Free Republic

FRANCE is reportedly facing blackouts as 10 of its nuclear reactors have shut down, spelling chaos for President Emmanuel Macron.The latest nuclear shutdown in France was announced by state energy giant EDF today. They said cracks were found near welds on a safety cooling system for two reactors at the Civaux plant in central France during routine safety checks. And EDF decided to shut down another two reactors at its Chooz plant in the eastern Ardennes region as a precaution because they are built to the same design. Karine Herviou, deputy chief executive of the French nuclear safety regulator IRSN,...

North Korea fired what is believed to be a missile into the waters of the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday morning, according to the Japanese government. In response, Fort Greely, Alaska personnel were ordered to find shelter immediately during what was still Tuesday afternoon in Alaska. It’s unknown what kind of projectile it was, but the Japanese Defense Ministry said it was probably a missile. Other MRAK sources said it was a hypersonic missile launched from a submarine. The last missile Pyongyang launched was in October. In 2017, an intercontinental ballistic missile was launched in North Korea that had a range...

China on Tuesday said it would keep modernizing its nuclear program in the name of "safety" but called on the United States and Russia to make greater cuts to their arsenal stockpiles. ... ...Fu’s comments come one day after the five states recognized under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — the U.S., Russia, France, the United Kingdom and China, who are also the five permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council — issued a joint pledge to lower the risk of nuclear war. The P5 affirmed that "nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought" and...

The European Commission is facing a furious backlash over plans to allow gas and nuclear to be labelled as “green” investments, as Germany’s economy minister led the charge against “greenwashing”. The EU executive was accused of trying to bury the proposals by releasing long-delayed technical rules on its green investment guidebook to diplomats on New Year’s Eve, hours before a deadline expired. The draft proposals seen by the Guardian would allow gas and nuclear to be included in the EU “taxonomy of environmentally sustainable economic activities”, subject to certain conditions. The taxonomy is a classification system intended to direct billions...

Germany on Friday shut down half of the six nuclear plants it still has in operation, a year before the country draws the final curtain on its decades-long use of atomic power. The decision to phase out nuclear power and shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy was first taken by the center-left government of Gerhard Schroeder in 2002. His successor, Angela Merkel, reversed her decision to extend the lifetime of Germany’s nuclear plants in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan and set 2022 as the final deadline for shutting them down. The three reactors now being...

The Biden administration has affirmed a Trump administration interpretation of high-level radioactive waste that is based on the waste’s radioactivity rather than how it was produced. The U.S. Department of Energy announcement last week means some radioactive waste from nuclear weapons production stored in Idaho, Washington and South Carolina could be reclassified and moved for permanent storage elsewhere.... ...The Biden administration's affirmation of the new interpretation came after various groups offered letters of support and opposition to the agency after Biden became president, leading to the notice in the Federal Register making clear where the administration stood....

Germany will pull the plug on three of its last six nuclear power stations on Friday, another step towards completing its withdrawal from nuclear power as it turns its focus to renewables. The government decided to speed up its phasing out of nuclear power following Japan's Fukushima reactor meltdown in 2011 when an earthquake and tsunami destroyed the coastal plant in the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years earlier. The reactors of Brokdorf, Grohnde and Gundremmingen C, run by utilities E.ON and RWE, will be shut down on Friday after three-and-a-half decades in operation. The last three nuclear...

The European Union’s executive Commission is considering whether to include nuclear and natural gas in its “sustainable finance taxonomy”, a rulebook that will restrict which activities can be labelled as climate-friendly investments. “We are going to have most likely a discussion tomorrow in college, which then will lead… to approval next year,” EU environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius told a news conference on Monday, referring to the Commission’s weekly “college” meeting.

A new round of nuclear fusion experiments for an advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST), or “Chinese artificial sun,” kicked off at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science this month, Xinhua News Agency reported on Tuesday. According to the institute’s vice director, Song Yuntao, the experiment is aimed at upgrading the EAST auxiliary heating system to make the artificial sun “hotter” and more “durable.” The testing is expected to last for a half year. The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) device, also known as the "artificial sun," at a laboratory in Hefei, east China's Anhui province © AFP ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The EAST reactor...

VIDEO: Preliminary information on a halt in the operation of the nuclear reactor in Bushehr First information on a halt in the operation of the nuclear reactor in Bushehr. Just yesterday, when this video of explosions in the area was put on social media, Iran claimed that the blasts there were part of "military training".

Tehran (AFP) – An air defence test triggered a loud explosion near Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility Saturday as nuclear talks with major powers stumble. The explosion was heard in the skies over the Iranian city of Badroud, just 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the nuclear plant, the official IRNA news agency reported. "Badroud residents heard the noise and saw a light which showed an object had just blown up in the skies over the city," a witness told IRNA. But the spokesman of the Iranian army, General Amir Tarikhani, told state television there was no cause for concern. "An...

