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The Western Media Brought Gaza To This Point

Caitlin Johnstone, May 22, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-western-media-brought-gaza-to?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=164129601&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNTU2MjE3LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxNjQxMjk2MDEsImlhdCI6MTc0Nzg3OTg5NywiZXhwIjoxNzUwNDcxODk3LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItODIxMjQiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.1yOnX9gkFtJ60ygxFyWvcUWnljfPG0wyJfU6MjZ5nLU&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Benjamin Netanyahu is now explicitly saying that the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza is a precondition to ending the slaughter in the besieged Palestinian territory.

The Times of Israel reports:

“Responding to those who are pushing for an end to war in Gaza, Netanyahu says he ‘is ready to end the war, under clear conditions that will ensure the safety of Israel — all the hostages come home, Hamas lays down its arms, steps down from power, its leadership is exiled from the Strip… Gaza is totally disarmed, and we carry out the Trump plan. A plan that is so correct and so revolutionary.’

“This represents the first time the US president’s plan for moving Gaza civilians out of the Strip has been presented as an Israeli demand for ending the war.”

Trump’s stated plan for Gaza is to remove “all” Palestinians from the enclave and never allow them to return. Netanyahu is here saying that the ethnic cleansing of Gaza is Israel’s ultimate military objective.

Which has been obvious from the very beginning. On the 20th of October 2023, a mere 13 days after October 7, I myself posted the following:

“Israel’s being so obvious about wanting to do another land grab. The solution to every problem is to move Gazans off the land they’re on to somewhere else. It’s like a guy at a nightclub pushing you and pushing you to drink a drink he handed you; at a certain point you realize he’s probably not really interested in making sure you have enough to drink.”

It’s been so transparently obvious this entire time that Israel’s entire objective is to remove Palestinians from a Palestinian territory so their land can be used for Israel’s own purposes — but you’d never have known it from looking at the western press.

For the last year and a half the western media have been brazenly lying to the public by framing this as a “war with Hamas” instead of the naked ethnic cleansing operation it clearly is. They’ve been manufacturing consent for this murderous land grab by babbling about hostages, terrorism and October 7 when Israel’s mass atrocity in Gaza has never, ever been about any of those things. It has only ever been about taking Palestinian land away from Palestinians — an agenda Israel has been pursuing for decades.

If the western press had been doing actual journalism, Israel would never have been able to bring Gaza to this point. Because the western press have instead been administering propaganda this entire time, Gaza is now an uninhabitable pile of rubble full of desperate, starving people, allowing Israel and the Trump administration to argue that the humanitarian thing to do is to evacuate them all immediately.

The western media’s refusal to acknowledge this — combined with a year and a half of wildly biased headlines, indisputably slanted coverage, and extensively documented top-down pressure in mass media institutions to cover Israel’s onslaught in a positive light — stifled much of the public opposition to this genocidal land grab that we would likely have seen otherwise. This journalistic malpractice allowed Israel’s western backers to support this mass atrocity with impunity, which in turn allowed Israel to act with impunity.

None of this would be possible if the west had an actual free press whose job is to create an informed populace. But we do not have an actual free press whose job is to create an informed populace — we have imperial propaganda services disguised as news.

Now that Israel has pulled back the curtain and acknowledged what we are looking at here, some in the western press have begun pivoting to wag their fingers at Netanyahu in order to preserve their image. And fine, whatever, we need as much help as we can get. But never forget what these monsters did to help create this nightmare in Gaza.

May 25, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, media | Leave a comment

Canada wants to join Golden Dome missile-defence program, Trump says

Ottawa confirms it’s talking to U.S. about major multi-year program

Alexander Panetta · CBC News ·May 20, 2025, https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/golden-dome-trump-us-missile-defence-canada-1.7539390

Donald Trump says Canada has asked to join the missile-defence program his administration is building, adding a new chapter to a long-running cross-border saga.

The U.S. president dropped that news in the Oval Office on Tuesday as he unveiled the initial plans for a three-year, $175 billion US project to build a multi-purpose missile shield he’s calling the Golden Dome.

“Canada has called us and they want to be a part of it,” Trump said. “They want to hook in and they want to be a part of it.”

Canada will pay its “fair share,” he added. “We’ll work with them on pricing.”

Ottawa confirmed it’s talking to the U.S. about this but added a caveat. In a statement, the federal government cast missile-defence discussions as unresolved and as part of the overall trade and security negotiations Prime Minister Mark Carney is having with Trump. 

What this means is still extremely murky. It’s unclear what, exactly, Canada would contribute; what its responsibilities would include; what it would pay; and how different this arrangement would be from what Canada already does under the Canada-U.S. NORAD system.

Refused to join

Canada has long participated in tracking North American skies through NORAD, and feeds that data into the U.S. missile-defence program.

But Canada never officially joined the U.S. missile program, which was a source of controversy in Ottawa in the early 2000s when Prime Minister Paul Martin’s government refused to join.

That previous refusal means Canadians can monitor the skies but not participate in any decision about when to launch a hypothetical strike against incoming objects.

New developments have forced the long-dormant issue back onto the agenda. 

For starters, the U.S. is creating a new system to track various types of missiles — one more sophisticated and multi-layered than Israel’s Iron Dome, intended to detect intercontinental, hypersonic and shorter-range cruise weapons. 

And this happens to be occurring as Canada’s sensors in the Arctic are aging out of use. Canada has committed to refurbishing those sensors.

