Trump Threatens Iran With ‘Bombing’ If Nuclear Deal Is Not Reached

no evidence Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon or that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has reversed his 2003 fatwah that banned the production of weapons of mass destruction.

The threat comes after US intelligence agencies reaffirmed that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon

by Dave DeCamp March 30, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/03/30/trump-threatens-iran-with-bombing-if-no-nuclear-deal-is-reached/

President Trump on Sunday threatened to bomb Iran if a deal isn’t reached on the country’s civilian nuclear program.

“If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before,” Trump told NBC News in a phone interview.

The president has made similar threats toward Iran, but Sunday’s marked the most explicit one yet, and it comes as the US is sending more bombers to the region and pounding Yemen with daily airstrikes. Trump also said the US could hit Iran with “secondary tariffs” if a deal isn’t reached.

Trump’s threat comes after US intelligence agencies said in their annual threat assessment that there’s no evidence Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon or that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has reversed his 2003 fatwah that banned the production of weapons of mass destruction.

Iran recently responded to a letter Trump sent to Khamenei proposing nuclear talks and giving Tehran a two-month deadline to reach a deal. A US official told Axios that the deployment of US B-2 bombers to Diego Garcia was “not disconnected” from that deadline.

Iranian officials have repeatedly rejected the idea of direct talks with the US in the face of Trump’s so-called “maximum pressure campaign” but have left the door open to indirect negotiations.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Sunday that Iran’s response to Trump’s letter made indirect talks possible but that the US’s behavior would determine how things would move forward.

“While Iran’s response rules out the possibility of direct talks between the two sides, it states that the path for indirect negotiations remains open,” Pezeshkian said. Iranian officials have been noting the fact that Trump was the one who tore up the 2015 nuclear deal by reimposing sanctions on Iran.

“As we have stated before, Iran has never closed the channels of indirect communication. In its response, Iran reaffirmed that it has never shied away from engaging in negotiations, but rather, it has just been the United States’ repeated violations of agreements and commitments that have created problems on this path,” Pezeshkian said.

“It’s the behavior of the Americans that will determine whether the negotiations can move forward,” the Iranian leader added. In his interview with NBC, Trump said that US and Iranian officials were talking but didn’t elaborate further.

April 1, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

‘Bringing calm and hope’: President Carter’s role at Three Mile Island

As plans continue to recommission the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, the Nuclear Free Local Authorities wish to reflect on the actions of the late President Jimmy Carter following the accident which occured at the plant 46 years ago today.

The Three Mile Island accident is considered the worst in the history of the United States nuclear industry. On this date in 1979, the Unit 2 reactor (TMI-2) suffered a partial meltdown as a consequence of equipment failure and operator error. The reactor lost cooling water, exposing the core which led to the release of some radioactive gas.

The United States was at that time at least fortunate in having in President Carter a head of state with knowledge of nuclear fission and a history of responding calmly in a nuclear crisis.

28th March 2025

‘Bringing calm and hope’: President Carter’s role at Three Mile Island

The United States was at that time at least fortunate in having in President Carter a head of state with knowledge of nuclear fission and a history of responding calmly in a nuclear crisis.

In October 2024, on the former President becoming a centenarian, the NFLAs sent him our warm birthday wishes but used the occasion to highlight President Carter’s past as a nuclear engineer and his brave, though largely unknown, contribution repairing a reactor in Canada following a serious nuclear accident.

As a young US Navy Lieutenant, Jimmy Carter had graduated in engineering and taken courses in nuclear technology. After training, he became part of the nuclear submarine service. As one of only a few officers authorised to enter a nuclear reactor, Carter led a contingent of 22 fellow submariners in dismantling and repairing a badly damaged reactor following an accident at the Chalk River plant in Canada in 1952. Each team member was in turn lowered into the reactor to work for no more than ninety seconds. Carter took his turn, receiving in this short time the full dose of radiation permitted for a full year and therefore joked that for six months his urine when regularly tested was found to be radioactive! [i]

Only four days after the Three Mile Island disaster, President Carter visited the plant bringing ‘calm and hope to central Pennsylvanians in the wake of the most serious accident at a commercial nuclear plant in U.S. history.’[ii] Donning distinctive yellow boots, the President toured the control room in the damaged plant, accompanied by Harold Denton, Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Dick Thornburgh, Governor of Pennsylvania.

After being elected in 1977, President Carter had established a new Department of Energy, in part to seek more nuclear power as “an energy source of last resort” to lessen the United States’ reliance on foreign oil. However, in his short speech following his visit to the striken nuclear plant on April 1, the President recognised the technology’s shortcomings promising to initiate a ‘thorough inquiry’ into the circumstances that led to the accident and make the results public; this would help make plain “the status of nuclear safety in the future”.

