Very touching essay, Chris. When I saw the phrase "industrial cathedrals" in the last paragraph, I recognized the language used by Emmet Penney in his headline essay "A Republic of Industrial Cathedrals." I went back to reread that piece, and lo and behold, I find you're mentioned in it. We owe a great debt to people like the broken man you tended to in the E.R. I pray that we, and generations to follow, prove worthy stewards of the industrial commons bequeathed to us.
Western civilization has been commandeered over the past century by a bizarre admixture of 19th century progressivism, characterized by the British Fabian Society [which has become so ubiquitous that they no longer bother hiding their involvement in the political arena], and a defeatist sense of cultural guilt for everything wrong in the world that can be attributed even tangentially to Western success and global influence. Certainly there is some truth to many such allegations, but the thrust of such arguments is ONLY to induce crippling anxiety, rather than foster genuine improvement.
And there is some backhanded guilt on the part of older progressives, who have been obsessed with environmental destruction for the past half century, but most of whom are loathe to admit that we should have been building nuclear capacity for the entire time they were braying about the perils of nuclear waste and catastrophic meltdowns. Now that they are approaching the end of their lives of comfortable consumption, they are equally zealous at counseling energy poverty for younger generations, rather than being candid about their own past foolishness.
Westerners have become so bamboozled by defeatist propaganda that we can no longer recognize how our enemies are also suffering the consequences of their destructive policies. We're still awestruck by Chinese accomplishments, without noticing the growing chorus of Chinese critics who love their country but hate their government. Most of us seem to have forgotten how suddenly the USSR collapsed in 1990 under the weight of their own military boondoggles. The CCP will suffer the same fate sooner than you think. Let's see how they deal with the trouble brewing at Three Gorges Dam. Not that they give a rat's ass about their people or the environment.
And Iran will fall soon enough, now that they have convinced their Arab neighbors that if they ever get back on their feet, they will try to destroy everyone around them. As if their 2019 attack on the Saudi refinery [unprovoked by Israel, if you can believe that] was not sufficient evidence to convince the Arab world that Iran was too dangerous to tolerate.
Listening to your recent conversation with Doomberg, one might get the impression that China will soon replace the American hegemon, and that Israel is the true source of mideast instability. Do you know why the propagandists who incessantly tear down Western achievements are such rabid haters of Israel and America? It's certainly not because of legitimate criticisms of Netanyahu and Trump, which are not difficult to discover. The real reason is that both Israelis and American conservatives are PROUD of our accomplishments, and willing to work for a better world. We are not so paralyzed in a miasma of guilt that we can no longer defend our own culture.
I really appreciate that Decouple has made great strides in educating the public on the necessity of sound energy policy. The message has been heard in America at least, and certainly in Alberta. It's paradoxically taken longer in Western Europe, as they studiously ignore the French nuclear miracle that keeps the lights on for many of their foolish neighbors who took the opportunity of the Ukraine war to abjure Russian natgas whilst simultaneously [and gleefully] demolishing their own perfectly functional nuclear capacity. This is not rational behavior, it's a spiritual malaise. But we're slowly awakening from our long postwar slumber, and now we have a fight on our hands.
The good news, for any who have failed to notice, is that Trump has spent the past year prying the CCP out of key foreign possessions that are instrumental to their geopolitical ambitions: the Panama Canal, Venezuela, perhaps Argentina, and now Iran. And they have been revealed as a nation of low-testosterone bureaucrats, rather than the military empire they pretend to be. Now it remains to be seen whether the Orange Orangutan, whom all the smart set loves to piss on, can reinvigorate Western industrial supremacy. Because if he cannot, I don't know who will.
The "international community" who love to deride American and Israeli achievements are far too lazy to bother reading this blog, let alone ingesting a book by Vaclav Smil. Who else is going to restore nuclear capacity? Given the Trojan horses we found in Chinese EVs and solar controllers, I don't think anyone is going to be buying their "affordable" modular reactors, except the other death-cult Islamist regimes that currently own Russian reactors. I hope for a near future in which the brilliance of Chinese people can be liberated from their death-cult bureaucracy, like the long-suffering citizens of Iran.
I’m probably one of your more lefty readers (if you have any) and I’ve never understood the knee-jerk opposition to nuclear power among so many of my comrades. I grew up in close proximity to a nuke plant (the Limerick plant in Pennsylvania) and I never thought it was anything but cool, chugging away year after year with minimal carbon footprint.
I learned from another Substack author who also believes he’s “left” that just sharing honest information in little bits helps people who are largely told what to think/know is a very successful way to help everyone become more informed. I’m happy to see it’s helping.
