewed nuclear talks between the US and Iran amid fears of regional escalation………………….https://thecradle.co/articles-id/30331

April 28, 2025 Posted by | Saudi Arabia, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Spain terminates multimillion deal with Israeli weapons maker

Coalition authorities in Madrid have stressed their commitment to ‘the Palestinian cause and peace in West Asia

APR 24, 2025,  The Cradle,https://thecradle.co/articles/spain-terminates-multimillion-deal-with-israeli-weapons-maker

The Spanish government ordered the immediate termination of a $7.5 million contract to buy ammunition from a company with direct ties to Israeli arms maker Elbit Systems on 24 April. 

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez canceled the deal after Sumar, a group of left-wing parties, threatened to leave the governing coalition.

“After exhausting all routes for negotiation, the prime minister, deputy prime minister, and ministries involved have decided to rescind this contract,” a government source told Al Jazeera.

Earlier this week, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska formalized a contract with Israeli-owned company Guardian Homeland Security S.A. for over 15 million rounds of ammunition, causing a stir at the Moncloa Palace in light of Sanchez’s February 2024 pledge not to purchase weapons from Israel over the Gaza genocide.

Spanish media reports that authorities stressed the commitment of the progressive coalition government parties (PSOE and Sumar) “to the Palestinian cause and peace in the Middle East.” They also noted that since the US-backed ethnic cleansing campaign began in Gaza in October 2023, Spain has not purchased or sold weapons to Israeli firms, “nor will it do so in the future.”

However, despite the claims from Moncloa Palace, in February, the Progressive International (PI), the Palestinian Youth Movement, and the American Friends Service Committee revealed that over 60,000 weapon parts have been transported to Israel via Zaragoza airport in northern Spain since October 2023.

“The evidence indicates that these flights continue to this day,” investigators told elDiario.es, adding that the shipments include “parts and accessories for artillery, rifles, rocket/grenade launchers and machine guns” and “parts and accessories for revolvers and pistols.”

In December, The Intercept revealed that Washington sent over a thousand tons of ammunition to Israel on a ship that docked at a US naval base in Spain, despite Madrid’s embargo on vessels carrying military cargo bound for Israel.

“Shipments through American military bases in Spain of military materials, which may be used in the commission of international crimes, are harder to detect,” Spanish lawmaker Enrique Santiago told the New York-based outlet.

April 28, 2025 Posted by | Spain, weapons and war | Leave a comment

As Israel Openly Declares Starvation as a Weapon, Media Still Hesitate to Blame It for Famine

this is a genocide, after all—even if the corporate media refuse to say the word—and starvation is part and parcel of that.

Belén Fernández, April 25, 2025, https://fair.org/home/as-israel-openly-declares-starvation-as-a-weapon-media-still-hesitate-to-blame-it-for-famine/

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on March 2 that “Israel has decided to stop letting goods and supplies into Gaza,” where the ongoing Israeli genocide, with the loyal backing of the United States, has officially killed more than 51,000 Palestinians since October 2023. The announcement regarding the total halt of humanitarian aid amounted to yet another explicit declaration of the starvation policy that Israel is pursuing in the Gaza Strip, a territory that—thanks in large part to 17 consecutive years of Israeli blockade—has long been largely dependent on such aid for survival.

Of course, this was not the first time that senior Israeli officials had advertised their reliance on the war crime of forced starvation in the current genocidal assault on Gaza. On October 9, 2023, two days after the most recent launch of hostilities, then–Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip: “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.” Two days after that, Foreign Minister Israel Katz boasted of cutting off “water, electricity and fuel” to the territory.

And just this month, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir proclaimed that there was “no reason for a gram of food or aid to enter Gaza.” Following an April 22 dinner held in his honor in Florida at US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, Ben-Gvir reported that US Republicans had

expressed support for my very clear position on how to act in Gaza and that the food and aid depots should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages home safely.

Never mind that the hostages would have been brought home safely as scheduled had Israel chosen to comply with the terms of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas that was implemented in January, rather than definitively annihilating the agreement on March 18.

It is no doubt illustrative of Israel’s modus operandi that the March 2 decision to block the entry of all food and other items necessary for human existence took place in the middle of an ostensible ceasefire.

‘Starved, bombed, strangled’

While Ben-Gvir’s most recent comments have thus far eluded commentary in the US corporate media, the roundabout media approach to the whole starvation theme has been illuminating in its own right. It has not, obviously, been possible to avoid reporting on the subject altogether, as the United Nations and other organizations have pretty much been warning from the get-go of Israel’s actions causing widespread famine in Gaza.

In December 2023, for example, just two months after the onset of Israel’s blood-drenched campaign, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative, or IPC scale, determined that “over 90% of the population in the Gaza Strip (about 2.08 million people) was estimated to face high levels of acute food insecurity, classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse).” The assessment went on: “Among these, over 40% of the population (939,000 people) were in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and over 15% (378,000 people) were in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5).”

A full year ago, in April 2024, even Samantha Power—then the administrator of the US Agency for International Development—conceded that it was “credible” that famine was already well underway in parts of the Gaza Strip. And the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs now warns that Gaza is “likely facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the 18 months since the escalation of hostilities in October 2023”—its population being “starved, bombed, strangled” and subjected to “deprivation by design.”