Local officials at the time said Carter’s visit helped to dispel immediate panic and boost morale amongst people living near the plant, but, subsequently, public disquiet manifested after perceptions of a partial cover-up by nuclear industry officials and regulators. In response six inquiries were established at federal, state and local level, and other specialist government agencies also initiated investigations into the accident. This clearly represented an uncoordinated and duplicated effort and, true to his word, the President appointed John Kemeny, president of Dartmouth College, to lead a President’s Commission on the accident.

The Kemeny Commission did not take a stance on nuclear power’s future; instead in its report[iii], the Commission lambasted the lax attitude that had permeated the nuclear industry in the years before the accident. For its egregious deficiencies, the principal finger was pointed at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency responsible for regulating the nuclear power industry. This was charged as being so dysfunctional that its five-member panel should be abolished and restructured as an independent agency in the executive branch.

The NRC had morphed only five years earlier from the Atomic Energy Commission. Ironically Carter had worked with the AEC as a young naval officer, but the AEC was responsible for both nuclear promotion and regulation, with many staff having industry sympathies and connections; consequently, it left the industry largely unfettered in its operations. Recognising this unfortunate conflict in its dual role, the US Congress in 1974 split the AEC, creating the NRC to oversee the role of regulation. However, many of the AEC’s staff moved across so little changed.

In 1975, the new agency published the Rasmussen Report, which downplayed the risk of any nuclear accident, stating that people and property would only suffer minimally. This complacency was attacked by the Kemeny Commission, which found that the agency overlooked small, and more subtle, industry failures, the sort of shortcomings that ultimately led to the disaster at Three Mile Island.

On the publication of the Commission’s report, President Carter made a commitment to implement “almost all” of the recommendations and set out a series of actions that he expected agencies of the Federal Government and the industry to carry out to would implement the findings and outlined a series of actions to “ensure that nuclear power plants are operated safely”. Fortunately, most people in Washington recognised that action needed to be taken and even the NRC acknowledged that the Commission’s recommendations were ‘necessary and feasible’.

Although its five-member board was not abolished, after the accident, Carter replaced the NRC Chairman and ensured that his successor was granted increased Congressional authority in accordance with his personal wishes. The NRC budget was also significantly increased and, within ten years, many of the Kemeny Commission’s recommendations had been implemented to make the NRC more effective in a regulatory role.

The Three Mile Island accident had a significant impact on the fortunes of the US nuclear industry. According to the US Energy Information Administration, plans for 67 new nuclear power plants were cancelled between 1979 and 1988.

The Unit 2 reactor (TMI-2) never restarted after the accident with the Utah-based company Energy Solutions being commissioned with cleaning up the site. The Unit 1 reactor (TMI-1) continued power generation until September 20, 2019, when it was shut down because it became economically uncompetitive to generate electricity at the plant against other energy sources such as natural gas.

Ironically there are now plans to restart generation at the plant, this time backed by a deal to supply electricity to Microsoft to power data centres.

President Carter’s speech following his visit to the plant: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/middletown-pennsylvania-remarks-reporters-following-visit-the-three-mile-island-nuclear

…………………………………………… https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/bringing-calm-and-hope-president-carters-role-at-three-mile-island/

April 1, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | history, PERSONAL STORIES, USA | Leave a comment

Resistance to nuke dump grows in South Copeland

NFLA 31st March 2025

Kirksanton and Bankhead residents in the South Copeland GDF Search Area will be heartened by the support of Millom Town Councillors who approved a motion at their 26 March meeting to ‘reject the area of focus as being beneficial to Bank Head’.

In January, Nuclear Waste Services announced that a site surrounding the prison West of Haverigg was its ‘Area of Focus’, the preferred inland site for a Geological Disposal Facility, a deep repository for Britain’s legacy and future high-level radioactive waste. This site borders the village of Kirksanton and the Bank Head housing estate.

The Council also agreed to a request that a public meeting be held to examine the ‘positives and negatives’ of bringing the GDF to the area. In September 2023, a Community Forum attended by the public and organised by the South Copeland GDF Community Partnership drew up an initial list. In response to this NWS promised to commission an ‘impacts report’ from an independent consultant, but this has never materialised.

Councillors also agreed to send a letter of complaint to NWS about the size of the Area of Focus and how the announcement has impacted house sales and affected residents of the area. At the meeting, the Chair conceded that, after speaking to estate agents, he believed the area to be ‘blighted’. Since the announcement, one house sale in nearby Silecroft has fallen through and a house owner in Bank Head has been forced to significantly reduce their asking price in make a sale.

