“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”
Dec 17, 2025
LAW’s Nuclear World News’ Image and/or Story for Today . . .
from OPB, an Independent. Member-supported.
For the Pacific Northwest.
The Experimental Breeder Reactor II at Idaho National Laboratory. Several companies are now pursuing experimental reactor designs in the hopes of upending the nuclear power industry.
Idaho National Laboratory
In May, President Trump sat in the Oval Office flanked by executives from America’s nuclear power industry.
“It’s a hot industry. It’s a brilliant industry,” the president said from behind the Resolute desk.
It’s also an industry that’s having a moment. Billions of dollars in capital are currently flowing into dozens of companies chasing new kinds of nuclear technologies. These are small modular designs that can potentially be mass produced in the hundreds or even thousands. Their proponents say these advanced designs promise to deliver megawatts of power safely and cheaply.
But there’s a problem, Joseph Dominguez, the CEO of Constellation Energy, told the president.
New nuclear plants keep getting caught up in safety regulations.
“Mr. President, you know this because you’re the best at building things,” Dominguez, whose company runs about a quarter of America’s existing nuclear reactors, said. “Delay in regulations and permitting will absolutely kill you. Because if you can’t get the plant on, you can’t get the revenue.”
All Things Nuclear
NEWS
Trump’s rush to build nuclear reactors across the U.S. raises safety worries – OPB
OPB
… nuclear power for decades, this new program would be all about speed. . .
LLAW’s Thoughts, Concerns, and Fears about Today’s Nuclear World and beyond . . .
I suspect more back-slapping lies for dollars were told back and forth around the presidential desk in May of this year at the White House Oval Office than, say, perhaps the-day-before yesterday because Trump loves praise and that’s precisely what this nuclear industry group of executives were doing . . . and Trump was obviously “crooning praise” about the industry to the smiles of the president.
So the nuclear industry is back to to where it has always been best — selling itself to the America’s political leadership — who they know knows nothing at all about the industry and how it operates, and they also know that’s the place to go to 1) raise funding, and 2) deflate nuclear regulations through the ignorance of high-placed politicians. Trump has been successful at doing that this time around, substantially and dangerously reducing the NRC’s (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) health and safety standards in favor of enforcing it’s regulations that are built into a carefully researched standard that somehow allows politics to override security regulations. And it’s happening now — with Trump around — to a far greater degree today than it ever has before.
But, as the last go-round turned out, America was saved the 1st time by “The 3-Mile Island” nuclear power plant disaster on March 28, 1979, that essentially has shut down the industry for mistrust and other practical reasons for over forty-five years.
This accidental meltdown of one of the nuclear reactors stopped the nuclear industry in its tracks and has kept the “bureaucratic politicians and money-grubbing industry executives at bay until the unfortunate “return of ‘Trump”.
It was the 3-Mile Island accident that caused me to leave the nuclear industry in the spring of 1980 — mainly from the hateful words of a powerful leader of the nuclear world, who said, introductory to his follo9wing speech, directly in front of me and hundreds of others at a desperate meeting to save the industry, when the speaker, thinking he was thinking for all of us, “Let the bastards freeze to death in the dark.”
So it came to pass that I left the nuclear fuel (uranium) side of the uranium industry and switched to a job with GE evaluating tungsten mines for predicting corporate costs of making light bulbs and then about a year later started my own minerals exploration company that would of course have nothing to do with uranium and the entire nuclear industry, ~llaw
Nuclear World News
About Today’s Nuclear News and How it Works:
There are 7 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcano and caldera activity around the world that also play an important role in the survival of human and other life.