Disappearance of agency

None of these details have escaped the pages and websites of corporate media outlets, although the media’s frequent reliance on ambiguous wordiness tends to distract readers from what is actually going on—and who is responsible for it. Take, for instance,  the New York Times headline “Gaza Famine Warning Spurs Calls to Remove Restrictions on Food Shipments” (6/25/24), or the CBS video “Hunger Spreads Virtually Everywhere in Gaza Amid Israel/Hamas War” (12/5/24).  Even news outlets that intermittently undertake to spotlight the human plight of, inter alia, individual parents in Gaza losing their children to starvation remain susceptible to long-winded efforts to disperse blame. (As of April of last year, Save the Children confirmed that 27 children in northern Gaza had already died of starvation and disease.)

In an era in which news consumption often consists of skimming headlines, the phrasing of article titles is of utmost import. And yet many headlines manage to entirely excise the role of Israel in Gaza’s “hunger crisis”—as in CNN’s report (2/24): “‘We Are Dying Slowly:’ Palestinians Are Eating Grass and Drinking Polluted Water as Famine Looms Across Gaza.” Or take the Reuters headline (3/24/24): “Gaza’s Catastrophic Food Shortage Means Mass Death Is Imminent, Monitor Says.” Or this one from ABC News (11/15/24): “Famine ‘Occurring or Imminent’ in Parts of Northern Gaza, Experts Warn UN Security Council.”

It’s not that these headlines are devoid of sympathy for Palestinian suffering. The issue, rather, is the dilution—and even disappearance—of agency, such that the “catastrophic food shortage” is rendered as transpiring in a sort of vacuum and thereby letting the criminals perpetrating it off the hook. Imagine if a Hamas rocket from Gaza killed an infant in Israel and the media reported the event as follows: “Israeli Baby Perishes as Rocket Completes Airborne Trajectory.”

‘No shortage of aid’

Then there is the matter of the media’s incurable habit of ceding Israeli officials a platform to spout demonstrable lies, as in the April 17 NBC News headline “Aid Groups Describe Dire Conditions in Gaza as Israel Says There Is No Shortage of Aid.” The fact that Israel is permitted to make such claims is particularly perplexing, given Israeli officials’ own announcements that no aid whatsoever may enter the territory, while the “dire conditions” are made abundantly clear in the text of the article itself: “The Global Nutrition Cluster, a coalition of humanitarian groups, has warned that in March alone, 3,696 children were newly admitted for care for acute malnutrition” in Gaza.

Among numerous other damning statistics conveyed in the dispatch, we learn that all Gaza bakeries supported by the UN World Food Programme closed down on March 31, “after wheat flour ran out.” Meanwhile, the WFP calculated that Israel’s closure of border crossings into Gaza caused prices of basic goods “to soar between 150% and 700% compared with prewar levels, and by 29% to as much as 1,400% above prices during the ceasefire.”

Against such a backdrop, it’s fairly ludicrous to allow Israeli officials to “maintain there is ‘no shortage’ of aid in Gaza and accuse Hamas of withholding supplies.” If the press provides Israel with space to spout whatever nonsense it wants—reality be damned—where is the line ultimately drawn? If Israel decides Hamas is using wheat flour to build rockets, will that also be reported with a straight face?

Lest anyone think that thwarting the entry of food into the Gaza Strip is a new thing, recall that Israel’s blockade of Gaza long predated the present war—although the details of said blockade are generally glossed over in the media in favor of the myth that Israel unilaterally “withdrew” from the territory in 2005. In 2010, the BBC (6/21/10) listed some basic foodstuffs—pardon, potential “dual-use items”—that Israel had at different times in recent history blocked from entering Gaza, including pasta, coffee, tea, nuts and chocolate. In 2006, just a year after the so-called “withdrawal,” Israeli government adviser Dov Weissglas outlined the logic behind Israel’s restriction of food imports into Gaza: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”

Fast forward almost two decades, and it’s safe to say that the “idea” has evolved; this is a genocide, after all—even if the corporate media refuse to say the word—and starvation is part and parcel of that. But on account of Israel’s extra-special relationship with the United States, US media have institutionalized the practice of beating around the bush when it comes to documenting Israeli crimes. This is how we end up with the aforementioned long-winded headlines instead of, say, the far more straightforward “Israel is starving Gaza,” a Google search of which terms produces not a single corporate media dispatch, but does lead to a January 2024 report by that very name, courtesy of none other than the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem.

‘Starving as negotiation tactic’

That said, there have been a few surprises. The New York Times (3/13/25), for example, took a short break from its longstanding tradition of unabashed apologetics for Israeli atrocities in allowing the following sentence to appear in a March opinion article by Megan Stack: “Israeli officials are essentially starving Gaza as a negotiation tactic.” In the very least, this was a vast improvement, in terms of syntactic clarity and assignation of blame, over previous descriptions of Israeli behavior immortalized on the pages of the US newspaper of record—like that time the Israeli military slaughtered four kids playing by the sea in Gaza, and the Times editors (7/16/14) went with the headline “Boys Drawn to Gaza Beach, and Into Center of Mideast Strife.”

In the end, Israel’s starvation of the Gaza Strip is multifaceted. It’s not just about physically blocking the entry of food into the besieged enclave. It’s also about Israel’s near-total decimation of Gaza’s healthcare system: the bombardment of hospitals, the targeting of ambulances, the massacres of medical personnel (FAIR.org, 4/11/25). It’s about Israeli military attacks on humanitarian aid convoys and workers, including the April 2024 massacre of seven international employees of the food organization World Central Kitchen.

