Nuclear Power Unhinged
An Adventure in Situational Awareness - Updated
“The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) believes onsite spent fuel storage will end in the short- term, or perhaps as long as infinity. “Short-term” is merely six decades, a blink of an eye (for a statue or mannequin). Infinity is forever, give or take a week.” - Dave Lochbaum - Director of the Nuclear Safety Project for the Union of Concerned Scientists
Posted by James Heddle, Mary Beth Brangan - EON
Nuclear Situational Updates from the Decom Working Group
Each week we are honored to join the Decommissioning Working Group, a community of sister and brother activists from various organizations in a Zoom meeting in which information about nuclear-related developments are shared in a sweep across the country for on-the-ground reports.
Just a brief summary of our notes from today’s DWG Zoom confab gives a synoptic nuclear situational awareness view of what can be described as an ongoing nuclear complex coup.
We have stolen the above title from a wry quip by meeting participant Paul Gunter of Beyond Nuclear.
In a series of recent executive orders, the Trump Administrations has detonated a demolition bomb in the existing architecture of nuclear energy regulation and arms control. [ See background links below.] The volley of moves combined have the unified goal of ushering in a so-called ‘American nuclear energy revival.’ They aim to:
1. Dismantle nuclear safety oversight by regulatory agencies;
2. Politicize nuclear science under the false rubric of ‘Gold Standard Science’;
3. Criminalize opposition to nuclear policy in politics and science;
4. Militarize nuclear revivalism to a weapons modernization program estimated to cost $1 trillion over the next ten years.
5. Declare a ‘national energy emergency’ and so justify rule by Executive Order, with the stated goal of quadrupling U.S. nuclear energy capacity by 2050, and as Trump has stated, making America the global leader in uranium mining and nuclear fuel production;
6. Under the guise of ‘necessary for national security,’ link a drive for renuclarization to the alleged need to supply energy to a planned massive build-out of AI Data centers - this despite the reality that both reactors and AI centers have unsustainably huge water demands.
Taxpayers will be handed the bill for this projected extravaganza, but the Saudi’s will help with an investment of $30 Billion in what they are falsely calming to be ‘renewable energy’.
New Jersey’s ‘Oldest Newspaper’ NJTodayNews.com carried this headline:
The Nuclear Gambit: Trump just handed the atom to the highest bidder
This was no mere policy shift.
This was a full-scale sabotage of oversight, a calculated demolition of the very safeguards that have kept Three Mile Island from becoming a recurring nightmare. With the stroke of a pen, Trump has effectively turned the NRC into a rubber-stamp factory, slashing staff, silencing public input, and fast-tracking reactor approvals with all the caution of a drunk gambler doubling down on a losing hand.
Hot Links to more on this topic:
On May 22 Utility Drive.com had this story -
Nuclear industry ‘facing some headwinds’ amid congressional budget fight: NEI CEO
This was followed on May 28 with the following Holland & Knight Alert post:
President Trump Signs 4 Executive Orders to Deploy New Nuclear Reactors, Strengthen Supply Chain
Life Support for a Nuclear Industry in Decline
And here: The decline and fall of nuclear power
“Nuclear energy has never been a clean economical energy source and will not be in the future” By Linda Pentz Gunter
WASHINGTON (May 27, 2025)—President Trump issued executive orders today that violate the Atomic Energy Act and effectively terminate the independence of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)’s and its ability to protect the public health and safety in the operation of commercial nuclear facilities. The orders also reject settled science on the public health impacts of radiation, putting the safety of workers and the American people at risk.
This is a link to a statement by Timothy Judson, Executive Director of NIRS.
What others are saying…
America announces the largest deployment in history — Meta, Amazon, and Google team up for this
President Trump Signs 4 Executive Orders to Deploy New Nuclear Reactors, Strengthen Supply Chain
President Trump Signs 4 Executive Orders to Deploy New Nuclear Reactors, Strengthen Supply Chain
Trump aims for 400 GW of nuclear by 2050, 10 large reactors under construction by 2030
Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board: Forty-Sixth Meeting of the Board
Zaporizhzhia restart? Greenpeace warns of perils
To win on nuclear energy, the United States should lose reprocessing
Enrichment and Reprocessing: From Bombs to Reactors and Back Again
Nuclear expert Jon Wolfsthal on the costs of US nuclear weapons programs spiraling out of control
Deep Fission To Build Nuclear Power Plants Below The Surface Of The Earth
DOE Issues Rare Emergency Order to Delay Michigan Coal Plant Retirement Amid MISO Grid Risk
From the White House:
DEPLOYING ADVANCED NUCLEAR REACTOR TECHNOLOGIES FOR NATIONAL SECURITY
ORDERING THE REFORM OF THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
REFORMING NUCLEAR REACTOR TESTING AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
REINVIGORATING THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRIAL BASE
Restoring Gold Standard Science
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Mary Beth Brangan and James Heddle co-direct EON, the Ecological Options Network.
The multi-award winning EON feature documentary SOS – The San Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power’s Legacy, was chosen as the opening film in the 13th annual Global Nonviolent Film Festival, where it also received the Organizers’ Award for ‘BEST ACTUALITY SUBJECT – Feature Documentary’.
SOS has won awards in several other international festivals, and is available for viewing worldwide. The film was produced by Mary Beth Brangan and directed by Brangan, Heddle, and Morgan Peterson, who also served as editor. SOS is a trans-generational family co-creation of two senior filmmakers and a millennial mom with two young daughters.
For information, please visit the SOS website.