Rumblings of Canada’s interest started months ago

The first public indication that these combined factors were fuelling a policy shift in Canada came in public comments made earlier this year in Washington.

One U.S. senator said, in February, that he’d heard interest in the missile program from a Canadian colleague, then-defence minister Bill Blair.

Blair publicly acknowledged the interest, saying that, given the upgrades being planned by both the U.S. and Canada, the partnership “makes sense.”

But the form of Canadian participation is, again, unclear. The U.S. commander for NORAD appeared recently to suggest that Canada’s participation will be limited to tracking threats.

One missile-defence analyst says it sounds like an extension of existing Canada-U.S. co-operation through NORAD. Still, says Wes Rumbaugh, it’s interesting that Trump chose to draw attention to it. Trump mentioned Canada’s role several times, unprompted, during his announcement Tuesday.

As for the president’s three-year timeframe, Rumbaugh calls it a long shot. He predicts that only part of the system could be built in that period, and that it will take more years, and more funding, to complete.

It could take much, much more funding. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this project could cost hundreds of billions more than the $175 billion US figure cited by the president. 

“This is still a significant challenge,” said Rumbaugh, a fellow in the missile defence project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank in Washington.

“We’re talking about sort of a next-generation and a widely enhanced missile-defence system. We’re talking about a step-change evolution in American air and missile defence systems that will require significant investment over potentially a long time period.”

Canada confirms Golden Dome discussions

Nearly three hours after Trump’s announcement, Ottawa confirmed the discussions are happening. An evening statement from Carney’s office said Canadians gave the prime minister an electoral mandate to negotiate a comprehensive new security and economic relationship with the U.S.

“To that end, the prime minister and his ministers are having wide-ranging and constructive discussions with their American counterparts,” said the statement. 

“These discussions naturally include strengthening NORAD and related initiatives such as the Golden Dome.”

A Canadian cabinet minister involved in similar discussions in the early 2000s says it’s high time the conversation resumed. 

“I see this as a positive,” said David Pratt, a Liberal defence minister in the first Martin cabinet. 

He favoured Canada’s participation in a North American missile defence system back then but says the government blanched out of fear of political blowback, with its minority government fragile. 

He said the refusal to join came with a cost. In part, NORAD lost part of its potential vocation, as missile interception became a U.S.-only activity, and related research and manufacturing opportunities flowed to the U.S., he said. 

The specific U.S. ask of Canada was never fully defined back then, he said. Pratt recalls negotiations having just gotten underway about what role Canada would play and whether it would merely host sensors or also interceptors on its soil.

I’m hoping we’ll see NORAD assume what should have been its rightful role,” he told CBC News. 

May 25, 2025 Posted by | Canada, weapons and war | Leave a comment

I wrote a speech for Trump’s Golden Dome defense. Get ready to feel something.

Golden comes first, of course, because the entire thing will be made of gold, which everyone knows is the strongest of all the metals. That’s why I use it in all my properties.

Rex Huppke, https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2025/05/22/trump-golden-dome-missile-defense/83776830007/

After watching President Donald Trump announce plans for a $175 billion “Golden Dome” missile-defense system, I took the liberty of preparing him a speech to better introduce the country to this sure-to-be fabulous and best-ever multilayered space-weapon extravaganza. He says it will be “fully operational before the end of my term,” so it seems a strong sales pitch is in order.

Here goes:

Hello America, it’s me, your favorite president of all time, currently polling higher than any president in history, except for in a few FAKE polls. In keeping with my promise to protect all Americans, except for the few I might accidentally deport or imprison because they say mean things about me — nobody will miss them, and it will all be totally legal and totally cool — I’m excited to give you some more details about our big, beautiful, totally golden Golden Dome, a super-impenetrable anti-missile — it’s so anti-missile you won’t believe it — defense system.

Let’s look at these two beautiful words: golden and dome. Golden comes first, of course, because the entire thing will be made of gold, which everyone knows is the strongest of all the metals. That’s why I use it in all my properties. Tough stuff. I had a big contractor come up to me one time — a huge, tough guy, tears in his eyes — and he said, “Mr. President, you’re the only one smart enough to use gold this much. Nobody else gets it like you do.” It’s so true.

The second word is DOME. I love domes. They’re like a ball, only half. The best half, of course, that being the one on top. Ask any basketball player and they’ll tell you the top half of the ball — what they call the dome — is the best. So many baskets.

Now this dome, aside from being made of gold, will be a slightly different shape than most domes. Not a lot of people know this, but America is not round. I pointed this out to some of my people the other day, and they said, “Sir, that’s such a good point. We never thought of that.”

So I came up with the fact that America is not round. If you look at a map, it’s more kind of a rectangle. And of course it’s flat. Completely flat. They say the earth is round — although some very smart people don’t agree with that — but it’s clear from any map that America, at least, is completely flat.

So you have this big, flat rectangle, and we’re going to protect it from missiles using a Golden Dome that will be more of a rectangle-ish-shaped dome. It could also be a series of domes, I suppose. But like a bunch of domes forming a giant, flat rectangle. We’ll see.

But as I said, it will be impenetrable, and that will be thanks to space and lasers and other things that very smart people like myself totally understand. It’s going to be so fantastic, really. Our Golden Dome will be the best roughly rectangular dome anyone has ever seen.