Jan Bridget, who co-founded Millom and District against the GDF in 2022, was delighted at the level of attendance from the public and at the outcome:

“Well, what can I say, we have won a battle but not the war. And I am thrilled that around 40 people turned up at the Millom Town Council meeting, demonstrating that Bank Head and Kirksanton are not willing communities”.

Millom and District Against the Nuclear Dump organised a meeting of Bank Head residents to meet their local councillors from Cumberland and Millom Town Councils in February. Thirty-nine people attended the meeting, most from the Bank Head estate. Residents asked the councillors for their help after sharing their very moving concerns.

We reported on this meeting:…………………………………..
https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/resistance-to-nuke-dump-grows-in-south-copeland/

Bank Head Estate residents attend public meeting over nuke dump blight

April 1, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste centre delayed

Nuclear center must replace roof on 70-year-old lab so it can process radioactive waste.

Project sees 7-year delay and budget swell to £1.5B, but nuclear leadership ‘confident’ it has an alternative

Lindsay Clark, 28 Mar 25, The Register

The center of the UK’s nuclear industry has agreed on alternatives for how it will process waste into the next decade after delays and overspending hit a lab project.

In the face of a 2028 deadline to put facilities in place to treat and repackage plutonium, Sellafield paused a delayed project to build a replacement for its 70-year-old analytical lab.

Speaking to MPs last week, Euan Hutton, CEO of Sellafield Ltd, said he was “confident” in an alternative that involves refurbishing its old lab and borrowing facilities from another onsite lab.

This comes after the go live date for its Replacement Analytical Project (RAP) was delayed from 2028 until at least 2034 and costs ballooned to £1.5 billion ($1.93 billion).

The center of the UK’s nuclear industry has agreed on alternatives for how it will process waste into the next decade after delays and overspending hit a lab project.

In the face of a 2028 deadline to put facilities in place to treat and repackage plutonium, Sellafield paused a delayed project to build a replacement for its 70-year-old analytical lab.

Speaking to MPs last week, Euan Hutton, CEO of Sellafield Ltd, said he was “confident” in an alternative that involves refurbishing its old lab and borrowing facilities from another onsite lab.

This comes after the go live date for its Replacement Analytical Project (RAP) was delayed from 2028 until at least 2034 and costs ballooned to £1.5 billion ($1.93 billion).

Sellafield, formerly known as Windscale, has been the center of the UK’s nuclear industry since the 1950s. While the site is home to a number of companies, and the government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Sellafield Limited is a British nuclear decommissioning Site Licence Company controlled by the NDA.

In October last year, the UK’s public spending watchdog said Sellafield depends on an on-site laboratory that is “over 70 years old, does not meet modern construction standards and is in extremely poor (and deteriorating) condition.”

The National Audit Office said [PDF] the laboratory is “not technically capable of carrying out the analysis required to commission the Sellafield Product and Residue Store Retreatment Plant (SRP)” to treat and repackage plutonium.

Sellafield’s plan in 2016 was to convert a 25-year-old laboratory on the site, to replace the 70 year-old lab, under the “Replacement Analytical Project.” The outline business case was approved in 2019 with an estimated cost of between £486 million and £1 billion ($626 million – $1.3 billion).

However, that project was “strategically paused” in February 2024 after it emerged Sellafield believed it could take until December 2034 to deliver the full capability, while cost could reach £1.5 billion ($1.93 billion).

Speaking to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee last week, Hutton said: “Fundamentally, around December 2023, there was an incoherence that came out between the availability of the analytical services and when I needed to have those available for the plutonium repack plant…………………………………………
https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/28/uk_nuclear_center_waste_project_delayed/

April 1, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Disappointing but predictable: Government minister’s reply on nuke treaty

In February 2025, the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities was a
signatory alongside academics and peace campaigners to a letter drafted by
the United Nations Association UK (UNAUK) that was sent to Prime Minister
Sir Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

NFLA Chair Cllr Lawrence O’Neill and NFLA Secretary Richard Outram co-signed for the
NFLAs as did signatories from twenty-five other organisations, including
community advocates from Kiribati, an island nation impacted by British
nuclear weapons testing carried out in the 1950’s and by the United
States in 1962.

As the islanders were not evacuated both they and the
participating servicemen were impacted by radiation. The letter called on
the UK Government to send an observer to the 3rd Meeting of States Parties
(3MSP) to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) which was
held in New York until 7 March. The UK Government did not take up this
opportunity.