"Our society seems finally to have reached a political consensus that we should not be tearing down the industrial cathedrals that this great generation built for us: edifices like our nuclear power plants at Pickering, Darlington and Bruce."
The "industrial cathedrals" framing that you and Emmett Penney use is proper and important, in our view.
How humble you are about your role in that shift in attitude and the changing consensus, in your country and beyond, we find incredibly admirable.
It's almost as if you see the Hippocratic oath in terms beyond the medical. Like you have gone beyond the level at which you could heal individuals within the emergency room alone.
For that, we're highly confident that your son will, in his thirties, come to understand your body of work in its full breadth and detail, and understand both its place in Canadian energy history and that of the advanced world. And exactly how relevant that was/is to underpin his generation's prosperity.
Few of his friends will ever know. But he will.
Preserving life is hard stuff. For doing double duty - saving individual lives while trying to preserve the inheritances that underpin everyone's lives in advanced nations - we salute you, Dr. Chris Keefer. (An honorary PhD in some form of humanities from a once or still current prestigious Canadian university is in order, we believe).
The nuclear power-plant lasting for 80 years is what makes it dangerous. Will it be maintained in 60 years or will it decay and eventually become a catastrophe. 80 years requires a significant amount of stars to align in order to avoid a catastrophe during civil wars, economic depression, an invasion, or new trainees?
You got some facts to back that up or just irrational claims that you pulled out of your butt. It's not rocket science to replace components in any machine and large components that are rather expensive and time consuming to replace like containment domes and pressure vessels can be tested with NDT (non-destructive testing) and the Russians even anneal the PVs to extend their lifespan. This is all routine tech, they do it on the airplanes you fly in, the elevator components you ride on, high pressure boilers and thousands of other industrial components.
So in actual fact, leaving out the Fear porn, you can keep any machine running reliably forever by replacing components. It only becomes a case of economics, where it may be more economical to build an entire new unit than to keep refurbishing an existing unit. And if we switch to assembly line SMR production, it will likely be more economical to recycle an old plant module and replace it with a new one, even every 5yrs, they will be so cheap to manufacture.
The key point is we are just no good at building cathedrals anymore. China seems to be able to, maybe Russia also. But for whatever reason, Western nations just are very bad at it. Costs having exploded for the big NPPs, big Hydro, things like high speed rail, even basic infrastructure like large bridges.
All we are good at is mass manufacturing, which is highly automated. So for nuclear to succeed, as it must succeed, it needs to be made like automobiles, jet aircraft or Starships. There is a best size to facilitate that. You don't want all that concrete. You can separate the nuclear plant from the heat application, typically producing steam for turbine generators.
The best example of that I've seen is Copenhagen Atomics 100MWth molten salt reactor concept.
Also Thorcon power is opting to use shipyard mass manufacturing methods for their 500MWe MSR concept.
Unfortunately the current archaic & irrational nuclear regulators are antithetical to mass manufacturing. And that is killing millions of people. And it will kill billions of people if it is not fixed. These fools don't have the remotest idea of what health & safety really is.
Meanwhile our overlords, the ones responsible for blockading nuclear power (with the safety excuse), are busily trying to start a nuclear war in Europe. Russia now seriously threatening the use of nuclear weapons against European nations if they don't stop attacking Russia's critical infrastructure with their drones, using Ukrainian patsies as surrogates. Nuclear bombs aren't unsafe, they're low radiation, no siree Bob, yep. One nuclear bomb explosion is going to be worse than 1000 Fukushimas.
Not sure who your overlords are, but Carney, Trump, Starmer, Macron, even von der Leyen, now seem pretty happy for nuclear to grow. Ukraine is hitting Russia mostly with drones they built themselves, since the US and Germany put so many restrictions on ATACMs and Taurus (Tauri?) that they were being hammered daily with no right of reply. If Russia wants to preserve its infrastructure, it should stop killing Ukrainians, not start threatening the rest of Europe.
The Onion core and Thorcon look interesting, but LWRs and Candus work now, and if the West can't build them, it should change things so it can.
There is a lot of happy talk about nuclear from politicians. But not a lot of action. They're still doubling down on wind, solar & hydrogen scams. Wind & solar means reducing nuclear. It's no accident that nuclear capacity factors substantially dropped in France & Ontario when they added a lot of wind and solar to the grid. And overall emissions increased. Capacity factors should be >90% instead they are <70%. That's destroying nuclear power, not adding it.
Central Bank Climate Change plan, the latest 2024 edition:
And as we see, the Central Bank oligarchy's energy plans for the World don't include significant nuclear:
Network for Greening the Financial System:
NGFS long-term scenarios for central banks and supervisors, Nov 2024:
On pg 22, they show their projected 2050 World primary energy mix at:
That don't look to me like they are very serious about restarting significant nuclear growth. In fact they seem to be most interested in doing nuclear only if it is slow and expensive to build. And then they tell us Nuclear is too slow and expensive to replace fossil fuel - their big stated climate change / Net Zero goals.