Now, some losers out there are already complaining about this perfect plan. A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman named Mao Ning said our beautiful, perfect flat-and-rectangular dome of gold “heightens the risk of space becoming a battlefield.”

Well, I’ve got news for you, Mao. I’m pretty sure space is already a battlefield. Love is a battlefield — I’ve heard many say that — and that means space is definitely a battlefield too. And it’s a battlefield we’re going to win with our precious, precious gold and tough lasers.

Some in the fake news have whined like little losers about the cost. We have $25 billion in the big, beautiful tax bill that is currently moving through Congress. And the cost of the whole thing — and can you really put a cost on gold or domes? — will be easily covered by cuts to services that for far too long have been going to ungrateful poor people who have no gold.

Many of those poor people are supporters of mine, of course, and I love them dearly, and they love me. But they’ll understand if we make a few little — or possibly very large, because large is good, we love large — cuts to Medicaid and Medicare while also adding trillions to the debt Republicans used to care about. They’ll understand that’s a perfect decision when they look into the sky and see those giant sheets of beautiful gold protecting us from missiles, and they’ll know their hunger is worth it for our protection. Trust me, they will. Those people will believe anything.

As everyone knows, everything I’ve ever built is perfect and infallible. And that will be the case with our amazing, patriotic Golden Dome. You can now purchase scale models of the dome — gold-plated and of the very highest quality — on my website, and 1% of all sales will go to building the dome or to dome marketing.

MAKE AMERICA DOME AGAIN!

May 25, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Two stories: Denmark’s soaring renewable success and global nuclear construction disaster

Denmark will soon achieve 100% electricity from wind and solar; but across the world nuclear power construction cost overruns soar

David Toke, May 22, 2025, https://davidtoke.substack.com/p/two-stories-denmarks-soaring-renewable

Two stories emerged on May 19th giving diametrically opposed results; one is very positive news for the booming deployment of renewable energy but the other is crushingly bad for nuclear power prospects. Renewables will make up more than of Danish 100% electricity in a couple of years time and just wind and solar not long after that. On the other hand a new study concludes that, around the world, nuclear power projects have cost overruns that are over 100%. Solar and wind have very low, if any cost overruns.

Danish renewables to reach 100 per cent of electricity

You can see the shares of electricity generation for Denmark in 2024 in Figure 1. Wind and solar already make up 69 per cent of generation and together with bioenergy they made up 87 per cent of electricity generation. But wind and solar generation is increasing rapidly. The different shares of power production can be seen in Figure 1.

Denmark blazed the trail for wind power starting in the 1970s as farmers and wind cooperatives put up their own wind turbines. Initially the turbines were only 20 kW in peak output. But the latest planned offshore windfarm will have turbines of 20 MW in size – a thousand times bigger! The early start for wind power in Denmark boosted its industry tremendously. Today Denmark also hosts Vestas, the largest wind generator manufacturer in the world.

There are still a trickle of onshore wind turbines being built. However, these days most of the new wind capacity is coming from offshore wind. The 1.08GW Thor windfarm that is currently being built will be fully operational in 2027. [on original]…………………………………………………………………………

Academic study reveals enormous average nuclear cost overruns around the world

Meanwhile, on the same day as the announcement of the forthcoming auction for the Danish offshore windfarms, an academic paper was announced which showed truly awful results for the nuclear industry. The study scoured the world for details on as many energy infrastructure projects that coud reliably be found – 662 in all – including 204 nuclear power plant constructions.

The researchers found that the average cost overrun for nuclear power plant was a staggering 102.5 per cent. That means that the construction costs were more than double the cost that was originally estimated before the construction started. What makes this figure all the more remarkable is that this was an average across the whole of the world.

The study includes Eastern countries like China. In these states there is still the specialist industrial skills (and more relaxed health and safety at work regulations) required to deliver nuclear power stations at anywhere near their projected construction time. Yet, in western countries, the construction cost overruns are much worse. Essentially, in western conditions, it has become impossible to deliver nuclear power plant at anything below astonomical costs.

I should add that there is an incredible amount of nonsense being spouted at the moment about how ‘small modular reactors’ are some way of saving nuclear power. Apart from occasioning a small amount of ultra-expensive nuclear capacity they are nothing of the sort. They are much worse in economic terms than even conventional reactors. See my discussion ‘Why small modular reactors do not exist – history gives the answer’. See HERE.

It is a completely different matter for renewable energy projects of course, where cost overruns are very low. But, from the press coverage, you would not guess all of this! 

Conclusion

As we can see from this post Denmark is, within a few years, about to be the first country in the world with a net surplus of wind and solar power. Interestingly this is the country that turned its head against nuclear power forty years ago, although it never bult any nuclear power plant before then. I have heard an incredible amount of what could be described as nonsensical disinformation in the mainstream press about how nuclear power is accelerating around the world and even that is some sort of way renewables are in crisis. The reality is the exact opposite as the information in this post demonstrates.

May 25, 2025 Posted by | Denmark, renewable | Leave a comment

Nuclear has highest investment risk; solar shows lowest, say US researchers

Nuclear power plants exceed construction budgets by an average of 102.5%, costing $1.56 billion more than planned, according to a study by Boston University’s Institute for Global Sustainability.