It’s about Israel razing agricultural areas, wiping out food production, devastating the fishing industry and depleting livestock. It’s about Israel bombing water infrastructure in Gaza. And it’s about Israeli troops slaughtering at least 112 desperate Palestinians queuing for flour on February 29, 2024 (FAIR.org, 3/22/24)—which was at least a quicker way of killing starving people than waiting for them to starve.

In his 2017 London Review of Books essay (6/15/17) on the use of famine as a weapon of war, Alex de Waal referenced the “physical debilitation of groups as a technique of genocide,” noting that “forced starvation was one of the instruments of the Holocaust.” It’s worth reflecting on the essay’s opening paragraph:

In its primary use, the verb “to starve” is transitive: It’s something people do to one another, like torture or murder. Mass starvation as a consequence of the weather has very nearly disappeared: Today’s famines are all caused by political decisions, yet journalists still use the phrase “man-made famine” as if such events were unusual.

As for the current case of the Gaza Strip, US establishment journalists appear to be doing their best to avoid the transitive nature of the verb in question—or any subject-verb-object construction that might too overtly expose Israeli savagery. And by treating famine in Gaza as a subject unto itself, rather than a “technique of genocide,” to borrow de Waal’s words, the media assist in obscuring the bigger picture about this very man-made famine—which is that Israel is not just starving Gaza. Israel is exterminating Gaza.

April 27, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel, media, USA | Leave a comment

Plutonium’s Hidden Legacy at Piketon

Plutonium was here. It was processed, mishandled, released, and denied. It contaminated water, soil, fish, and workers. It spread to schools. And it killed.

Investigative Team April 24, 2025, https://appareport.com/2025/04/24/plutoniums-hidden-legacy-at-piketon/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=jetpack_social&fbclid=IwY2xjawJ5XrBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETE3b0JDR3JZZ0xqRkNqVU1oAR5YM8gN60lbVkb21XEno8JBYLC_Rnqv7LD993TwfBersmNr-c-SsZuL1J_1mA_aem_sCNRay627WxIPPEuu7DVsA  [ample illustrations]

For decades, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) claimed that plutonium had no place at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS). But government documents, congressional testimony, and radiological data spanning more than 40 years tell a different story — one of systemic exposure, buried secrets, and radioactive contamination that continues to haunt the soil, water, and people of southern Ohio.

The truth has been revealed in pieces. Some of it was made public as early as the 1990s. Some surfaced only recently. Together, it paints an undeniable picture: plutonium was present at PORTS, it was mishandled, and it left a toxic legacy that federal agencies have failed to clean up — or fully acknowledge.

The Paper Trail: Plutonium Officially Confirmed

The denial cracked in 1999, when The Portsmouth Daily Times published a front-page bombshell: “Plutonium Confirmed in Piketon.” The article cited admissions by federal officials that plutonium-contaminated uranium had been shipped to the site from Paducah, Kentucky, as part of a Cold War-era uranium recycling program.

In a formal letter to DOE Secretary Bill Richardson, U.S. Senators Mike DeWine and George Voinovich confirmed that at least 570 tons of contaminated feed material had been sent to Piketon, beginning as early as 1983. DOE had known. The public had not.

The Incinerator and the Burned Truth

Records show the X-705A incinerator, which operated from the 1970s until 1986, was used to burn approximately 50,000 pounds of uranium-contaminated solid waste annually. But it didn’t stop there.

ccording to on-site Ohio EPA coordinator Maria Galanti, uranium-contaminated solvents — materials never meant for incineration — were also burned in the unit. The result? Soil surrounding the incinerator is now radioactive to a depth of at least 12 feet.

Until the late 1980s, operators even tilled radioactive oils into unlined soil, assuming it would degrade over time. It didn’t. And it won’t — the plutonium isotopes involved have half-lives exceeding 24,000 years.

Radiation in the Waterways — and the Food Chain

A 2006 Ohio EPA report confirmed what residents feared: plutonium had migrated offsite and into the public environment.

Testing in Little Beaver Creek, Big Beaver Creek, Big Run, and the Scioto River revealed the presence of:

  • Plutonium-238
  • Plutonium-239
  • Americium-241
  • Neptunium-237
  • Alongside technetium-99 and uranium isotopes

All these elements were detected well above background levels, confirming they originated from the plant, not nature.

The Hazard Index (HI) — a risk threshold used by federal agencies — was exceeded across all tested water bodies, with Big Run scoring more than 20 times the EPA’s risk cutoff.

Separate DOE assessments show Pu-238 in fish as a significant dietary exposure source, second only to Tc-99 in produce. Plutonium has entered the food chain.

Offsite Spread: Plutonium Detected Near Schools and Homes

Monitoring data confirmed the presence of plutonium-239/240, neptunium-237, and americium-241 at offsite stations including:

  • Station A41A near Zahn’s Corner Middle School
  • Station A6 in northwest Piketon
  • Station A23 near local residential zones

DOE contends that any plutonium found in air monitors comes from 1950s nuclear weapons testing fallout and not PORTS.

Workers Testify to Deception and Disease

At a 2000 Senate hearing, former worker Sam Ray described his fight with chondrosarcoma, a rare bone cancer he linked directly to his work at PORTS. He spoke of no health monitoring, no protective equipment, and no transparency.