For your information, here's the chronology of events that led to NATO's proxy war against Russia, Ukraine being the pawns, just a source of bodies.
January 31, 1990: German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich-Genscher pledges to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that in the context of German reunification and the disbanding of the Soviet Warsaw Pact, NATO will rule out an “expansion of its territory to the East, i.e., moving it closer to the Soviet borders.”
February 9, 1990: U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III agrees with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that “NATO expansion is unacceptable.”
June 29 – July 2, 1990: NATO Secretary-General Manfred Woerner tells a high-level Russian delegation that “the NATO Council and he are against the expansion of NATO.”
July 1, 1990: The Ukrainian Rada (parliament) adopts the Declaration of State Sovereignty, declaring Ukraine's intention to become a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs and adheres to non-nuclear principles.
August 24, 1991: Ukraine declares independence based on the 1990 Declaration, including the pledge of neutrality, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Mid-1992: U.S. Bush Administration policymakers secretly decide to expand NATO, contrary to recent commitments to the Soviet Union and Russia.
July 8, 1997: At the Madrid NATO Summit, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic are invited to begin NATO accession talks.
September-October 1997: Former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski outlines a timeline for NATO enlargement in Foreign Affairs, projecting Ukraine's negotiations to begin around 2005-2010.
March 24 – June 10, 1999: NATO bombs Serbia without UN approval, which Russia condemns as a violation of the UN Charter.
March 2000: Ukrainian President Kuchma states that Ukraine joining NATO is not under consideration due to its complexity.
June 13, 2002: The U.S. unilaterally withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, described by Russian officials as an “extremely negative event of historical scale.”
2004: NATO expands to include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia; the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine is seen by Russia as a U.S.-backed power grab.
February 10, 2007: At the Munich Security Conference, Russian President Putin criticizes U.S. unipolar ambitions and NATO expansion, questioning the fate of Western assurances post-Warsaw Pact dissolution.
February 1, 2008: U.S. Ambassador William Burns cables that Ukraine's NATO aspirations touch a "raw nerve" in Russia, raising stability concerns.
February 18, 2008: The U.S. recognizes Kosovo's independence over Russian objections, which Russia sees as violating Serbia's sovereignty and international accords.
April 3, 2008: NATO declares that Ukraine and Georgia "will become members," which Russia calls a "huge strategic mistake" threatening European security.
August 20, 2008: The U.S. announces ballistic missile defense deployments in Poland (later Romania), met with strong Russian opposition.
2009: NATO expands to Albania and Croatia.
2010: Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych leads parliament to reaffirm Ukraine's neutrality.
January 28, 2014: U.S. officials Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt discuss regime change in Ukraine in a leaked call.
February 21-22, 2014: An EU-brokered agreement for Ukrainian elections is overridden by armed groups; Yanukovych flees, and parliament removes him without impeachment. The U.S. endorses the change, which Russia calls a coup.
March 16-21, 2014: Russia annexes Crimea after a referendum, drawing parallels to Kosovo; the U.S. rejects it as illegitimate.
March 25, 2014: U.S. President Obama dismisses Russia as a "regional power" acting out of weakness.
2014-2021: War erupts in Donbas; U.S. arms Ukraine and restructures its military for NATO compatibility; Russia supports Syrian government militarily.
February 12, 2015: Minsk II agreement is signed and backed by UNSC Resolution 2202, but Ukraine fails to implement Donbas autonomy; Sachs notes it was used to buy time for Ukraine's military buildup.
2019: NATO expands to Montenegro; U.S. withdraws from the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, criticized by Russia as "destructive."
June 14, 2021: NATO reaffirms Ukraine's future membership at the Brussels Summit.
September 1, 2021: U.S. joint statement supports Ukraine's NATO aspirations.
Late 2021: Russia demands an end to NATO enlargement; Russia and Ukraine exchange draft peace agreements based on Ukrainian neutrality.
December 17, 2021: Putin proposes a draft treaty on security guarantees, including non-enlargement of NATO and missile limitations.
January 26, 2022: U.S. rejects negotiations on NATO enlargement, asserting it's none of Russia's business.
February 21, 2022: Russia recognizes Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states, amid ongoing non-implementation of Minsk II and shelling in Donbas by U.S.-armed Ukrainian forces.
February 21, 2022: Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov details U.S. refusal to negotiate, highlighting ignored principles of indivisible security.