May 21, 2025 Pilar Sánchez Molina, https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/05/21/nuclear-power-carries-highest-investment-risk-solar-shows-lowest-say-us-researchers/

A new study by the Institute for Global Sustainability at Boston University found that energy infrastructure projects exceeded planned construction costs in more than 60% of cases. Researchers analyzed data from 662 projects across 83 countries, spanning builds from 1936 to 2024 and totaling $1.358 trillion in investment.

The study covered a wide range of project types. These included thermoelectric power plants fueled by coal, oil or natural gas, as well as nuclear reactors, hydroelectric facilities and wind farms. It also examined large-scale PV and concentrated solar installations, high-voltage transmission lines, bioenergy and geothermal plants, hydrogen production sites, and carbon capture and storage systems

Researchers modeled projects with minimum thresholds: power plants with more than 1 MW of installed capacity, transmission lines over 10 km, and carbon capture systems processing more than 1,000 tons of CO₂ per year.

In the study, “Beyond economies of scale: Learning from construction cost overrun risks and time delays in global energy infrastructure projects,” published in Energy Research & Social Science, the authors found that energy infrastructure construction takes 40% longer than planned – on average, a delay of roughly two years.

Nuclear power plants had the highest cost overruns and delays, with average construction costs exceeding estimates by 102.5%, or $1.56 billion. Hydroelectric projects followed at 36.7%, then geothermal (20.7%), carbon capture (14.9%), and bioenergy (10.7%). Wind projects averaged a 5.2% cost increase, while hydrogen projects came in at 6.4%.

By contrast, PV plants and transmission infrastructure recorded cost underruns of 2.2% and 3.6%, respectively.

Construction delays also varied by technology. Nuclear, hydro, and geothermal projects experienced average delays of 35, 27, and 11 months, respectively. PV and transmission builds had the best performance, typically completing ahead of schedule or with only minimal delays – averaging one month if delayed at all.

The study concluded that projects exceeding 1,561 MW in capacity face significantly higher cost escalation risks, while smaller, modular renewable builds may lower financial exposure and improve forecasting. Once construction delays surpassed 87.5%, cost increases rose sharply.

May 25, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, renewable | Leave a comment

A tale of two dodgy domes.

24 May 25 https://theaimn.net/a-tale-of-two-dodgy-domes/

Reuters on May 21st 2025 outlined Donald Trump’s plan for a Golen Dome missile defense shield:

The aim is for Golden Dome to leverage a network of hundreds of satellites circling the globe with sophisticated sensors and interceptors to knock out incoming enemy missiles after they lift off from countries like China, Iran, North Korea or Russia.

 A network to knock out intercontinental ballistic missiles during the “boost phase” just after lift-off – Once the missile has been detected, Golden Dome will either shoot it down before it enters space with an interceptor or a laser, or further along its path of travel in space with an existing missile defense system that uses land-based interceptors stationed in California and Alaska.

Beneath the space intercept layer, the system will have another defensive layer based in or around the U.S.

Reuters names several companies that will build this system, with Elon Musk’s Space X as a frontrunner, but does not give details on the costs – estimates go from $175 billion upwards.

There is much scepticism about this plan.

I particularly enjoyed Rex Huppke ‘s sarcastic offering “I wrote a speech for Trump’s Golden Dome defense. Get ready to feel something”.

Huppke ‘s speech extols Trump’s popularity, and his promise that the system will be up an running in less than 4 years.

Huppke then studies “Golden” and “Dome’. He advises as much gold as possible to be used in the new structures, in keeping with Trump’s previous buildings. But suggests that the dome should be an unusually shaped dome – a flat-rectangular -shaped dome to fit in with the shape of America.

It’s all easy to fund, by simply cutting services to ungrateful Americans – “large is good, we love large” — cuts to Medicaid and Medicare while also adding trillions to the debt – “they’ll know their hunger is worth it for our protection.” As everyone knows, everything I’ve ever built is perfect and infallible.

Huppke does sum it up beautifully. Other commentators have questioned the extreme cost, the impracticality, the weapons proliferation risks of the Golden Dome project. Based on Israel’s “Iron Dome” this project has to cover an area 490 times the size of Israel.

So – it’s a dodgy dome that is attracting a lot of questions and criticism.

Now for that other dodgy dome that has attracted even more questions, and over many years. Yes, it’s Donald Trump’s own ever-evolving personal dome at the top of his head.

The hair has always been important to Trump. Like the spray-on tan, it goes to portray his image young, virile, strong, can conquer anything. Seth Rogan reported recently, comparing Donald Trump to Samson:

“He felt as though his power rested in his hair” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvs0MAkJY-Q

Trump’s hair has been a source of wonder for many years. He’s been reported as having taken hair regrowth drug  Propecia (finasteride) and had flap procedures. In flap procedures small areas of bald scalp are removed and patches of hair-covered skin are used to replace the bald areas, requiring careful combing over of bald patches. Trump’s scalp reductions were even mentioned by Ivana Trump in their 1990 divorce. A scalp reduction involves removing areas of bald patches and stretching hair-covered skin over them.​

Dr. Gary Linkov, a plastic surgeon and hair loss expert, told the Daily Mail in August that he guesses Trump has had five hair transplants thus far in his lifetime.

I think, in its latest iteration, Trump’s hair is a metaphor for his dome idea, and whatever else is going on in his head. Past versions have appeared with his hair thick, combed in various ways, dyed in various shades of brown and gold. Now it’s described as ghostly white, a fluffy white cloud – with a lot of scalp peeking out.