Jeffrey Walburn, a plant whistleblower, testified to a 1994 chemical exposure that permanently damaged his lungs. He alleged a criminal cover-up by Lockheed Martin, including the alteration and destruction of radiation dose records.

He warned that widows of deceased workers may never receive compensation because exposure data had been falsified.

DOE’s Own Admissions: Plutonium in the Cascade System

According to a 2024 DOE report, plutonium-238 and plutonium-239 were present in enrichment equipment, having entered the cascade system through contaminated uranium hexafluoride cylinders. The isotopes were found in the X-326 Process Building and throughout the cascade.

DOE also confirmed that residual technetium-99 remained embedded in internal pipe surfaces, requiring special disposal decades after operations ended.

From Russian Warheads to Pike County: The Megatons to Megawatts Program

Between 1993 and 2013, the U.S. and Russia dismantled over 20,000 nuclear warheads under the Megatons to Megawatts Program — converting highly enriched uranium (HEU) into low-enriched uranium (LEU) for use in American power plants.

But that uranium didn’t just vanish. It came through U.S. enrichment sites — including the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon.

Contractor and DOE records confirm that Russian-origin uranium — some of it likely carrying residual contaminants from dismantled warheads — was introduced into the U.S. enrichment stream at PORTS.

Whether plutonium from these shipments contributed to PORTS contamination is still under question. What’s undeniable is this: the U.S. government sent Russian bomb-grade material through an Appalachian processing plant with a history of unsafe handling, minimal oversight, and deliberate secrecy.

They took Soviet nukes and ran them through Appalachian lungs. Without warning. Without consent.

While the legacy of plutonium contamination at PORTS stretches back to the Cold War, the threat isn’t just historical — it’s current, legal, and active.

Centrus Energy: HALEU, the NRC license, and legal plutonium storage at PORTS

In 2021, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) granted Centrus Energy Corp. a license to operate a first-of-its-kind High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) facility inside the old enrichment footprint at PORTS. HALEU is a higher-enriched form of uranium (5–20% U-235), specifically produced for next-generation small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs).

But buried in the licensing documents is something the public was never told:

The HALEU license explicitly authorizes Centrus to store an undisclosed amount of plutonium-bearing material at the site.

That’s not speculation — that’s federal licensing language. In plain English: Centrus is legally allowed to store plutonium compounds at a facility that already has a catastrophic contamination legacy.

A Legacy Buried in Contamination and Lies

Plutonium was here. It was processed, mishandled, released, and denied. It contaminated water, soil, fish, and workers. It spread to schools. And it killed.

Some of the evidence has been buried. Some altered. But most of it has been in plain sight — ignored by federal agencies and omitted from cleanup plans.

This is not an old story. This is an ongoing disaster.

The time for quiet compliance is over. The reckoning for Piketon — and for the people poisoned by its secrets — has come.

April 27, 2025 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

Call it what it clearly is: Genocide

April 26, 2025, By Walt Zlotow, https://theaimn.net/call-it-what-it-clearly-is-genocide/

Some dare not call it genocide

Folks following the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, fully enabled by America, are of two views.

Those of us in the peace community instantly recognised that Israel’s response to Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack was a genocidal ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians from Gaza.

We didn’t have to guess. Israeli leaders made clear through word and deed that return of Israeli hostages was secondary to their primary goal of killing and clearing out all 2,300,000 Palestinians so Gaza could be redeveloped to expand Greater Israel.

It was also clear that the US, under both Biden and Trump, were and are in complete accord with Israel’s grisly, murderous policy. Biden feigned sympathy for the tens of thousands of dead Palestinian innocents on his watch and the decimated 139 square miles of Gaza rubble. But he kept mum while delivering over $20 billion in weapons allowing Israel to rain down on Gaza over 50,000 tons of American bombs dropped from American planes.

Trump, no surprise, gloried in the worst genocide this century. He invited indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu to the Oval Office to discuss which African countries they could intimidate to take in the roughly 2.2 million remaining starving, sick, traumatized Palestinians. Trump is eager to kick start his biggest real estate project ever, expanding Greater Israel into Gaza once the Palestinians have been cleared out. That is grotesque, not something to champion.

Then there are those who refuse to believe or admit that genocide is occurring before their eyes and ears in real time.

Reasons likely many.

Some simply view it not as genocide but a war between Israel and Hamas.

Some argue that the Palestinian destruction, no matter how horrible, does not rise to genocide which they equate to the Nazi horrors of WWII.

Some are in complete sympathy with Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign, indeed, cheering it on. Mike Huckabee, Trump’s new Ambassador to Israel, claims there is no such thing as Palestine or even Palestinians, so let the ethnic cleansing proceed unabated to expand Greater Israel.

There is a near total blackout in mainstream media of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Whether conservative or progressive, the talking heads go mute when it comes to the informing the public of the most horrific US policy in their lifetime.

None in Congress dare cross the Israel lobby by calling it genocide. To do so risks having millions in lobby campaign funds dry up or worse, going to a pro lobby primary opponent. Some are horrified by the violence crushing the Palestinians but cannot embrace the moral imperative to call it out and demand its end.

To his credit, Sen. Bernie Sanders tried twice to pass Senate Joint Resolutions to cut off the flow of genocide weapons to Israel but only garnered 17 votes from the other 99 mostly genocide-supporting Senators. But tho Sanders calls Israel’s conduct “ethnic cleansing”, he refuses to call it what it truly is: genocide.