February 24, 2022: Putin launches the invasion, citing 30 years of NATO expansion despite Russian protests as a key factor; Sachs frames this as a response to a security order that refused to integrate Russia's concerns, not an unprovoked act.
March 7, 2022: Russia publicly states its invasion aims: Ukrainian neutrality, recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea, and independence for Luhansk and Donetsk separatist regions.
March-April 2022: Russia and Ukraine engage in negotiations, initially in Belarus and then Istanbul under Turkish mediation, producing a detailed draft framework; this includes Ukraine's permanent neutrality with international security guarantees (accepted in principle by Russia), force limitations, and a process for resolving territorial questions without force.
March 29, 2022: The Istanbul Communique is issued, outlining the basis for peace talks centered on Ukraine's neutrality and security guarantees.
April 15, 2022: A draft peace agreement is prepared based on the Istanbul Communique, committing to Ukraine's permanent neutrality, international security guarantees, and refraining from using force to alter boundaries; contested territories (e.g., Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia) are to be negotiated over time.
Mid-April 2022: Russia and Ukraine are on the verge of signing the Istanbul agreement, but negotiations break off when the U.S. and U.K. intervene, advising Ukraine not to sign; Sachs argues this was to preserve Western hegemony and pursue a strategy of weakening Russia, rejecting a feasible peace that reflected battlefield realities. .."
Note: Boris Johnson was paid over $1M by a UK arms merchant went he went to Ukraine to scuttle the Istanbul agreement.
Your chronology leaves out a few salient points, for example the bombing of Serbia came after years of escalation, including the siege of Sarajevo, the longest in modern history, with civilians gunned down by snipers just trying to find food, and the Srebrenica massacre of 6,000 men and boys. The alleged ‘referendum’ in Crimea came after ‘little green men’ had already taken over the peninsular, and was carried out by armed men; it came at ten days notice, had no option for retaining the status quo, was boycotted by the Crimean Tatars (who had been deported en masse by Stalin), and had a claimed 97% pro-Russian result. The occupation of the Maidan in Kiev, in protest against Yanukovich’s decision to not seek EU membership, was ended by mass shootings by Yanukovich’s Berkut militia , which led the parliament to revoke his presidency. (Yanukovich’s predecessor and rival, Viktor Yuschenko, was one of many opponents of Russian domination to suffer from a mysterious poisoning attempt.)
You're the perfect example of what I'm talking about. While we are told to worry about tiny tritium radioisotope leaks and potential nuclear meltdowns, but are completely oblivious to the civilization ending specter of World nuclear war. I grew up in the 60's, regular people, media, politicians, pundits and diplomats all were fearful of nuclear conflict. They would be horrified to see the recklessness of our political class now and the apathy of people like yourself. We saw the Soviet army invade Hungary and Czechoslovakia but nobody tried to arm them. Not worth starting Armageddon. Playing nuclear chicken is just insanity. A billionx worse than Fukushima + Chernobyl.
Get educated, this is happening, playing the blame game is a recipe for doom. The reality is right here:
John Mearsheimer: Toward All-Out War With Both Russia & Iran, Glenn Diesen:
"Scott Ritter is a former Major, Intelligence Officer, US Marine, and UN Weapons Inspector. Ritter discusses how Europe has now crossed the line and made a Russian retaliation inevitable"
"...session I recorded recently in Stockholm with Dr. Jacob Nordangard, and it is packed with illustrations and clips to make it a docu-drama! It covers everything of importance: the geopolitical history of Rockefeller/Carnegie/Ford foundations, thru to the Rockefeller influential dominance in the 1940's. Their creation of League of Nations (soon to become the United Nations & WHO). The intrigue accelerates with the founding of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Trilateral Commission, Club of Rome, European Management Forum (to soon become the World Economic Forum), UN Agenda 21, the Earth Charter Commission, the G20 - and a dizzying array of increasingly powerful organizations thru to the 2000's.
A truly pivotal moment occurred in 2019, when the massively expanded World Economic Forum...quietly signed a partnering contract with the United Nations (an event with massive implications - but zero media coverage, of course).
Very touching essay, Chris. When I saw the phrase "industrial cathedrals" in the last paragraph, I recognized the language used by Emmet Penney in his headline essay "A Republic of Industrial Cathedrals." I went back to reread that piece, and lo and behold, I find you're mentioned in it. We owe a great debt to people like the broken man you tended to in the E.R. I pray that we, and generations to follow, prove worthy stewards of the industrial commons bequeathed to us.
I love the term "industrial commons" thanks for that Trevor.
I wish I could claim full credit for that, but that phrase is also from the Emmet Penney piece I referenced above. Glad I could pass it on.
You are a very good person Mr. Keefer. Je vous salue de Montréal.
Very.