The hair is looking thin, wispy, without real substance. It’s doubtful if he can keep up that strong confident appearance, as the head of the world that he’s supposed to be.

This White Dome sits atop the strange brain that has just conjured up the Golden Dome – neither of them are really to be trusted.

May 24, 2025 Posted by | Christina's notes, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Civil society says nuclear deserves no place in Prime Minister Carney’s “Energy Superpower” project.

Gordon Edwards, May 21, 2025

Today 131 civil society and Indigenous groups representing many thousands of members across Canada reminded Prime Minister Mark Carney that climate action requires renewable – not nuclear – energy.

In an open letter to Prime Minister Carney, available HERE, representatives from the civil society and Indigenous groups wrote that building more nuclear reactors is not a cost-effective, clean or smart climate option. The government’s “Energy Superpower” project should include renewable energy and exclude nuclear reactor development from public subsidies.

The groups reminded the Prime Minister that, as an economist, he must appreciate that energy efficiency, renewables and energy storage are the best investments for energy supply, requiring less capital investment and providing the best return on the dollar for energy production, job creation, and rapid greenhouse gas reduction.

New nuclear projects are already far more expensive than proven renewable energy sources and there is no guarantee that new nuclear reactor designs will ever generate electricity safely and affordably. Spending on nuclear development is wasting time that must be spent urgently on genuine climate action.

“The nuclear industry, led by American corporations and start-ups, has failed to convince us that new reactor designs will address the climate crisis and overcome the exorbitant cost, toxic radioactive waste and threats of nuclear disasters that have plagued the nuclear industry for decades,” said Dr. Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR).

“Quebec has rejected nuclear power. We object to our federal taxpayer dollars being spent on developing more nuclear reactors that could be abandoned in place, ultimately transforming communities into radioactively contaminated sites and nuclear waste dumps that will require more federal dollars to clean up,” said Jean-Pierre Finet, spokesperson for le Regroupement des organismes environnementaux en énergie (ROEÉ).

The groups are asking for a meeting with Prime Minister Carney to discuss Canada’s energy future.

Read the letter HERE with the list of 131 signatory groups.

May 24, 2025 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

Solar Power Set to Surpass Nuclear Generation This Summer

By Tsvetana Paraskova – May 21, 2025, https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Solar-Power-Set-to-Surpass-Nuclear-Generation-This-Summer.html

This summer, solar power generation globally could exceed electricity from nuclear power plants for the first time ever, as solar capacity soars and sunlight and daylight hours are long in the northern hemisphere. 

Global solar power generation jumped by 34% in the first quarter of 2025 from the same period in 2024, according to data from Ember cited by Reuters columnist Gavin Maguire.  

If the pace of growth is sustained though June, July, and August, solar output is set to top 260 terawatt hours (TWh) in the summer months. This would beat the average 223 TWh of global nuclear power generation from 2024, Maguire notes. 

Last year, record growth in renewables led by solar helped push clean power above 40% of global electricity in 2024, Ember said in its Global Electricity Review 2025 last month. However, heatwave-related demand spikes led to a small increase in fossil generation, too, the clean energy think tank said.

“Solar generation has maintained its high growth rate, doubling in the last three years, and adding more electricity than any other source over that period,” Ember’s analysts wrote in the report.  

More than half, or 53%, of the increase in solar generation in 2024 was in China, with China’s clean generation growth meeting 81% of its demand increase in 2024, according to Ember. 

China and Europe are driving solar power’s global surge, but in Europe, the solar boom has led to negative power prices more frequently. 

At the end of April, for example, a sunny weekend in northwest Europe plunged power prices in the region to hundreds of euros below zero as solar generation soared. 

Negative power prices, while beneficial for some consumers in some countries, generally discourage investments in new capacity as renewable power generators don’t profit from below-zero prices. 

The more frequent occurrences of negative prices amid soaring solar output aren’t conducive to increased investment in generation only, and highlight the need of energy storage solutions to store the excess power and discharge it at evenings when it’s most needed.

May 24, 2025 Posted by | renewable | Leave a comment

US House seeks to create another Ukraine disaster in Georgia

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 22 May 25

Not satisfied with destroying Ukraine to weaken Russia, the US House passed a deranged bill to set the stage for a Ukraine redo, this time in tiny former Soviet republic Georgia.

It overwhelmingly passed the Mobilizing and Enhancing Georgia’s Options for Building Accountability, Resilience, and Independence Act (MEGOBARI Act) by a vote of 349 to 42.

MEGOBARI may be the stupidest acronym ever. But its intent is even stupider.

The bill is simply a Ukraine style regime change ploy to kick Russia out of its neighbor Georgia’s polity so Georgia can join NATO and the EU.

MEGOBARI doesn’t mince niceties” “[T}he consolidation of democracy in Georgia is critical for regional stability and United States national interests… (so it is) the policy of the United States to support the constitutionally stated aspirations of Georgia to become a member of the European Union and NATO,” to “continue supporting the capacity of the Government of Georgia to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity… (and) to combat Russian aggression, including through sanctions on trade with Russia and the implementation and enforcement of worldwide sanctions on Russia.”

The US regime change party, including all but 34 Republican and 8 Democrats, can’t tolerate the duly elected Russian aligned Georgian Dream Party ruling Georgia. Claiming this tiny spec of a country with just 3.8 million souls and a miniscule $35 billion GEP is essential to US national security interests is preposterous.