NFLA 29th May 2025,
https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/A434-NB320-Disappointing-but-predictable-Government-ministers-reply-on-nuke-treaty-ban.-May-2025.pdf

April 1, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment

‘Greedy landlords are cashing in and forcing us out of town’.

The construction of the Sizewell C nuclear power plant on the Suffolk
coast is a key part of the government’s growth programme. But some locals
fear being forced out, accusing landlords of cashing in on a jobs boom by
evicting tenants and raising rents to unaffordable levels. The plant is due
to open in 2031, and although a final investment decision has not yet been
made, groundwork is already well under way.

The construction project will
require a predicted workforce of 7,900, of which about two-thirds will be
from outside the area. About 2,400 workers will be based on site with 500
others living at the former Pontins holiday park at Pakefield, near
Lowestoft. The remaining contractors, however, will have to move into
properties in or around the town of Leiston – population 5,508 – where some
rents have doubled to more than £3,000 a month.

BBC 31st March 2025,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce98ljn1gzno

April 1, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Trump threatens bombs if Iran doesn’t make nuclear deal

Canberra Times, By Doina Chiacu and David Ljunggren, March 31 2025

US President Donald Trump has threatened Iran with bombing and secondary tariffs if Tehran does not come to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear program.

In Trump’s first remarks since Iran rejected direct negotiations with Washington last week, he told NBC News on Sunday that US and Iranian officials were talking, but did not elaborate.

“If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” Trump said in a telephone interview.

“It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”

“There’s a chance that if they don’t make a deal, that I will do secondary tariffs on them like I did four years ago.”

Iran sent a response through Oman to a letter from Trump urging Tehran to reach a new nuclear deal, saying its policy was to not engage in direct negotiations with the United States while under its maximum pressure campaign and military threats, Tehran’s foreign minister was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated the policy on Sunday. “Direct negotiations (with the US) have been rejected, but Iran has always been involved in indirect negotiations, and now too, the Supreme Leader has emphasised that indirect negotiations can still continue,” he said, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In the interview, Trump also threatened so-called secondary tariffs, which affect buyers of a country’s goods, on both Russia and Iran. He signed an executive order last week authorising such tariffs on buyers of Venezuelan oil…………………………………….. https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8930263/trump-threatens-bombs-if-iran-doesnt-make-nuclear-deal/

March 31, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | 1 Comment

Quakers condemn police raid on Westminster Meeting House

Quakers 28th March 2025, https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house

Police broke into a Quaker Meeting House last night (27 March) and arrested six young people holding a meeting over concerns for the climate and Gaza.

Quakers in Britain strongly condemned the violation of their place of worship which they say is a direct result of stricter protest laws removing virtually all routes to challenge the status quo.

Just before 7.15pm more than 20 uniformed police, some equipped with tasers, forced their way into Westminster Meeting House.

They broke open the front door without warning or ringing the bell first, searching the whole building and arresting six women attending the meeting in a hired room.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 have criminalised many forms of protest and allow police to halt actions deemed too disruptive.

Meanwhile, changes in judicial procedures limit protesters’ ability to defend their actions in court. All this means that there are fewer and fewer ways to speak truth to power.

Quakers support the right to nonviolent public protest, acting themselves from a deep moral imperative to stand up against injustice and for our planet.

Many have taken nonviolent direct action over the centuries from the abolition of slavery to women’s suffrage and prison reform.

Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said: “No-one has been arrested in a Quaker meeting house in living memory.

“This aggressive violation of our place of worship and the forceful removal of young people holding a protest group meeting clearly shows what happens when a society criminalises protest.

“Freedom of speech, assembly, and fair trials are an essential part of free public debate which underpins democracy.”

March 31, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

Will Texas Become ‘the Epicenter of a National Nuclear Renaissance’?

A new bill would create a taxpayer-funded incentive program of at least $2 billion for nuclear power plants.

By Arcelia Martin, 24Mar 25

Texas lawmakers are considering a bill to
resuscitate the state’s nuclear power industry through a taxpayer-funded
incentives program. State Rep. Cody Harris, a Republican from Palestine in
East Texas, proposed allocating $2 billion toward a fund to create the
Texas Advanced Nuclear Deployment Office. The bill proposes using public
dollars to help fund nuclear construction, provide grants for reactors and
fund development research. HB 14 would also create a state coordinator to
assist in the state and federal permitting processes.

