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A realistic understanding of their costs and risks is critical.

What are SMRs?

1. SMRs are not more economical than large reactors.

2. SMRs are not generally safer or more secure than large light-water reactors.

3. SMRs will not reduce the problem of what to do with radioactive waste.

4. SMRs cannot be counted on to provide reliable and resilient off-the-grid power for facilities, such as data centers, bitcoin mining, hydrogen or petrochemical production.

5. SMRs do not use fuel more efficiently than large reactors.

[Edit: If people have links that contradict any the above, could you please share in the comment section?]

Nuclear power leaves a long and toxic legacy.

Mr Ruskell said: “There is nothing safe, secure or green about nuclear energy, and many people across Scotland will be dismayed and angry to hear that the Secretary of State is seeking to open a new reactor in Scotland.

“Aside from the brazen entitlement and the message this sends, it ignores that people in Scotland have long rejected nuclear energy. I hope that all progressive parties will unite in condemning this environment wrecking overreach.

“A new reactor would not only be unsafe, it would be extremely costly and would leave a toxic legacy for centuries. It would also distract from the vital work we need to do to boost clean, green and renewable energy.

“That is why I hope all progressive parties can rule out any return to nuclear power once Torness has been decommissioned.

“The Hinkley point shambles has exposed the UK government’s total inability to deliver nuclear programmes on budget or on time. We would be far better investing in the huge abundance of renewable resources that we already have here in Scotland.”

Companies are becoming ever craftier in their efforts to pose as more climate-friendly than they are

The name of the ruse: a taxonomy of greenwashing

Mechanism

• Misleading information
• Attention deflection
• Attention reduction (absolute)
• Attention reduction (peer-overshadowed)
• Attention timing

Classic application

• Misleading claims made by firms themselves
• Greenshifting of blame on to demanding consumers
• Limited disclosure of worthy ambitions
• Decent disclosure but substandard vis à vis peers
• Delayed disclosure

Sophisticated application

• Greenlabelling by third parties, which certify firms’ performance
• Greenlighting of good-news case studies
• Fuller disclosure, but with greenhushing of details
• Greencrowding: substandard disclosure en masse
• Greenrinsing: headline-grabbing targets get gradually diluted

Archive link

Google layoffs in 2023 affected about 6% of the company's global workforce, or about 12,000 people, starting in January.

Google's layoffs aren't necessarily a signal that the company isn't doing well. The company's market cap has nearly quadrupled since 2015, reaching $1.7 trillion.

Altogether, 14 journalists from seven countries analysed the most up-to-date EU figures and created an interactive map of Europe’s aquifers. The conclusion is that our water is disappearing and what remains is facing near-irreversible pollution. Over 15% of the aquifers mapped are in poor condition — dangerously overexploited, contaminated or both. This figure represents 26% of the aquifers by surface area. And the worst affected are important crop-producing countries, like Spain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

But the picture is incomplete. The EU requires all member states and Iceland and Norway to give data on the state of their aquifers. Out of these 29 countries, 16 submitted full, publicly accessible data, with Germany’s and Portugal’s only partially accessible. Eleven countries are not included in the map at all [...]

Israel was founded with the Nakba, a series of atrocities that ethnically cleansed Palestinians from their homeland. Today we are witnessing Israel engage in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza on an even larger, more violent scale.

The Second Nakba

While Palestinians have always feared the prospect of a second Nakba, which several Israeli officials have threatened over the years, most never imagined that it would unfold before their eyes in broad daylight, believing that ethnic cleansing belonged in the past century.

They were wrong. For eight months since last October, Israel has massacred and displaced more than three times as many Palestinians in Gaza as it did in all of Palestine during the Nakba. [...]

A research team at Stanford is developing a new AI-assisted holographic imaging technology it claims is thinner, lighter, and higher quality than anything its researchers have seen.

the Stanford tech is currently just a prototype

The German government and establishment are stepping up the repression of pro-Palestine Jews including Israelis, but it's all about anti-Arab/Muslim racism by proxy, says Udi Raz, a Jewish activist who spoke to The New Arab in Berlin.

“Germany is very much engaged in an attempt to self-define itself through the exclusion of other minorities. In the 30s and 40s, it was the Jews, and now it is Muslims,” explained Raz, adding that Germany is eager to protect Jews but only to the extent that those Jews are also “willing to produce anti-Muslim racism.”

Calling the last seven months a culmination of a decades-long oppression of Palestinians in Germany, Raz believes that this marginalisation of Palestinians also targets the entire Muslim population living in the country. [...]