Georgia has suffered thru senseless US intervention for 22 years beginning with the 2003 CIA aided Rose Revolution that eventually installed pro US puppet Mikheil Saakashviili as president, ousting pro Russian

Eduard Shevardnadze. Hear echoes of Ukraine there?

Five years later, goaded by the US, Saakashvili tried to reclaim 2 breakaway Georgian provinces aligned with Russia. Big mistake. His attack provoked a Russian pushback that crushed the Georgian intervention. At the start, premier US war lover Sen. John McCain shouted “Today we are all Georgians.” When Georgia caved so did McCain, likely channeling SNL’s Roseanne Roseannadanna’s ‘Oh, never mind.’

But here we are 17 years on and US war lovers are at it again in the ‘Weaken Russia’ game with patsy Georgia. MEGOBARI even includes the ominous directive that allows Congress “…in consultation with the Secretary of Defense… to expand military co-operation with Georgia, including by providing further security and defense equipment ideally suited for territorial defense against Russian aggression and related training, maintenance, and operations support elements.”

Might be time for all 349 clueless congresspersons supporting MEGOBARI to be flown to Ukraine’s eastern war front to see just how glorious their ‘Weaken Russia’ campaign is going with our hapless Ukrainian proxies.

May 24, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, politics, USA | Leave a comment

29 May – UNLEASHING THE ATOM Zoom 8pm EDT

Register Here

Paul Gunter, Beyond Nuclear, is hosted by Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) on “A Night with the Experts” at 7pm CT (8pm ET/ 6pm MT/ 5pm PT ), Thursday, May 29, 2025. His talk is on “Unleashing Atomic Power: Exploring the dangers and implications.” The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is now preparing to comply with new bipartisan congressional mandates signed into law by the Biden Administration to fast track new nuclear power plant development and extend aging reactor operations to an extreme. New and emerging Executive Orders anticipated out of the Trump White House plan to take control over NRC licensing and decision-making “as part of our commitment to make the NRC regulatory process more efficient.”

May 24, 2025 Posted by | Events | Leave a comment

  12 June – Nuclear War: A Scenario – join an online discussion with international best-selling author Annie Jacobsen

In Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario, readers get a chilling minute-by-minute account of an unfolding nuclear war. Based on interviews with former US government and military officials, researchers, technical experts, and historians of the nuclear age, she exposes the horrific realities of such a conflict. It’s not cinematic. It’s not a thrill. It’s a reminder that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought – a powerful argument for nuclear disarmament.

The book, due to be released in paperback this July, is an international bestseller, and has been shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. This speaks to the growing interest in the risk of such a conflict, as nuclear weapons states enter a new race to modernise and expand their arsenals.
CND and British Pugwash invites you to join us for an exclusive evening of discussion with Annie Jacobsen, in an online event on Thursday 12 June. Register Thursday 12 June6:30pm Online, register here Participants will hear a talk from Annie about the book. You then have the opportunity to ask her your questions! Invest in Peace not Nukes: Join the protest at Devonport Dockyard, 7 June With just over two weeks to go until CND’s protest at the Devonport Dockyard in Plymouth, we’re building up the pressure on local MP and MoD minister Luke Pollard!
Residents have written to Pollard exposing the nuclear dangers and the programme’s huge costs that are keeping residents in poverty. The base, operated by Babcock International, services Britain’s current nuclear submarines and houses defunct submarines – still waiting to be decomissioned. Despite the billions of pounds flowing into the dockyard, Devonport remains one of the most disadvantaged areas in the country.
 
Join CND in calling out the billions being wasted on nuclear weapons – money that could be redirected into creating highly skilled, well-paid jobs that don’t threaten people and planet.More Details Saturday, 7 June12 noon: Assemble on Guildhall Square, Armada Way in Plymouth city centre1pm: An open top bus will take everyone on a tour of Plymouth and its nuclear links2:15pm: Assembly at the gates of the Trident nuclear dockyard, Camel’s Head, DevonportSpeaking at Tuesday’s webinar calling for the government to divest from nuclear weapons, CND Vice-Chair Tony Staunton outlined the dangers faced by those living near the dockyard. He also explained how Plymouth could become a hub for climate technologies while the dockyard continues to work to dismantled historic submarines instead of servicing new ones. You can watch Tony’s contribution here and the full webinar here. Stop Arming Israel: emergency demo, Friday 23 May With Gaza on the brink of famine, Israel continues to block vital aid and attacks on civilians are ongoing. In response, the British government has announced that it has stopped trade talks with Israel. However, it continues to supply it with arms. Despite David Lammy claiming that Britain has stopped arms sales to Israel, the government’s own figures show that it has approved £127.6 million worth of military equipment to Israel in single issue licenses between October to December 2024. These three months alone total more than the licenses approved between 2020-2023 combined! It also continues to refuse to include parts made in Britain as part of the F-35 programme, in its inadequate partial ban. Words of condemnation are not enough. We need a full arms embargo on Israel now! Join CND and the Palestine Coalition for an emergency demonstration to make this demand outside Downing Street tomorrow, Friday, 23 May. Protest starts at 6:30pm.      Copyright © 2025 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, All rights reserved.We collected your name from a petition or you are a member of CND Our mailing address is:Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, The Green House | Ethical Property | 244-254 Cambridge Heath Rd, Cambridge Heath, London E2 9DA Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament | For peace and a nuclear-free future | CNDUK.ORG