Desperate Democrats are looking at the “nuclear option” to boot Kamala Harris from the White House. This is no surprise. Without question, Her Vice Fraudulency is the biggest failure of a vice presidential pick since Spiro Agnew in 1972. Harris epitomizes an identity hire, the choice of skin color and gender over competence. Harris was such a terrible presidential candidate, she dropped out before even a single vote was taken. She dropped out before Marianne Williamson. Biden only chose her as a cheap and easy way to “make history” with the pick of the first woman and the first black...

CommentaryIn the first week of November, the United States was faced with a clear warning, the likes of which it hasn’t faced since the Cold War: the prospect of having to fight near simultaneous major wars in Europe and Asia.In March and April, Russia mobilized about 100,000 to 120,000 troops, plus supporting armor, artillery and missiles, near the Donbass regions contested by Russian-supported Ukrainian rebel forces and in the Ukrainian territory of Crimea.This was more than what Russia mobilized in 2014 to invade and occupy Crimea. The United States European Command raised its “watch level” to “potential imminent crisis.”Now in...

The second-ranking general in the US military has sounded the alarm about China’s weapons development — warning that Beijing may soon have the capability to launch a surprise nuclear strike against America. “They look like a first-use weapon,” Gen. John Hyten, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CBS News Tuesday. “That’s what those weapons look like to me.” Hyten was discussing China’s test of a hypersonic weapon from this summer, which was first reported by the Financial Times last month. “They launched a long-range missile,” Hyten said. “It went around the world, dropped off a hypersonic...

France will start building its first new nuclear reactors in decades as part of efforts to meet its promises to reduce planet-warming emissions, French President Emmanuel Macron announced Tuesday. He spoke as climate negotiators in Glasgow debate how to speed up efforts against climate change, and amid concerns around Europe about recent spikes in energy prices and the continent’s dependence on global gas and oil producers, including Russia. “To guarantee France’s energy independence, to guarantee our country’s electricity supply, and to reach our goals -- notably carbon neutrality in 2050 -- we will for the first time in decades revive...

“I don’t believe that the Iranians only have peaceful intentions with their nuclear program,” said David Lega, a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament. Lega was responding to recent protestations of the Iranian regime that it has only “civilian purposes” in mind with its progress toward nuclear capability. Speaking exclusively to Israel Hayom from his residence in Sweden, Lega said that, “We haven’t yet come to a decision regarding Iran; we are monitoring the situation closely, using great caution. I don’t want to speak on behalf of the Committee as we haven’t debated this issue...

Iran agreed Wednesday to resume talks with world powers on reviving a nuclear deal on November 29 after a five-month gap, with the United States urging a quick resolution. Advertising The indirect negotiations in Vienna come amid mounting pressure on Iran, with Western nations warning that the clerical state's nuclear work is advancing to dangerous levels and Israel threatening to attack. EU envoy Enrique Mora, who led six rounds of talks earlier this year and recently flew to Tehran to seek progress, will again chair the November 29 meeting, the European Union announced. President Joe Biden took office hoping to...

1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030 The updated estimate marks a dramatic increase from the projection reported in last year’s China Military Power report, which placed the tally around 400 warheads within a decade. Washington has previously called on China to join the U.S. and Russia in a new arms control treaty. The report also raises concerns over Beijing’s increasingly aggressive behavior toward Taiwan. “The historical task of the complete reunification of the motherland must be fulfilled and will definitely be fulfilled,” Xi said in an October 8 address.

Hertz, the car rental agency, said Monday that it had placed an order for 100,000 Teslas, a sign of growing momentum in the shift to electric vehicles. By the end of next year, when the Tesla order is completed, electric vehicles will make up more than 20% of Hertz’s global vehicle fleet, the company said. Hertz said it was teaming with NFL quarterback Tom Brady to promote its EV offerings in a marketing campaign. “Electric vehicles are now mainstream, and we’ve only just begun to see rising global demand and interest,” Mark Fields, Hertz’s interim chief executive, said in a...

A last Friday deadline for Los Alamos National Lab employees to get vaccinated has come and gone, with a judge on the same day denying a request by 114 employees there to block the nuclear lab’s vaccine mandate from taking effect.In the last days the employees, including top nuclear engineers and scientists, have literally taken to the streets outside the lab, protesting the mandate which orders them to get their first dose of the Covid vaccine or face termination. Concerning the lawsuit filed by the employees, The Hill wrote earlier that "Workers at the New Mexico laboratory, which created the...