The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). If there was no news from a Category today, the Category will not appear. The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
- All Things Nuclear
- Nuclear Power
- Nuclear Power Emergencies
- Nuclear War Threats
- Nuclear War
- Yellowstone Caldera
- IAEA News (Friday’s only) (Not available today)
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
Nuclear World News, Wednesday, (12/17/2025)
All Things Nuclear
NEWS
Trump’s rush to build nuclear reactors across the U.S. raises safety worries – OPB
OPB
… nuclear power for decades, this new program would be all about speed. “Our job is to make sure that the government is no longer a barrier,” said …
Trump’s rush to build nuclear reactors across the U.S. raises safety worries | WUSF
WUSF
… nuclear power for decades, this new program would be all about speed. “Our job is to make sure that the government is no longer a barrier,” said …
Who Can Start a Nuclear War? Inside U.S. Launch Authority and Reform
Council on Foreign Relations
… nuclear weapons have been prepared to launch within minutes since the Cold War … about trucks, and tankers, and all these things. But it’s …
Nuclear Power
NEWS
Trump’s rush to build nuclear reactors across the U.S. raises safety worries – NPR
NPR
A new program at the Department of Energy is pushing the development of nearly a dozen new reactor designs at breakneck speed.
U.S. Plans $80 Billion Nuclear Power Expansion – IEEE Spectrum
IEEE Spectrum
An $80 Billion nuclear power initiative in the U.S. aims to boost energy security and AI development, but could face cost overruns and delays.
US Regulator Approves 20-Year Licence Renewals For Three More Nuclear Plants
NucNet
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has renewed the operating licences of Constellation’s Clinton-1 and Dresden-2 and -3 nuclear power plants …
Nuclear Power Emergencies
NEWS
Fuel Supply Disruption Prompts Energy Emergency in Northeast | OilPrice.com
Oil Price
A transformer failure at the Marcus Hook propane hub triggered a regional energy emergency. States and federal authorities have suspended trucking- …
Eletronuclear takes emergency steps to avert 2025 cash shortfall – Valor International
Valor International – Globo
… emergency, very short-term” measures to prevent Eletronuclear, the operator of Brazil’s nuclear power plants, from ending 2025 with a cash deficit.
US Army’s first 100% electric train recharges in just 2.5 hours – Interesting Engineering
Interesting Engineering
US Army’s first 100% electric train can power rail centers for 48 hrs in emergencies … nuclear energy.” Fort Hood is the Army’s busiest …
Nuclear War Threats
NEWS
Who Can Start a Nuclear War? Inside U.S. Launch Authority and Reform
Council on Foreign Relations
Cold War threats led to the United States’ current approach to nuclear weapons policies, guidance, and capabilities. Today’s risks—from AI to an …
Limits of nuclear military power, Israel and the ‘sting of the bee’ – Cleveland Jewish News
Cleveland Jewish News
At the same time, Russian, North Korean or Pakistani threats of support for Jerusalem’s enemy could lay the groundwork for a multi-state nuclear war.
5 Places A Nuclear War Could Start in 2026 – National Security Journal
National Security Journal
-Dr. Eastwood concludes that while deterrence is holding for now, proliferation risks are rising—and renewed great-power arms control is urgently …
Nuclear War
NEWS
Who Can Start a Nuclear War? Inside U.S. Launch Authority and Reform
Council on Foreign Relations
… nuclear weapons have been prepared to launch within minutes since the Cold War. While reforms to U.S. retaliation policy seem unlikely …
Strike on Iran: The Nuclear Question (full documentary) | FRONTLINE – YouTube
YouTube
… nuclear program? “Strike on Iran: The Nuclear Question” offers some of the most in-depth accounts of the destruction from inside Iran since the war …
Nuclear proliferation rhetoric in Europe spikes again as fear of Trump’s plans grows – ICAN
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and UK defence minister Al Carns are stoking fears of war with Russia and another round of incitement to nuclear …
Yellowstone Caldera
NEWS
Yellowstone’s silent chemistry reveals the secret of its missing sulfur dioxide – The Watchers
The Watchers News
The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory maintains several Multi-GAS monitoring stations, including one in the Mud Volcano region, to record these …
Mayon Volcano (Philippines) Activity Update Dec 16, 2025 – Unrest | VolcanoDiscovery
Volcano Discovery
… caldera, and Ijen. Yellowstone quakes · Yellowstone quakes · Latest earthquakes under Yellowstone volcano. List and interactive map of current and …
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