The Talking-up Scotland fund raiser primarily to enable the recruitment of some research assistance, in order to take pressure off me [74 in June and tiring] and hopefully to further improve the blog, has made a good start. To contribute, only if you can (!) go to: Talking-up Scotland – a Politics crowdfunding project in Ayr by Professor John Robertson By Professor John Robertson OBA I’m grateful to @NickyZog for alerting me to these sources. From the high-status Foreign Policy on January 2oth 2025: For the United States—a country that, especially under incoming President-elect Donald Trump, aspires to be not only energy … Continue reading Labour’s planned small modular reactors – inefficient, polluting and carcinogenic – will also be dependent on high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) from Putin’s Russia which has ‘complete monopoly’ to undermine our energy security

In the Guardian today: The Talking-up Scotland fund raiser primarily to enable the recruitment of some research assistance, in order to take pressure off me [74 in June and tiring] and hopefully to further improve the blog, has made a good start. To contribute, only if you can (!) go to: Talking-up Scotland – a Politics crowdfunding project in Ayr by Professor John Robertson By Professor John Robertson OBA Keir Starmer will unveil plans for a historic expansion in nuclear power across England and Wales, pledging to use Labour’s large majority to make new sites across the country available for new power … Continue reading Labour to ‘push past nimbyism’ to build small modular reactors less likely to melt down but as Stanford University research shows more leaky, causing more cancer, and producing 9 times more radioactive waste

The Talking-up Scotland fund raiser primarily to enable the recruitment of some research assistance, in order to take pressure off me [74 in June and tiring] and hopefully to further improve the blog, has made a good start. To contribute, only if you can (!) go to: Talking-up Scotland – a Politics crowdfunding project in Ayr by Professor John Robertson By Professor John Robertson OBA From BBC Cumbria last week but, of course, no link to the story from the BBC Scotland site: The nuclear watchdog has issued an improvement notice after two railway wagons carrying nuclear waste crashed. It happened on … Continue reading Why a nuclear waste train crash just south of the border is timely reminder of Scottish Labour’s support for new nuclear plants in Scotland

By Professor John Robertson OBA Many thanks again to Alan Gordon for alerting me to this. In December 2021, spreading cracks were found in the aging nuclear power station at Torness in East Lothian and its operator EDF decided to shut it down two years early, in 2028. Then in December 2024, the new Labour government’s energy minister, Ed Miliband, in pursuit of their carbon reduction strategy decided it should stay open. Why is this a concern? In 2023, prior to the above decision, Dr Ian Fairlie, an independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment, gave evidence in a briefing … Continue reading Labour’s decision to keep the cracked Torness nuclear reactor going is ‘an experiment and hoping nothing will go wrong’