Inside Climate News 24th March 2025,
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24032025/texas-national-nuclear-renaissance/

March 31, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

As Nuke Power Dies, Lithium Must Not Be the New Plutonium

https://columbusfreepress.com/article/nuke-power-dies-lithium-must-not-be-new-plutonium-2 30 Mar 25

Atomic Energy’s death spiral has spawned a run to green power.

But the toxic mineral lithium has become a critical pitfall…with clear ways around it that demand attention.

Humankind’s 400+ licensed large commercial reactors embody history’s most expensive technological failure.

Once hyped as “too cheap to meter,” just three “Peaceful Atom” plants have opened in the US since 1996, all of them very late and hugely over budget. Four at Japan’s Fukushima blew up in 2011, with ever-escalating economic, ecological and biological costs. Two in South Carolina are outright $9 billion failures. Projects in Georgia (US), Finland, France and the UK have come with catastrophic delays, overruns and cancellations. So have much-hyped Small Modular Reactors, and the taxpayer-funded idea of restarting nukes already dead.

And in the post DeepSeek era, gargantuan projected power demands for Artificial Intelligence and crypto are coming back to Earth.

Meanwhile the US now gets far more usable electricity from solar, wind and geothermal than from coal or nuclear. China’s wind/solar investments now dwarf its nukes, whose new construction plans are shrinking fast . Likewise those for the world as a whole (except among countries wanting to build nuclear weapons).

Despite nearly seven decades of operation, commercial atomic power still can’t get comprehensive private insurance against the next Fukushima. The recent (likely Russian) February 24, 2025 explosion at Chernobyl warned that a single drone or military mis-hap could ignite yet another mega-radiation release.

None of which will deter a radioactive grab for taxpayer billions. While gutting government, Team Trump is hell-bent to spew still more money at this dying technology. New nukes, SMRs and zombie reactor revivals will get gargantuan sums while generating little if any actual electricity. Corporate Democrats like Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer will do all they can to stall the green revolution.

Nonetheless, amidst the global rush to renewables, the toxic, expensive mineral lithium is slated for millions of batteries worldwide.

Some will be at the heart of electric cars. Others will back up solar and wind turbines for “when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.”

Powerful, efficient, and relatively lightweight, lithium has been viewed as essential for use in electric vehicles and stationary storage. Billions of dollars have been invested in mining, milling and processing lithium, with far more to come. At its best, it has been envisioned at the core of any green-powered transition.

But lithium is volatile, flammable, toxic, challenging to mine, sustain and re-cycle, with ecological, labor and health issues that must be addressed.

On January 15 and February 18, 2025, fire devastated the 300mgw Moss Landing, California, battery storage facility, among the world’s largest. Faulty maintenance and major techno-failures set 80% of the plant ablaze, emitting massive toxic fallout. So have Tesla vehicles burned in accidents, wildfires and protests.

Health impacts already reported by lithium downwinders tragically recall symptoms from poisonous disasters like Bhopal (India), East Palestine (Ohio), Three Mile Island (PA) and elsewhere. Lithium mining can be ecologically destructive, with significant health and labor issues.

Thankfully, there are superior substitutes on the near horizon. Sodium Ion batteries are heavy, but can be far cheaper, cleaner to mine and easier to recycle than lithium. Chinese auto giant BYD now offers a sodium iron battery sedan cheaper than a lithium Tesla. Iron air, aqueous (water) metal ion, gallium nitride and other unexpected players are likely (sooner or later) to have their place.

When it comes to the millions of solar panels poised to bury nuke power worldwide, activists concerned with electric/magnetic radiation warn that DC/AC “dirty” current must also be carefully managed, requiring updated filters, inverters, micro-grids and more. There are also the on-going problems of eco-destructive bio-fuel production and persistent turbine bird kills.

Fossil/nuclear backers are forever happy to weaponize such techno-challenges. Solartopian advocates have no choice but to fully face them.

Lithium may be a long way from plutonium, high level radioactive waste, or the airborne fallout that cursed Hiroshima andNagasaki, Fukushima and Chernobyl. There are known solar solutions to EMF/inverter challenges. The kwh/bird kill problem has been steadily improving.

While wind turbines don’t kill fish, fossil/nuke burners kill trillions. Agri-voltaics on solarized farmland can be hugely productive. Micro-grids are orders of magnitude safer, cleaner and more efficient than the utility power lines that ignite our forests and cities.

But on a planet we must preserve, in a volatile political and ecological climate, mere “trade-offs” may not be good enough.

With VERY significant economic realities on our side, green advocates can and must phase out not only King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes, Gas) but also lithium and other toxic elements, along with EMF emissions, poorly deployed inverters, bird kills, disrupted desert eco-systems, faulty grids, and more.