May 24, 2025 Posted by | Events | Leave a comment

Govt Eyes Reuse of Fukushima Soil at PM’s Office

  Tokyo, May 23 (Jiji Press) https://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2025052300665

–The Japanese government is considering reusing soil removed from the ground during radiation decontamination work after the 2011 nuclear reactor meltdowns in Fukushima Prefecture in the grounds of the prime minister’s office in Tokyo, informed sources have said.
   The government hopes to promote public understanding over the reuse of the soil from the decontamination work in the northeastern Japan prefecture, home to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
   The move came after planned pilot projects for using the soil in Tokyo and its northern neighbor, Saitama Prefecture, have stalled due to opposition from local residents.
   The government plans to compile a basic policy on the recycling and final disposal of the soil shortly, including its use at the prime minister’s office. It also plans to draw up a specific road map by around this summer.
   Some 14 million cubic meters of the soil from the decontamination work is currently stored at interim facilities in the Fukushima towns of Okuma and Futaba, where the TEPCO plant is located.

May 24, 2025 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, wastes | Leave a comment

Drone attacks Zaporizhia NPP training centre third time this year – IAEA

 Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) told the team of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) based at the Plant that the drone hit the roof
of the training centre located just outside the ZNPP site perimeter on May
21, according to an update on the situation in Ukraine on the IAEA website
late on Wednesday.

The drone hit the roof, without causing any casualties
or major damage. It was not immediately known whether the drone had
directly struck the building or whether it crashed on the structure after
being shot down. The IAEA said that it was the third time this year that
the training centre was reportedly targeted by such an unmanned aerial
vehicle.

 Interfax Ukraine 22nd May 2025, https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/1073812.html

May 24, 2025 Posted by | incidents, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Revealed: three tonnes of uranium legally dumped in protected English estuary in nine years

Expert raises concerns over quantities allowed to be discharged from nuclear fuel factory near Preston

Pippa Neill, 23 May 2025 , https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/22/revealed-uranium-from-uk-nuclear-fuel-factory-dumped-into-protected-ribble-estuary

The Environment Agency has allowed a firm to dump three tonnes of uranium into one of England’s most protected sites over the past nine years, it can be revealed, with experts sounding alarm over the potential environmental impact of these discharges.

Documents obtained by the Guardian and the Ends Report through freedom of information requests show that a nuclear fuel factory near Preston discharged large quantities of uranium – legally, under its environmental permit conditions – into the River Ribble between 2015 and 2024. The discharges peaked in 2015 when 703kg of uranium was discharged, according to the documents.

Raw uranium rock mined from all over the world is brought to the Springfields Fuels factory in Lea Town, a small village roughly five miles from Preston, where the rock is treated and purified to create uranium fuel rods.

According to the factory’s website, it has supplied several million fuel elements to reactors in 11 different countries.

The discharge point for the uranium releases is located within the Ribble estuary marine conservation zone – and about 800m upstream of the Ribble estuary, which is one of the most protected sites in the country, classified as a site of special scientific interest, a special protection area (SPA) and a Ramsar site (a wetland designated as being of international importance).

The government’s latest Radioactivity in Food and the Environment report, published in November 2024, notes that in 2023 the total dose of radiation from Springfields Fuels was approximately 4% of the dose limit that is set to protect members of the public from radiation.

However, Dr Ian Fairlie, an independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment, who was a scientific secretary to the UK government’s committee examining radiation risks of internal emitters, said that in terms of radioactivity, the discharges from Springfields Fuels were a “very large amount”.

“I’m concerned at this high level. It’s worrying”, he said, referring specifically to the 2015 discharge.

In a 2009 assessment, the Environment Agency concluded that the total dose rate of radioactivity for the Ribble and Alt estuaries SPA was “significantly in excess” of the agreed threshold of 40 microgray/h, below which regulators have agreed there would be no adverse effect to the integrity of a protected site. The report found the calculated total dose rate for the worst affected organism in the estuary was more than 10 times higher than this threshold, with discharges of radionuclides from the Springfields Fuels site to blame.

As a result, a more detailed assessment was undertaken. In this latter report, it was concluded that based on new permitted discharge limits, which had been lowered due to planned operational changes at Springfields Fuels, the dose rates to wildlife were below the agreed threshold and therefore there was no adverse effect on the integrity of the protected site.

Under the site’s current environmental permit, there is no limit on the weight of uranium discharges, which in itself has raised eyebrows. Instead, the uranium discharge is limited in terms of its radioactivity, with an annual limit of 0.04 terabecquerels. Prior to this, the discharge limit in terms of radioactivity was 0.1 terabecquerels.

A terabecquerel is a unit of radioactivity equal to 1tn becquerels. One becquerel represents a rate of radioactive decay equal to one radioactive decay per second.

Despite this tighter limit having been agreed six years ago, experts have raised concerns over the continued authorised discharges from the site.

Fairlile specifically questioned the Environment Agency’s modelling of how this discharge level could be classified as safe. “This is a very high level. The Environment Agency’s risk modelling might be unreliable. Which would make its discharge limits unsafe”, he said.

The Environment Agency said its processes for assessing impacts to habitats were “robust and follow international best practice, including the use of a tiered assessment approach”.

Dr Patrick Byrne, a reader in hydrology and environmental pollution at Liverpool John Moores University, said the 703kg of uranium discharged in 2015 was an “exceptionally high volume

Dr Doug Parr, a policy director at Greenpeace UK, said: “Discharges of heavy metals into the environment are never good, especially when those metals are radioactive.”