Representing Sanders’ Senate opposite is colleague John Fetterman, who supports Israel cutting off all food, medicine, and water to Gaza until the Israeli hostages are released. Horrifying.

Israel breaks the January ceasefire with daily bombings, killing dozens of Palestinian innocents while most Americans turn away.

Collectively, American genocide deniers enable President Trump to fund, supply, and cheer on arguably the most murderous, destructive and tragically bi-partisan foreign policy in American history.

April 27, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

EDF’s new UK plants should be negotiated as one, French energy minister says.

EDF’s two UK nuclear construction projects at Hinkley Point and Sizewell
should be negotiated as a single financial venture, France’s energy
minister has urged, to prevent the French energy giant shouldering
significant cost overruns.

Marc Ferracci said he had held discussions on
the projects with Britain’s energy minister Ed Miliband on Thursday, on
the sidelines of an energy security summit in London. “France and EDF are
very committed to deliver the projects but we have to find a way to
accelerate them and we have to find a way to consolidate the financial
schemes of both projects,” Ferracci told the FT.

France has been lobbying
the UK government to help EDF with the finances of Hinkley Point C in
Somerset for more than a year. It argues that the French state-owned
electricity operator should not be left on the hook for cost overruns that
have taken the total bill to as high as £46bn. EDF — which has also
experienced long delays on other projects using the same reactor technology
in Finland and France — has warned that the first of two reactors at
Hinkley Point C could be delayed to as late as 2031, which would be six
years later than its original target.

The French company has a smaller
equity stake in the Sizewell C project in Suffolk, which it is also
developing. Ferracci denied that the French government was seeking to use
Sizewell as “leverage” to help bail it out of financial difficulties at
Hinkley.

 FT 25th April 2025,
https://www.ft.com/content/0c50a553-3376-42d8-8ac5-c8aa84d2e78d

April 27, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

Trump’s transactional instincts could help forge a new Iran nuclear deal

Mohamad Bazzi, 265 Apr https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/25/trump-iran-nuclear-deal

The president has a chance to make good on his reputation as a dealmaker as Iran moves closer to a nuclear weapon.

In May 2018, Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal and reimposed American sanctions that crippled the Iranian economy. Trump tore up the 2015 agreement, which had taken years for Iran to negotiate with six world powers, under which Tehran limited its nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions. Trump insisted he would be able to negotiate a better pact than the one reached by Barack Obama’s administration.

Today, in his second term as president, Trump is eager to fix the Iran deal he broke nearly seven years ago.

While Trump’s overall foreign policy has been chaotic and has alienated traditional US allies in Europe and elsewhere, he has an opportunity to reach an agreement with Iran that eluded Joe Biden. Since Trump walked away from the original deal, Iran has moved closer to having a nuclear weapon than it has ever been. It has enriched enough uranium close to weapons-grade quality to make six nuclear bombs, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). But analysts believe that even after enriching enough uranium for a bomb, Iran would still need up to a year to develop an actual nuclear warhead that could be deployed on a ballistic missile.

Last month, Trump sent a letter to Iran’s supreme leader, the 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying the US wanted to negotiate a new deal. Trump followed up with a public threat, saying if Iran’s leaders did not agree to renewed talks, they would be subjected to “bombing the likes of which they have never seen before”. After Trump’s threats and a buildup of US forces in the Middle East, Iran’s military said it would respond to any attack by targeting US bases in the region, which house thousands of American troops.

But Iranian leaders also agreed to indirect negotiations, rather than the direct talks Trump had proposed. Trump dispatched his special envoy, the real estate developer Steve Witkoff, to lead a team of US negotiators to meet indirectly with top Iranian officials, including the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi. The two sides held two rounds of productive talks so far this month, under the mediation of Oman. And the US and Iranian teams are due to meet again this weekend in Muscat, the capital of Oman, where they will start talks on technical details of a potential agreement.

While Trump and Iran’s leaders both changed their tones in recent weeks, there are many obstacles before a deal can be reached, including hardliners in Iran and Washington, as well as opposition from Israel’s rightwing government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who has spent years working to undermine negotiations between the US and Iran. The main barrier will be whether the Trump administration insists on a total dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program – the so-called “Libya model”, named after the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who decided to eliminate his country’s nuclear weapons program in 2003 under pressure from the US. But that decision deprived Gaddafi of a major lever to stave off western military intervention after the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, which led to his regime’s fall and his killing by Libyan rebels.

Some foreign policy hawks in Washington, including Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, insist on this maximalist strategy, which echoes Netanyahu’s demand that Iran must completely dismantle its nuclear enrichment activity and infrastructure as part of any deal with the US. If Trump takes a similar approach, negotiations would probably break down and Trump could follow through on his threat to carry out military strikes.

Iran has made clear that it will not agree to the total end of its nuclear program, but would accept a verification-based approach, as it did under the 2015 deal negotiated by the Obama administration along with China, France, Russia, the UK and Germany, together with the European Union. That type of agreement would place strict limits on Iran’s ability to enrich uranium and impose an inspections regime involving international monitors. Several of Trump’s advisers, including Witkoff and the vice-president, JD Vance, seem to favor this solution.