Perfection may not always be possible…but we need to rapidly evolve to pretty damn close.

Thankfully, unlike the forever escalating cost overruns, delays, techno-failures and eco-impacts of fossil/nuclear fuels, the barriers to overcome on the way to Solartopia seem largely curable, at prices that are sustainable and rewards that are essentially infinite.

March 31, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | ENERGY | Leave a comment

Behind the hype -“New wave of smaller, cheaper nuclear reactors sends US states racing to attract the industry “

No modular reactors are operating in the U.S. and a project to build the first, this one in Idaho, was terminated in 2023, despite getting federal aid.

The U.S. remains without a long-term solution for storing radioactive waste

Nuclear also has competition from renewable energies.

New wave of smaller, cheaper nuclear reactors sends US states racing to attract the industry, By ASSOCIATED PRESS, 29 March 2025 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-14549543/New-wave-smaller-cheaper-nuclear-reactors-sends-US-states-racing-attract-industry.html

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – With the promise of newer, cheaper nuclear power on the horizon, U.S. states are vying to position themselves to build and supply the industry’s next generation as policymakers consider expanding subsidies and paving over regulatory obstacles.

Advanced reactor designs from competing firms are filling up the federal government’s regulatory pipeline as the industry touts them as a reliable, climate-friendly way to meet electricity demands from tech giants desperate to power their fast-growing artificial intelligence platforms.

The reactors could be operational as early as 2030, giving states a short runway to roll out the red carpet, and they face lingering public skepticism about safety and growing competition from renewables like wind and solar. Still, the reactors have high-level federal support, and utilities across the U.S. are working to incorporate the energy source into their portfolios.

Last year, 25 states passed legislation to support advanced nuclear energy and this year lawmakers have introduced over 200 bills supportive of nuclear energy, said Marc Nichol of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association whose members include power plant owners, universities and labor unions.

“We´ve seen states taking action at ever-increasing levels for the past few years now,” Nichol said in an interview.

Smaller reactors are, in theory, faster to build and easier to site than conventional reactors. They could be factory-built from standard parts and are touted as flexible enough to plunk down for a single customer, like a data center or an industrial complex.

Advanced reactors, called small modular reactors and microreactors, produce a fraction of the energy produced by the conventional nuclear reactors built around the world for the last 50 years. Where conventional reactors produce 800 to 1,000 megawatts, or enough to power about half a million homes, modular reactors produce 300 megawatts or less and microreactors produce no more than 20 megawatts.

Tech giants Amazon and Google are investing in nuclear reactors to get the power they need, as states compete with Big Tech, and each other, in a race for electricity.

For some state officials, nuclear is a carbon-free source of electricity that helps them meet greenhouse gas-reduction goals. Others see it as an always-on power source to replace an accelerating wave of retiring coal-fired power plants.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee last month proposed more than $90 million to help subsidize a Tennessee Valley Authority project to install several small reactors, boost research and attract nuclear tech firms.

Long a proponent of the TVA’s nuclear project, Lee also launched Tennessee’s Nuclear Energy Fund in 2023, designed to attract a supply chain, including a multibillion-dollar uranium enrichment plant billed as the state’s biggest-ever industrial investment.

In Utah, where Gov. Spencer Cox announced “Operation Gigawatt” to double the state’s electricity generation in a decade, the Republican wants to spend $20 million to prepare sites for nuclear. State Senate President J. Stuart Adams told colleagues when he opened the chamber’s 2025 session that Utah needs to be the “nation´s nuclear hub.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared his state is “ready to be No. 1 in advanced nuclear power” as Texas lawmakers consider billions in nuclear power incentives.

Michigan lawmakers are considering millions of dollars in incentives to develop and use the reactors, as well as train a nuclear industry workforce.

One state over, Indiana lawmakers this month passed legislation to let utilities more quickly seek reimbursement for the cost to build a modular reactor, undoing a decades-old prohibition designed to protect ratepayers from bloated, inefficient or, worse, aborted power projects.

In Arizona, lawmakers are considering a utility-backed bill to relax environmental regulations if a utility builds a reactor at the site of a large industrial power user or a retired coal-fired power plant.

Still, the devices face an uncertain future.

No modular reactors are operating in the U.S. and a project to build the first, this one in Idaho, was terminated in 2023, despite getting federal aid.