Western civilization has been commandeered over the past century by a bizarre admixture of 19th century progressivism, characterized by the British Fabian Society [which has become so ubiquitous that they no longer bother hiding their involvement in the political arena], and a defeatist sense of cultural guilt for everything wrong in the world that can be attributed even tangentially to Western success and global influence. Certainly there is some truth to many such allegations, but the thrust of such arguments is ONLY to induce crippling anxiety, rather than foster genuine improvement.
And there is some backhanded guilt on the part of older progressives, who have been obsessed with environmental destruction for the past half century, but most of whom are loathe to admit that we should have been building nuclear capacity for the entire time they were braying about the perils of nuclear waste and catastrophic meltdowns. Now that they are approaching the end of their lives of comfortable consumption, they are equally zealous at counseling energy poverty for younger generations, rather than being candid about their own past foolishness.
Westerners have become so bamboozled by defeatist propaganda that we can no longer recognize how our enemies are also suffering the consequences of their destructive policies. We're still awestruck by Chinese accomplishments, without noticing the growing chorus of Chinese critics who love their country but hate their government. Most of us seem to have forgotten how suddenly the USSR collapsed in 1990 under the weight of their own military boondoggles. The CCP will suffer the same fate sooner than you think. Let's see how they deal with the trouble brewing at Three Gorges Dam. Not that they give a rat's ass about their people or the environment.
And Iran will fall soon enough, now that they have convinced their Arab neighbors that if they ever get back on their feet, they will try to destroy everyone around them. As if their 2019 attack on the Saudi refinery [unprovoked by Israel, if you can believe that] was not sufficient evidence to convince the Arab world that Iran was too dangerous to tolerate.
Listening to your recent conversation with Doomberg, one might get the impression that China will soon replace the American hegemon, and that Israel is the true source of mideast instability. Do you know why the propagandists who incessantly tear down Western achievements are such rabid haters of Israel and America? It's certainly not because of legitimate criticisms of Netanyahu and Trump, which are not difficult to discover. The real reason is that both Israelis and American conservatives are PROUD of our accomplishments, and willing to work for a better world. We are not so paralyzed in a miasma of guilt that we can no longer defend our own culture.
I really appreciate that Decouple has made great strides in educating the public on the necessity of sound energy policy. The message has been heard in America at least, and certainly in Alberta. It's paradoxically taken longer in Western Europe, as they studiously ignore the French nuclear miracle that keeps the lights on for many of their foolish neighbors who took the opportunity of the Ukraine war to abjure Russian natgas whilst simultaneously [and gleefully] demolishing their own perfectly functional nuclear capacity. This is not rational behavior, it's a spiritual malaise. But we're slowly awakening from our long postwar slumber, and now we have a fight on our hands.
The good news, for any who have failed to notice, is that Trump has spent the past year prying the CCP out of key foreign possessions that are instrumental to their geopolitical ambitions: the Panama Canal, Venezuela, perhaps Argentina, and now Iran. And they have been revealed as a nation of low-testosterone bureaucrats, rather than the military empire they pretend to be. Now it remains to be seen whether the Orange Orangutan, whom all the smart set loves to piss on, can reinvigorate Western industrial supremacy. Because if he cannot, I don't know who will.
The "international community" who love to deride American and Israeli achievements are far too lazy to bother reading this blog, let alone ingesting a book by Vaclav Smil. Who else is going to restore nuclear capacity? Given the Trojan horses we found in Chinese EVs and solar controllers, I don't think anyone is going to be buying their "affordable" modular reactors, except the other death-cult Islamist regimes that currently own Russian reactors. I hope for a near future in which the brilliance of Chinese people can be liberated from their death-cult bureaucracy, like the long-suffering citizens of Iran.
Chris, this piece of yours should stand as the editorial of those renowed newspapers! In and out of your country. I've read it with tears in my eyes.
I’m probably one of your more lefty readers (if you have any) and I’ve never understood the knee-jerk opposition to nuclear power among so many of my comrades. I grew up in close proximity to a nuke plant (the Limerick plant in Pennsylvania) and I never thought it was anything but cool, chugging away year after year with minimal carbon footprint.
I learned from another Substack author who also believes he’s “left” that just sharing honest information in little bits helps people who are largely told what to think/know is a very successful way to help everyone become more informed. I’m happy to see it’s helping.
"Our society seems finally to have reached a political consensus that we should not be tearing down the industrial cathedrals that this great generation built for us: edifices like our nuclear power plants at Pickering, Darlington and Bruce."
The "industrial cathedrals" framing that you and Emmett Penney use is proper and important, in our view.
How humble you are about your role in that shift in attitude and the changing consensus, in your country and beyond, we find incredibly admirable.
