Author: Fission Today

For many graduate students, waking up at noon after a 4 a.m. bedtime is a sign of a night well spent. For a group of MIT students, it was simply the start of their workday — timed not to the sun, but to the aurora.Their goal was simple: to study plasma phenomena using the aurora borealis as a natural laboratory. The process, less so; working largely in darkness in Fairbanks, Alaska, the students conducted experiments in temperatures that dipped as low as -25 degrees Fahrenheit, using red headlamps for visibility. The sun set before 3 p.m., and even at its…

Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant has been targeted four times since the United States-Israel war on Iran began more than a month ago. And the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of “catastrophic” risks if a radioactive release occurs. Interview with Alicia Sanders-Zakre Source link

A super PAC that spent at least $333,000 on television ads supporting North Carolina Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger’s unsuccessful primary campaign received $200,000 from a nonprofit funded entirely by Duke Energy Carolinas, the regulated utility subsidiary serving much of the Piedmont and western parts of the state. The money trail — documented in IRS filings, NC State Board of Elections disclosures, and Duke Energy’s own corporate political expenditure reports — runs from Duke Energy Carolinas’ corporate treasury through a political nonprofit called Citizens for a Responsible Energy Future (CREF) that has been funded solely by Duke Energy, then…

The American epoch of oil is collapsing. What comes next could be ugly democracies across the planet are now threatened by what might be called fossil fuel fascism – an extremist political movement that breaks laws, spreads lies and threatens violence in an increasingly desperate attempt to maintain markets for oil, gas and coal that would otherwise be replaced by cheaper renewables. In the short term, the biggest windfall from the Iran conflict has gone to companies, executives and shareholders in the US petroleum industry China is dominating the energy transition with astonishing result, while fossil fuel fascists in the US try to…

A year after President Trump signed Executive Order (EO) 14300 directing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to cut red tape and speed nuclear deployment, the agency is claiming a string of historic firsts, a backlog of rules in motion at unprecedented scale, and an internal reorganization due to take effect next month. In a news release marking the anniversary, the NRC tallied milestones it says are reshaping U.S. nuclear regulation for the first time in nearly half a century. Among them, the first commercial advanced reactor construction permit in decades, granted to TerraPower’s Kemmerer facility in Wyoming; the first-ever license…

Six of Ohio’s largest investor-owned electric and gas utilities contributed more than $2 million to the Republican Governors Association and Democratic Governors Association since January of last year, in an election cycle where Republican Vivek Ramaswamy and Democrat Amy Acton have both campaigned on lowering energy bills for Ohioans if elected as governor.  The six utilities are American Electric Power, AES, CenterPoint, Duke Energy, NiSource, and Vistra Corp. The Energy and Policy Institute reviewed contributions the utilities made to DGA and RGA using ProPublica’s 527 Explorer for this analysis.  Ninety-four percent of Ohio voters view energy costs as an extremely…

DOE Awards $94 Million for Light Water SMRs NRC Approves Framatome, Richland, WA, for HALEU Fuel Fabrication Lightbridge and Studsvik Partner on Software for Light Water Reactors AtkinsRéalis Signs as EPC for First American Nuclear Fast Spectrum SMR X-energy, Amazon, South Korean Firms Partner for AI Infrastructure Oklo Partners with Idaho Lab for AI Application L3Harris Completes Design of Deep Space Power Source UKAEA and Stellarex Energy Partner for Fusion Power Key Investments and Cooperation at the Three Seas Initiative Summit DOE Awards $94 Million for Light Water SMRs The U.S. Department of Energy announced the selection of eight companies…

The new Don’t Bank on the Bomb analysis finds 301 financial institutions made more than $1 trillion available to the nuclear weapons industry in 2025.  In the last few years, overwhelming pressure from the defence sector and government officials have encouraged the financial industry to provide more loans and corporate financing, without considering whether those arms companies are involved in the production, maintenance and development of nuclear weapons. The new Don’t Bank on the Bomb report shows that this pressure is having an impact- and 41 more investors are now seeking to profit from the push for global rearmament. ICAN’s…

The post Canary Media: Resident-led campaign fails to reverse Ohio county’s ban on renewables appeared first on Energy and Policy Institute. Source link

From “Mission Accomplished” to Missile Shortages: The Iran War Narrative Unravels.  May 12, 2026, Joshua Scheer, Ben Norton dismantles the triumphalist rhetoric surrounding the U.S. war on Iran in this blistering breakdown of a conflict that appears far more costly — and far less successful — than Washington admits. Drawing on reporting from CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, NBC News, and Fortune, Norton argues that despite Donald Trump’s repeated claims of “victory,” Iran has inflicted extensive damage on U.S. military infrastructure across West Asia while preserving much of its missile capability. The video traces the widening economic, military,…