“I think he wants to deal with Iran with respect,” Witkoff said of Trump’s outreach to the Iranian regime, in a long interview last month with Tucker Carlson, the rightwing media host who has been highly critical of Republican hawks agitating for war with Iran. “He wants to build trust with them, if it’s possible.”

Iran’s leaders apparently got that message – and have tried to stroke Trump’s ego and convey that they respect him in ways they never respected Biden. In a Washington Post op-ed published on 8 April, Iran’s foreign minister seemed to be speaking to Trump directly when he blamed the failure of earlier negotiations on a “lack of real determination by the Biden administration”. Araghchi also played to Trump’s oft-repeated desire to be a peacemaker who ends America’s legacy of forever wars, writing: “We cannot imagine President Trump wanting to become another US president mired in a catastrophic war in the Middle East.”

And the minister appealed to Trump’s reputation as a deal-maker, citing the “trillion-dollar opportunity” that would benefit US companies if they could gain access to Iran after a diplomatic agreement. Iran’s leaders evidently understand that Trump loves to frame his foreign policy as being guided by his desire to secure economic deals and benefits for American businesses.

In this case, Trump’s transactional instincts and bulldozer style of negotiations could lead to a positive outcome, avoiding war with Iran and undermining the hardliners in Washington, Iran and Israel. Trump has already adopted a significant shift toward Tehran from his first term, when he had insisted that Iran was the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and the greatest threat to US interests in the Middle East.

After he took office in 2017, Trump wanted to tear up the Iran deal partly because it was one of Obama’s major foreign policy accomplishments. Trump also surrounded himself with hawkish advisers who reinforced the danger of an Iranian threat, including HR McMaster, who served as national security adviser, and James Mattis, who was defense secretary. Both men commanded US troops during the occupation of Iraq, and they fought Iraqi militias funded by Iran. Trump later appointed John Bolton, another neoconservative and advocate of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, as his national security adviser.

In his second term, Trump has banished most of the neocons from his administration. Trump also seems to realize that Netanyahu could become one of the biggest obstacles to an Iran deal, as he was during the Obama and Biden administrations. It was no accident that the president announced his plan for renewed talks with Iran while Netanyahu sat beside him at an Oval Office meeting on 7 April. Netanyahu had arranged a hasty visit to Washington to seek an exemption from Trump on new tariffs on Israeli exports. But he left empty-handed and embarrassed by Trump’s Iran announcement. That meeting was a signal to Iran’s leaders: that Trump would not allow Netanyahu to steamroll him, as the Israeli premier had done with other US presidents.

If Trump continues to resist Netanyahu, along with hawkish Republicans and some of his own advisers, he might well be able to negotiate a dramatic deal with Iran – and repair the nuclear crisis he unleashed years ago.

  • Mohamad Bazzi is the director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern studies and a journalism professor at New York University.

April 27, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Weatherwatch: sage advice 50-odd years ago on UK nuclear power still relevant

Ministers might care to heed conclusions of 1976 Flowers report before they go ahead with latest energy policy plans

Paul Brown, 25 Apr 25, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/apr/25/weatherwatch-sage-advice-50-odd-years-ago-on-uk-nuclear-power-still-relevant

Gathering dust somewhere in Whitehall is the 1976 royal commission’s sixth report on environmental pollution, known afterwards as the Flowers report after its chair, Sir Brian Flowers. It dealt with the future of the nuclear industry, warning about the dangers of producing large quantities of plutonium amid fears of potential threats from terrorists. The report particularly emphasised the pressing need to find a way of disposing of nuclear waste and recommended there should be no great expansion of nuclear power until a satisfactory way had been found of disposing of it.

The report was written before climate change and the current extremes of weather were of public concern, but the commission was exercised by the pressing need to increase the electricity supply. The report did not rule out the expansion of nuclear power but urged the government to look at wave power and other renewables as much more desirable alternatives.

Fast-forward almost half a century and the UK is still no nearer to dealing with its ever increasing pile of nuclear waste, costing billions every year just to keep safe. However, the Flowers commission would be delighted that wind, solar and other renewables have largely replaced nuclear power, and be puzzled that the government seems poised to ignore sage advice and expand nuclear energy again.

April 27, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Tankers travel from Alton Water to Sizewell C every day

Tankers full of water are travelling 30 miles up the A12 and B1122 to keep Sizewell C’s offices topped up because the local water company cannot cope with demand.

 Essex and Suffolk Water is the company that supplies the north
east of the county – and it has long been known that it has problems in
coping with increasing demand. The company is operating at near capacity –
and this problem has forced some development or expansion plans in the area
to be cancelled or postponed. It is not able to supply water to the offices
that have been built at Sizewell so a temporary deal has been signed with
Anglian Water to bring in supplies.

 Ipswich Star 25th April 2025,
https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/25110191.tankers-travel-alton-water-sizewell-c-every-day/

April 27, 2025 Posted by | UK, water | Leave a comment

UN: Gaza Is Facing Worst Humanitarian Situation Yet Due to Israeli Blockade.

“Hunger is spreading & deepening, deliberate & manmade,” “Two million people: a majority of women & children are undergoing collective punishment.”

The Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid and all other goods entering Gaza has been imposed for 50 days

by Dave DeCamp April 22, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/04/22/un-gaza-is-facing-worst-humanitarian-situation-yet-due-to-israeli-blockade/

The UN’s humanitarian office, OCHA, warned on Tuesday that Gaza is facing its worst humanitarian situation yet, as a total Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid and all other goods has been imposed for more than 50 days.