It's almost as if you see the Hippocratic oath in terms beyond the medical. Like you have gone beyond the level at which you could heal individuals within the emergency room alone.
For that, we're highly confident that your son will, in his thirties, come to understand your body of work in its full breadth and detail, and understand both its place in Canadian energy history and that of the advanced world. And exactly how relevant that was/is to underpin his generation's prosperity.
Few of his friends will ever know. But he will.
Preserving life is hard stuff. For doing double duty - saving individual lives while trying to preserve the inheritances that underpin everyone's lives in advanced nations - we salute you, Dr. Chris Keefer. (An honorary PhD in some form of humanities from a once or still current prestigious Canadian university is in order, we believe).
Didn't read, just triggered by quote.
The nuclear power-plant lasting for 80 years is what makes it dangerous. Will it be maintained in 60 years or will it decay and eventually become a catastrophe. 80 years requires a significant amount of stars to align in order to avoid a catastrophe during civil wars, economic depression, an invasion, or new trainees?
The world could use a lot less being triggered and a lot more reading…
no...
Too lazy atm
You got some facts to back that up or just irrational claims that you pulled out of your butt. It's not rocket science to replace components in any machine and large components that are rather expensive and time consuming to replace like containment domes and pressure vessels can be tested with NDT (non-destructive testing) and the Russians even anneal the PVs to extend their lifespan. This is all routine tech, they do it on the airplanes you fly in, the elevator components you ride on, high pressure boilers and thousands of other industrial components.
So in actual fact, leaving out the Fear porn, you can keep any machine running reliably forever by replacing components. It only becomes a case of economics, where it may be more economical to build an entire new unit than to keep refurbishing an existing unit. And if we switch to assembly line SMR production, it will likely be more economical to recycle an old plant module and replace it with a new one, even every 5yrs, they will be so cheap to manufacture.
The key point is we are just no good at building cathedrals anymore. China seems to be able to, maybe Russia also. But for whatever reason, Western nations just are very bad at it. Costs having exploded for the big NPPs, big Hydro, things like high speed rail, even basic infrastructure like large bridges.
All we are good at is mass manufacturing, which is highly automated. So for nuclear to succeed, as it must succeed, it needs to be made like automobiles, jet aircraft or Starships. There is a best size to facilitate that. You don't want all that concrete. You can separate the nuclear plant from the heat application, typically producing steam for turbine generators.
The best example of that I've seen is Copenhagen Atomics 100MWth molten salt reactor concept.
Also Thorcon power is opting to use shipyard mass manufacturing methods for their 500MWe MSR concept.
Unfortunately the current archaic & irrational nuclear regulators are antithetical to mass manufacturing. And that is killing millions of people. And it will kill billions of people if it is not fixed. These fools don't have the remotest idea of what health & safety really is.
Meanwhile our overlords, the ones responsible for blockading nuclear power (with the safety excuse), are busily trying to start a nuclear war in Europe. Russia now seriously threatening the use of nuclear weapons against European nations if they don't stop attacking Russia's critical infrastructure with their drones, using Ukrainian patsies as surrogates. Nuclear bombs aren't unsafe, they're low radiation, no siree Bob, yep. One nuclear bomb explosion is going to be worse than 1000 Fukushimas.
Not sure who your overlords are, but Carney, Trump, Starmer, Macron, even von der Leyen, now seem pretty happy for nuclear to grow. Ukraine is hitting Russia mostly with drones they built themselves, since the US and Germany put so many restrictions on ATACMs and Taurus (Tauri?) that they were being hammered daily with no right of reply. If Russia wants to preserve its infrastructure, it should stop killing Ukrainians, not start threatening the rest of Europe.
The Onion core and Thorcon look interesting, but LWRs and Candus work now, and if the West can't build them, it should change things so it can.
There is a lot of happy talk about nuclear from politicians. But not a lot of action. They're still doubling down on wind, solar & hydrogen scams. Wind & solar means reducing nuclear. It's no accident that nuclear capacity factors substantially dropped in France & Ontario when they added a lot of wind and solar to the grid. And overall emissions increased. Capacity factors should be >90% instead they are <70%. That's destroying nuclear power, not adding it.
Central Bank Climate Change plan, the latest 2024 edition:
And as we see, the Central Bank oligarchy's energy plans for the World don't include significant nuclear:
Network for Greening the Financial System:
NGFS long-term scenarios for central banks and supervisors, Nov 2024:
On pg 22, they show their projected 2050 World primary energy mix at:
nuclear 2.8%, biomass 19%, fossil 18.4%, renewables (wind + solar + hydro) 60%
https://www.ngfs.net/system/files/2025-02/NGFS%20Climate%20Scenarios%20for%20central%20banks%20and%20supervisors%20-%20Phase%20V%20%287%29.pdf
That don't look to me like they are very serious about restarting significant nuclear growth. In fact they seem to be most interested in doing nuclear only if it is slow and expensive to build. And then they tell us Nuclear is too slow and expensive to replace fossil fuel - their big stated climate change / Net Zero goals.