An Environment Agency spokesperson declined to comment directly, but the regulator said it set “strict environmental permit conditions for all nuclear operators in England, including Springfields Fuels Limited”.

It said these permits were based on “detailed technical assessments and are designed to ensure that any discharges of radioactive substances, including uranium, do not pose an unacceptable risk to people or the environment”.

While the government’s Radioactivity in Food and the Environment report found sources of radiation from Springfield Fuels were approximately 4% of the dose limit to members of the public, it also concluded that radionuclides – specifically isotopes of uranium – were detected downstream in sediment and biota in the Ribble estuary due to discharges from Springfields.

This is not the first time uranium levels in the estuary silt have been noted. Research conducted by the British Geological Survey (BGS) in 2002 detected “anomalously high” concentrations of uranium in a silt sample downstream of the Springfields facility.

The highest level recorded in the BGS report was 60μg/g of uranium in the silt – compared with a background level of 3-4μg/g. The researchers described this as a “significant anomaly”.

The UK is looking to expand its nuclear fuel production capabilities, including at Springfields Fuels. This is in order to increase energy security and reduce reliance on Russian fuel, and to deliver on a target of 24GW of new nuclear capacity by 2050.

A spokesperson from Westinghouse Electric Company UK, the operator of the factory), said: “Springfields is committed to strong environmental stewardship in our Lancashire community. The plant is monitored and regulated by the Environment Agency and operates well within those regulations. For nearly the past 80 years, Springfields has provided high-quality jobs to the local community and the fuel we provide to the UK’s nuclear power plants has avoided billions of tonnes of CO2 from fossil fuels.”

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “The Environment Agency strictly regulates Springfields Fuels through robust environmental permits that control radioactive discharges, ensuring they pose no unacceptable risk to people or the environment. These permits are based on international best practice and are routinely reviewed, including detailed habitat assessments. Discharge limits have been progressively reduced over time, and monitoring by both the operator and the Environment Agency confirms no cause for alarm.

May 24, 2025 Posted by | UK, Uranium | Leave a comment

Top nuke officials admit staffing challenges after DOGE layoffs, hiring freeze

Testifying to a Senate committee, National Nuclear Security Administration leaders acknowledged staffing woes after DOGE-led reductions.

Davis Winkie. USA TODAY, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/21/nuclear-weapons-leaders-describe-workforce-woes-doge/83770727007/

Key Points

  • During May 20 testimony, top acting officials from the National Nuclear Security Administration acknowledged the risk and impact of workforce vacancies caused by Elon Musk’s DOGE.
  • A USA TODAY investigation published May 18 detailed the potential impact of endemic federal staffing shortages at NNSA recently exacerbated by the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce.

WASHINGTON − Top leaders of the agency responsible for the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile admitted to DOGE-related staffing challenges at a Senate hearing.

Asked by Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, if a hiring freeze, resignations and attrition could bring “some pretty important vacancies,” acting National Nuclear Security Agency defense programs head David Hoagland said, “That’s very true.” Hoagland said at the May 20 hearing that his office had “shifted people around” to meet “critical needs.”

Hundreds of NNSA staff were fired by Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year, amid a $1.7 trillion nuclear weapons upgrade, in a chaotic wave of layoffs. Most were later rehired. Other critical staffers agreed to leave their jobs under DOGE’s “fork in the road” resignation offer.

King said NNSA claims that staffing shortages hadn’t placed agency’s mission at short term risk “strikes me as implausible.”

The NNSA struggled with staffing and talent pipeline issues for decades before the new Trump administration, a recent USA TODAY investigation found. Then Musk launched efforts to reduce the federal workforce, which further destabilized the NNSA workforce, experts said.

The agency currently faces a near-total hiring freeze and lost more than 130 of its 2,000 federal employees to the DOGE deferred resignation program. More than 300 more employees were fired and reinstated in February damaging morale.

NNSA’s acting principal deputy administrator, James McConnell, said told senators on a subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee the agency could handle the losses “in the short term,” but he said the NNSA needs to “make sure that our resources are adequate.”

Experts told USA TODAY sustained staffing shortages could cause further delays and cost overruns on the agency’s beleaguered portions of the nation’s broader $1.7 trillion nuclear arsenal modernization effort. USA TODAY documented billions of dollars in overruns, as well as safety issues, at NNSA facilities that were attributed to staffing shortages.

Marv Adams, Hoagland’s Senate-confirmed predecessor atop NNSA’s defense programs, said in an interview that during his tenure, “our federal [warhead] program offices struggled to keep up and not get behind because of understaffing.”

The agency’s field offices faced similar strain, according to David Bowman, a retired civil servant and former manager of the NNSA’s Nevada Field Office. From 2020 until his retirement in the fall of 2024, Bowman oversaw operations at the expansive Nevada National Security Site.

NNSA field offices must review and approve much of the work the agency’s massive contractor workforce does on the nuclear arsenal, as well as safety management plans. In an interview, Bowman said such review “requires … technical experts who are feds.”

“If the field offices or the safety experts are short staffed, the work is going to back up,” he said.

Bowman described finding qualified staff for his far-flung office northwest of Las Vegas as “the big challenge we had.”

Contributing: Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAY

May 24, 2025 Posted by | employment, USA | Leave a comment

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