“Right now is probably the worst humanitarian situation we have seen throughout the war in Gaza,” Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for OCHA, said at a press briefing in Geneva, according to Turkey’s Anadolu Agency.

Also on Tuesday, the UN’s Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, said Gaza had become a “land of desperation” and warned of spreading hunger.

“Hunger is spreading & deepening, deliberate & manmade,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X. “Two million people: a majority of women & children are undergoing collective punishment.”

Lazzarini said that aid trucks, including 3,000 from UNRWA, are ready to enter Gaza but are being blocked by Israel. “The siege must be lifted, supplies must flow in, the hostages must be released, the ceasefire must resume,” he said.

The US has strongly backed Israel’s collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza. US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee released a video statement on Monday in response to calls for him to pressure Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and blamed Hamas for the Israeli blockade.

Last week, 12 major aid organizations issued a statement that said the “people of Gaza – particularly women and children – are paying the price” and that “famine is not just a risk, but likely rapidly unfolding in almost all parts of Gaza.”

April 26, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Scottish nuclear plant emptied of fuel as UK winds down ageing gas-cooled reactors.

the cost of decommissioning should be taken into
account when the government decided on new nuclear plants as “no scheme can be guaranteed to meet a cost more than a century into the future”.

 The first of the UK’s seven advanced gas-cooled reactor nuclear power
stations has been emptied of fuel, kick-starting a decommissioning process
that will cost at least £27bn in total and take almost a century.

EDF said on Thursday it had defuelled Hunterston B, on the west coast of Scotland,
paving the way for the transfer of the site and 250 staff from the French
power company to the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority next April. The
site provided most of Scotland’s energy for more than 40 years from its
launch in 1976 until its final closure in 2022.

EDF owns seven advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs) plants in the UK, which were built between the 1960s and 1980s and differ from newer nuclear plants that use water for
cooling. Just four are still operating.

The uranium fuel has been packaged
into 350 large flasks, which will be stored by the NDA at the Sellafield
nuclear site in Cumbria for at least 50 years until a longer-term
underground facility has been built.

Although the process took just three
years and £400mn, it will take almost a century to eradicate the radiation
from the land and buildings, EDF has said. The decommissioning of the seven
AGRs is separate to a much wider £105bn decommissioning programme, which
will cover an additional 17 closed nuclear sites over the next 120 years,
according to the NDA.

The closures will leave the UK with just one nuclear
power plant still running by 2030 — Sizewell B in Suffolk, which is also
managed by EDF and uses a pressurised water reactor. The NDA said it was
“acutely aware of the costs associated with delivering our mission”.

The cost of decommissioning nuclear power plants is under scrutiny as the
UK presses ahead with new nuclear projects, including the £40bn Sizewell
C, which is expected to get government go-ahead this spring, and the £46bn
Hinkley Point C, which is still under construction and will open by 2030 at
the earliest.

Steve Thomas, emeritus professor of energy policy at
Greenwich university, said the cost of decommissioning should be taken into
account when the government decided on new nuclear plants as “no scheme
can be guaranteed to meet a cost more than a century into the future”.

Although EDF has owned Hunterston B and the seven other AGR nuclear plants
since 2009, the cost of decommissioning is being paid for through the
ringfenced Nuclear Liabilities Fund (NLF), which was set up in 1996 after
privatisation and is valued at £20.6bn. Decommissioning costs have soared
over the past three decades, with the fund requiring cash injections from
the Treasury, including £5bn in July 2020 and a further £5.6bn in March
2022, according to the NLF.

 FT 24th April 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/c31af2d6-eeaa-4a3d-a2c0-81c63b29cb1d

April 26, 2025 Posted by | decommission reactor, UK | Leave a comment

EDF’s two nuclear plants in Britain should be negotiated as one, French minister says.

Guy Taylor, Transport Reporter, 25 April 2025

EDF’s two nuclear construction schemes at Hinkley Point and Sizewell C should be treated as one financial venture in negotiations, according to France’s energy minister.

Marc Ferracci told the FT he had held discussions with the UK’s energy minister Ed Miliband at the sidelines of a conference in London on Thursday.

“France and EDF are very committed to deliver the projects but we have to find a way to accelerate them and we have to find a way to consolidate the financial schemes of both projects,” he said.

The French government has been pushing ministers in the UK to lend a hand with Hinkley Point’s floundering finances over the last year.

Costs on the nuclear project have risen to as high as £46bn and it argues EDF, the French state-owned energy firm, should not be forced to cover the overruns.

EDF’s equity stake in Sizewell C, a 3.2 gigawatt nuclear station on the Suffolk Coast, is smaller than Hinkley Point.

Ferracci denied that the French government was looking to use Sizewell as “leverage” against the financial troubles at Hinkley………………….. https://www.cityam.com/edfs-two-nuclear-plants-should-be-negotiated-as-one-french-minister-says/

April 26, 2025 Posted by | France, politics international, UK | Leave a comment

The Australian Labor Party is No Friend of the Nuclear-Free Cause.

 https://theaimn.net/the-australian-labor-party-is-no-friend-of-the-nuclear-free-cause/ 26 Apr 25

I’m thinking that the nuclear lobby loves the ALP even more than it loves the Liberal Coalition opposition party.