For your information, here's the chronology of events that led to NATO's proxy war against Russia, Ukraine being the pawns, just a source of bodies.
January 31, 1990: German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich-Genscher pledges to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that in the context of German reunification and the disbanding of the Soviet Warsaw Pact, NATO will rule out an “expansion of its territory to the East, i.e., moving it closer to the Soviet borders.”
February 9, 1990: U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III agrees with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that “NATO expansion is unacceptable.”
June 29 – July 2, 1990: NATO Secretary-General Manfred Woerner tells a high-level Russian delegation that “the NATO Council and he are against the expansion of NATO.”
July 1, 1990: The Ukrainian Rada (parliament) adopts the Declaration of State Sovereignty, declaring Ukraine's intention to become a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs and adheres to non-nuclear principles.
August 24, 1991: Ukraine declares independence based on the 1990 Declaration, including the pledge of neutrality, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Mid-1992: U.S. Bush Administration policymakers secretly decide to expand NATO, contrary to recent commitments to the Soviet Union and Russia.
July 8, 1997: At the Madrid NATO Summit, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic are invited to begin NATO accession talks.
September-October 1997: Former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski outlines a timeline for NATO enlargement in Foreign Affairs, projecting Ukraine's negotiations to begin around 2005-2010.
March 24 – June 10, 1999: NATO bombs Serbia without UN approval, which Russia condemns as a violation of the UN Charter.
March 2000: Ukrainian President Kuchma states that Ukraine joining NATO is not under consideration due to its complexity.
June 13, 2002: The U.S. unilaterally withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, described by Russian officials as an “extremely negative event of historical scale.”
2004: NATO expands to include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia; the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine is seen by Russia as a U.S.-backed power grab.
February 10, 2007: At the Munich Security Conference, Russian President Putin criticizes U.S. unipolar ambitions and NATO expansion, questioning the fate of Western assurances post-Warsaw Pact dissolution.
February 1, 2008: U.S. Ambassador William Burns cables that Ukraine's NATO aspirations touch a "raw nerve" in Russia, raising stability concerns.
February 18, 2008: The U.S. recognizes Kosovo's independence over Russian objections, which Russia sees as violating Serbia's sovereignty and international accords.
April 3, 2008: NATO declares that Ukraine and Georgia "will become members," which Russia calls a "huge strategic mistake" threatening European security.
August 20, 2008: The U.S. announces ballistic missile defense deployments in Poland (later Romania), met with strong Russian opposition.
2009: NATO expands to Albania and Croatia.
2010: Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych leads parliament to reaffirm Ukraine's neutrality.
January 28, 2014: U.S. officials Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt discuss regime change in Ukraine in a leaked call.
February 21-22, 2014: An EU-brokered agreement for Ukrainian elections is overridden by armed groups; Yanukovych flees, and parliament removes him without impeachment. The U.S. endorses the change, which Russia calls a coup.
March 16-21, 2014: Russia annexes Crimea after a referendum, drawing parallels to Kosovo; the U.S. rejects it as illegitimate.
March 25, 2014: U.S. President Obama dismisses Russia as a "regional power" acting out of weakness.
2014-2021: War erupts in Donbas; U.S. arms Ukraine and restructures its military for NATO compatibility; Russia supports Syrian government militarily.
February 12, 2015: Minsk II agreement is signed and backed by UNSC Resolution 2202, but Ukraine fails to implement Donbas autonomy; Sachs notes it was used to buy time for Ukraine's military buildup.
2019: NATO expands to Montenegro; U.S. withdraws from the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, criticized by Russia as "destructive."
June 14, 2021: NATO reaffirms Ukraine's future membership at the Brussels Summit.
September 1, 2021: U.S. joint statement supports Ukraine's NATO aspirations.
Late 2021: Russia demands an end to NATO enlargement; Russia and Ukraine exchange draft peace agreements based on Ukrainian neutrality.
December 17, 2021: Putin proposes a draft treaty on security guarantees, including non-enlargement of NATO and missile limitations.
January 26, 2022: U.S. rejects negotiations on NATO enlargement, asserting it's none of Russia's business.
February 21, 2022: Russia recognizes Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states, amid ongoing non-implementation of Minsk II and shelling in Donbas by U.S.-armed Ukrainian forces.
February 21, 2022: Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov details U.S. refusal to negotiate, highlighting ignored principles of indivisible security.