The U.S. Department of Energy last year, under then-President Joe Biden, estimated the U.S. will need an additional 200 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity to keep pace with future power demands and reach net-zero emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases by 2050 to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

The U.S. currently has just under 100 gigawatts of nuclear power operating. More than 30 advanced nuclear projects are under consideration or planned to be in operation by the early 2030s, Nichol of the NEI said, but those would supply just a fraction of the 200 gigawatt goal.

Work to produce a modular reactor has drawn billions of dollars in federal subsidies, loan guarantees and more recently tax credits signed into law by Biden.

Those have been critical to the nuclear industry, which expects them to survive under President Donald Trump, whose administration it sees as a supporter.

The U.S. remains without a long-term solution for storing radioactive waste, safety regulators are under pressure from Congress to approve designs and there are serious questions about industry claims that the smaller reactors are efficient, safe and reliable, said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Plus, Lyman said, “the likelihood that those are going to be deployable and instantly 100% reliable right out of the gate is just not consistent with the history of nuclear power development. And so it´s a much riskier bet.”

Nuclear also has competition from renewable energies.

Brendan Kochunas, an assistant professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Michigan, said advanced reactors may have a short window to succeed, given the regulatory scrutiny they undergo and the advances in energy storage technologies to make wind and solar power more reliable.

Those storage technologies could develop faster, bring down renewables’ cost and, ultimately, make more economic sense than nuclear, Kochunas said.

The supply chain for building reactors is another question.

The U.S. lacks high-quality concrete- and steel-fabrication design skills necessary to manufacture a nuclear power plant, Kochunas said.

That introduces the prospect of higher costs and longer timelines, he said. While foreign suppliers could help, there also is the fuel to consider.

Kathryn Huff, a former top Energy Department official who is now an associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said uranium enrichment capacity in the U.S. and among its allies needs to grow in order to support reactor production.

First-of-their-kind reactors need to get up and running close to their target dates, Huff said, “in order for anyone to have faith that a second or third or fourth one should be built.”

March 31, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Greenland’s uranium ban likely to continue.

Gordon Edwards, 30 Mar 25

Donald Trump has belligerently bragged that he will “get Greenland” one way or another. The officially stated piurpose is “national security” but there is also a strong underlying motive: possessing the “rich resources” of others.

Greenland has one of the largest identified deposite of “

Rare Earth Elements” (REE), that are always intimately mingled with uranium and thorium. There is a mountain rich in such radioactive ores located very close to the Inuit village of Narsaq (southern Greenland) that developers would like to strip-mine. This project is called Kuannersuit (in the Inuit language Greenlandic) or Kvanefjeld (in Danish).
If approved for mining the main commodity from Narsaq would be rare earths and the secondary commodity would be uranium. The economics of the project dictates marketing both.

However, t
here is currently a ban on uranium mining in Greenland which precludes this mining project from going forward. In 2016 Neils Henrik Hooge was sent to Narsaq by the Canadian group Physicans for Global Survival (PGS), to communicate some of the health-related concerns associated with uranium (and thorium) mining, at the request of the IA (Inuit Ataqatigiit) political party. The ban was enacted a few years afterwards.

PGS in now IPPNWC – International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Canada.

Yesterday (March 28) a coalition government was installed in Greenland which includes the IA party. The ban on uranium mining will likely be upheld and extended for the foreseeable future. So probably no Kvanejeld/Kuannersuit project for now.

But Donald Trump wants those rare earth elements from Greenland. Coincidentally, he is bullying Ukraine into surrendering its rare earth minerals to the USA in exchange for Trump’s brokering a limited cease-fire in the war.

The global supply of rare earths is currently a quasi-monopoly of China. These elements are of crucial importance in many electronic applications, including renewable enetrgy sources. America’s billionaires want unfettered access for Artificial Intelligence and other profitable ventures,.
Canada of course is another tempting target for Trump’s rapacious appetite. Among the plentiful natural resources that Canada has been exploiting and exporting routinely, as if there is no tomorrow, almost always at the expense of indigenous peoples and the environment, Trump’s gang knows there rare earth deposits in Northern Ontario’s “Ring of Fire”. He – and presumably his friend Elon Musk – wants them.

Why should Greenland, or Canada, retain control over anything that Donald Trump wants?
He is tired of being treated unfairly!

March 31, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uranium | Leave a comment

France’s UK energy apathy poses nuclear problem for Labour

France’s public spending watchdog is advising the country to cut back on its involvement in UK nuclear projects

Brad Gray, Tortoise 27th March 2025, https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2025/03/26/frances-uk-energy-apathy-poses-nuclear-problem-for-labour

EDF has reduced its stake in the Sizewell C nuclear power plant by a further 7.7 per cent, leaving the UK government with an 83.8 per cent share.