Advance Australia, and the U.S-controlled Atlas Network are powerful and well-funded groups dedicated to molding public opinion on behalf of wealthy right-wing groups. They did a fine job in 2023 of destroying Australian support for the 2023 Australian referendum on the indigenous Voice to Parliament.

I was expecting them to pretty much run riot in support of the Liberal Coalition’s plan for a nuclear Australia. That does not seem to have happened. Why not?

Advance “kicked off with outright lies“, but has been rather quiet lately. And the Atlas Network is nowhere in sight, although its modus operandi is secretive anyway, spreading simplistic memes.

My conclusion is that Peter Dutton’s Liberal Coalition campaign is so inept, so incompetent, that it has turned out to be counter-productive to the party’s cause. There’s just so much evidence of this ineptitude – particularly when it comes to the estimated costs of setting up seven nuclear power plants around Australia. The latest of many examinations of these costs is – “Coalition’s nuclear gambit will cost Australia trillions – and permanently gut its industry.” Half-baked plans to keep old coal-power plants running for many years until nuclear is “ready”, no mention of plans for waste disposal, – the tax-payer to cop the whole cost. Even a suave sales magician like Ted O’Brien has not been able to con the Australian public. The party’s incompetence is on show in other ways, too, unconnected to the nuclear issue.

But what of Labor? They have been remarkably quiet on the nuclear issue – focussing on their own rather ha[f-baked plans for housing. It’s all cost-of-living issues – and I don’t deny that this is important. But nuclear rarely gets a mention – except when Labor finds it useful to mention the costs.

It doesn’t look as if Peter Dutton’s Liberal Coalition has a hope in hell of getting a majority win for its nuclear platform.

But does the nuclear lobby really care? I’m afraid not. You see, the Labor Party, supposedly opposed to the nuclear industry, has a long tradition of caving in on nuclear issues. From 1982 – a weak, supposed “no new uranium mines” policy became a “three mines uranium policy” 1984 then a pathetic “no new mines policy” in the 1990s. Backing for South Australia’s uranium mines further weakened Labor anti-nuclear policy.

Over decades, Labor luminary Gareth Evans has been acclaimed for his supposed stance against nuclear weapons. But he’s done a disservice to the nuclear-free movement, in his long-standing position in favour of “the contribution that can be made by nuclear energy capable of providing huge amounts of energy, and just as clean as renewables in its climate impact”. Evans has always been close to the International Atomic Energy Agency, in his complacency that nuclear power has nothing to do with nuclear weapons!

Labor has always been officially opposed to nuclear power, but at the Federal level, and some State levels, there have always been significant Ministers like Bob Hawke, and Martin Ferguson, who pushed for the nuclear industry. To his credit, Anthony Albanese for a long time held out against the nuclear industry. Even up until 2024, he was still trying .

But the crunch had already come – Albanese on Thursday, 16th September 2021 – “We accept that this technology [nuclear-powered submarines ] is now the best option for Australia’s capability.”

Why did Albanese agree to this deal, arranged between the Morrison Liberal government, and the USA and UK? Apparently, he did so, after just a two-hour briefing, with no documents provided, on the previous day. Labor Caucus was presented with it as a fait accompli. No vote was taken.

I can only conclude that Albanese’s decision was based on that time-honored fear of Labor looking “weak on security”.

In one fell swoop, Labor’s anti-nuclear policy was wrecked. The nuclear submarines will mean nuclear reactors on Australia’s coast. The will mean nuclear waste disposal in Australia, including foreign nuclear waste from the second-hand submarines. They will surely eventually mean nuclear weapons, as who can really tell if a nuclear-powered submarines has or has not got nuclear weapons? (The Chinese will be very wary about them.)

Since 2021, Australia’s nuclear submarine arrangement has been largely in the hands of Defence Minister Richard Marles, who worked with that dodgy company PWC to set it up, and who is a committed supporter of Australia’s solidarity with the USA.

March 2023 – Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak  unveiled the path to acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.

“In 2024, Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, made undisclosed “political commitments” with its AUKUS partners in an agreement for the transfer of naval nuclear technology to Australia, sparking concerns about the potential for high-level radioactive waste to be stored in the country. “

The global nuclear lobby works across national boundaries to promote its industry. It does well with Russia – as government clamp-down on dissent makes it easier to expand the industry in all its forms, and to market nuclear power to Asian ana African countries.

The nuclear industry is well aware of the problems in maintaining the belief that nuclear is clean, cheap, and climate friendly. But above all, it’s the nuclear-waste problem that its most expensive and difficult obstacle. Here’s where Australia has always looked appealing. All this nonsense about getting small nuclear reactors is just a distraction . The industry knows that small nuclear reactors are fraught with difficulties – too expensive, requiring too much security, public opposition at the local level, still needing too much water……… But to keep the global industry going, a nuclear-waste-welcoming country would be such a boost.

Well, it is early days, even for the prospect of those AUKUS nuclear submarines ever actually arriving. But in the meantime – the whole AUKUS thing has quietly introduced the Australian public to the idea that nuclear submarines are OK, and so are their wastes, and so are USA nuclear weapons based in Australia.

So, really, the Australian Labor Party has done a much better job of promoting the nuclear industry, than the fumbling Liberal Coalition could.

We are fortunate inn Australia to have proportional representation in our election. If you care about keeping Australia nuclear-free, you don’t have to vote for either of the big parties.

April 26, 2025 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, Christina's notes, politics | Leave a comment

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