February 24, 2022: Putin launches the invasion, citing 30 years of NATO expansion despite Russian protests as a key factor; Sachs frames this as a response to a security order that refused to integrate Russia's concerns, not an unprovoked act.
March 7, 2022: Russia publicly states its invasion aims: Ukrainian neutrality, recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea, and independence for Luhansk and Donetsk separatist regions.
March-April 2022: Russia and Ukraine engage in negotiations, initially in Belarus and then Istanbul under Turkish mediation, producing a detailed draft framework; this includes Ukraine's permanent neutrality with international security guarantees (accepted in principle by Russia), force limitations, and a process for resolving territorial questions without force.
March 29, 2022: The Istanbul Communique is issued, outlining the basis for peace talks centered on Ukraine's neutrality and security guarantees.
April 15, 2022: A draft peace agreement is prepared based on the Istanbul Communique, committing to Ukraine's permanent neutrality, international security guarantees, and refraining from using force to alter boundaries; contested territories (e.g., Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia) are to be negotiated over time.
Mid-April 2022: Russia and Ukraine are on the verge of signing the Istanbul agreement, but negotiations break off when the U.S. and U.K. intervene, advising Ukraine not to sign; Sachs argues this was to preserve Western hegemony and pursue a strategy of weakening Russia, rejecting a feasible peace that reflected battlefield realities. .."
Note: Boris Johnson was paid over $1M by a UK arms merchant went he went to Ukraine to scuttle the Istanbul agreement.
Your chronology leaves out a few salient points, for example the bombing of Serbia came after years of escalation, including the siege of Sarajevo, the longest in modern history, with civilians gunned down by snipers just trying to find food, and the Srebrenica massacre of 6,000 men and boys. The alleged ‘referendum’ in Crimea came after ‘little green men’ had already taken over the peninsular, and was carried out by armed men; it came at ten days notice, had no option for retaining the status quo, was boycotted by the Crimean Tatars (who had been deported en masse by Stalin), and had a claimed 97% pro-Russian result. The occupation of the Maidan in Kiev, in protest against Yanukovich’s decision to not seek EU membership, was ended by mass shootings by Yanukovich’s Berkut militia , which led the parliament to revoke his presidency. (Yanukovich’s predecessor and rival, Viktor Yuschenko, was one of many opponents of Russian domination to suffer from a mysterious poisoning attempt.)
You're the perfect example of what I'm talking about. While we are told to worry about tiny tritium radioisotope leaks and potential nuclear meltdowns, but are completely oblivious to the civilization ending specter of World nuclear war. I grew up in the 60's, regular people, media, politicians, pundits and diplomats all were fearful of nuclear conflict. They would be horrified to see the recklessness of our political class now and the apathy of people like yourself. We saw the Soviet army invade Hungary and Czechoslovakia but nobody tried to arm them. Not worth starting Armageddon. Playing nuclear chicken is just insanity. A billionx worse than Fukushima + Chernobyl.
Get educated, this is happening, playing the blame game is a recipe for doom. The reality is right here:
John Mearsheimer: Toward All-Out War With Both Russia & Iran, Glenn Diesen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx7osj5gCmo&t
"Prof. John Mearsheimer discusses the West going up the escalation ladder against both Russia and Iran, with all-out war as the logical conclusion"
Here's a video from today talking about the same crisis:
Scott Ritter: Europe Attacked Russia - Retaliation Is Now Unavoidable, Glenn Diesen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZQIeeR17Hk&
"Scott Ritter is a former Major, Intelligence Officer, US Marine, and UN Weapons Inspector. Ritter discusses how Europe has now crossed the line and made a Russian retaliation inevitable"
You aren't familiar with the financial overlords who mostly control governments in the West? Rockefeller? Rothschild? BIS?
"The Greatest History Never Told" - Full Feature Explains All! Ivor Cummins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwOuN39VHo
"...session I recorded recently in Stockholm with Dr. Jacob Nordangard, and it is packed with illustrations and clips to make it a docu-drama! It covers everything of importance: the geopolitical history of Rockefeller/Carnegie/Ford foundations, thru to the Rockefeller influential dominance in the 1940's. Their creation of League of Nations (soon to become the United Nations & WHO). The intrigue accelerates with the founding of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Trilateral Commission, Club of Rome, European Management Forum (to soon become the World Economic Forum), UN Agenda 21, the Earth Charter Commission, the G20 - and a dizzying array of increasingly powerful organizations thru to the 2000's.
A truly pivotal moment occurred in 2019, when the massively expanded World Economic Forum...quietly signed a partnering contract with the United Nations (an event with massive implications - but zero media coverage, of course).