In 2022, a government buy-out to allow the Chinese state to exit the project made the UK the leading investor.

Last week Emmanuel Macron fired the EDF chief following a row over energy prices, and France’s public spending watchdog is advising the country to cut back on its involvement in UK nuclear projects and focus on small modular reactors instead.

As France reduces its investment, taxpayers are likely to foot more of the bill than anticipated – a tough pill to swallow as the chancellor slashes public funding.

When complete, Sizewell C is forecast to provide up to 7 per cent of the country’s electricity needs, with reactors lasting 60 years. Right now it’s a political headache.

March 31, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, politics international, UK | Leave a comment

Dounreay more likely to build up than knock down.

By Iain Grant, 26 March 2025

People are being warned not to expect any of Dounreay’s former fuel or
waste buildings to be levelled any time soon. NRS Dounreay managing
director Dave Wilson was responding to a query posed at the latest meeting
of Dounreay Stakeholder Group (DSG). Mr Wilson said none of the cluster of
buildings deployed in the former fast reactor complex is slated for
demolition in the next couple of years. He added: “Skyline changes in the
short term might be a building going up to store material.

John O Groat Journal 26th March 2025, https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/dounreay-more-likely-to-build-up-than-knock-down-377882/

**Plutonium**

March 31, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | decommission reactor, UK | Leave a comment

Why The US Australia Alliance Needs a Rethink

Australian Independent Media March 29, 2025, By Denis Hay

Description

Why the US Australia alliance needs a rethink. The U.S. is no ally. Discover why Australia must distance itself to avoid war and reclaim its sovereignty.

How Australia Can Safely Distance Itself from U.S. Hegemony

Introduction – The US Australia Alliance: Myth vs Reality

Picture this: You’re sitting in a Brisbane café, sipping a flat white while reading the headlines – Australia has just signed another defence pact with the United States. More American troops, military hardware, and diplomatic praise about our “unbreakable alliance.” Yet, beneath the headlines lies a growing discomfort – are we allies, or are we just a strategic pawn in U.S. global dominance?

Joh Bjelke-Petersen once said that this is just politicians “feeding the chooks.” Empty words. The truth is, the U.S. government doesn’t respect its people, let alone Australia. It sees nations – including its own – as resources to be mined for profit. This article will explore how Australia can break free from this exploitative alliance without putting itself in harm’s way.

The U.S. Government’s Track Record: A Global Power Without Respect

Exploiting Its Own Citizens

Visit Detroit, Michigan – a city once bustling with manufacturing pride. Now, it stands as a ghost town of forgotten promises, where basic water access has become a luxury. Millions of Americans are homeless or working two jobs or more just to survive. U.S. billionaires soared in wealth, while 45 million Americans live impoverished.

Internal reflection: “If they treat their own citizens this way, what hope do allies have?”

Exploiting Other Nations

Let’s take Iraq. The 2003 invasion, sold on lies about weapons of mass destruction, cost hundreds of thousands of lives, all to secure oil. In Libya, a once-stable nation descended into chaos after U.S.-led intervention. This is not defence—it’s corporate imperialism.

When the U.S. backs coups in Latin America or imposes sanctions on countries like Venezuela or Cuba, the motive is always clear: control the global economy for U.S. corporate gain.

The U.S.–Australia Relationship: Not What It Seems

Political Rhetoric vs Reality

Australian and U.S. politicians often repeat phrases like “shared values” and “strong friendship.” But how many Australians were consulted when Pine Gap was set up or when AUKUS was signed?

Dialogue: “This isn’t a partnership. It’s a surrender of our sovereignty,” says a former Australian diplomat.

The Cost of Loyalty

Australia’s blind support for U.S. policy has real consequences:

• Trade tensions with China – our largest trading partner

• Environmental destruction from military exercises on Australian soil

• Loss of independence as U.S. bases expand here without public debate.

Why China Matters More Than Ever

60% of Australia’s exports go to Asia, with China alone accounting for over 25%. Australia’s economy is tightly linked to Chinese demand, from iron ore to wine. Trade disruptions – often driven by political antagonism encouraged by the U.S. – have already cost farmers, winemakers, and miners dearly.

The Danger of Choosing Sides

We risk becoming collateral damage in a U.S.-China conflict. Australia should not repeat its mistakes from Vietnam or Iraq – wars that had nothing to do with our national interest but cost us dearly in blood, treasure, and reputation. This has been the outcome of the US Australia alliance.

Thought: “Must we always fight other nations’ wars? When do we stand up for ourselves?”