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Authored by Duggan Flanakin via RealClear Wire,

Despite its commitment to “no more gas, oil, or coal,” Friends of the Earth has launched a campaign against one of the nation’s “greenest” governors, California’s Gavin Newsom. Their goal? To stop the U.S. Department of Energy from doling out $1 billion to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant (no gas, oil, or coal there) open past its planned 2025 closure date.

Newsom, whose policies are among the world’s most aggressive against gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles and tools, last year stated that, “the Diablo Canyon power plant is important to support energy reliability as we accelerate progress towards achieving our clean energy and climate goals.” Diablo Canyon today supplies nearly a tenth of California’s electricity.

The aptly named FOE claims that “the environmental impacts from extending the lifespan of this aging power plant at this point in time have not been adequately addressed or disclosed to the public.” Other groups, too, spread fear about nuclear energy. But by far the most powerful obstacle for nuclear energy enthusiasts to overcome lies within the federal government.

While nuclear energy has accounted for about 20% of the electricity generated in the U.S., and in 2023 supplied nearly half the nation’s carbon-free electricity, a new report from the Government Accountability Office says the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must more fully consider possible impacts of climate change on the nation’s mostly aging nuclear power plants.

The message? The GAO report says that climate-related threats to nuclear power plants range from worsened droughts that dry up water supplies needed for cooling reactors to sea level rise and storm surge flooding. Despite its regulatory obtuseness, the report said the NRC should include “data” from future climate projections [scary scenarios?] in safety risk assessments along with the historical data the NRC relies upon. All this adds costs.

Douglas McIntyre, the former editor-in-chief of 24/Wall St., last month said that, despite the obvious need for nuclear power, “many Americans, perhaps remembering Three Mile Island, do not want nuclear energy to be part of the solution.” And a recent Pew Research poll found that, “Critics highlight the high cost of nuclear power plant projects and the complexities of handling radioactive waste.”

By contrast, the U.S. Department of Energy has argued that the U.S. will need an additional 550 to 770 gigawatts of clean, firm capacity to reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions and that nuclear power is one of the few proven options that can fill this need. Moreover, nuclear power plants create high-paying jobs with concentrated economic benefits for the communities most impacted by the energy transition.

These dichotomous messages from the DOE and NRC are highlighted in a recent article by ThorCon International co-founder Robert Hargraves, who bluntly stated that the U.S. is not building commercial nuclear power plants – while 16 other nations are – “because NRC and EPA regulators are so misinformed about radiation.”

Regulatory overkill is a likely culprit in the failed six-reactor, 462-megawatt project NuScale had planned in cooperation with Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, part of the DOE’s Carbon Free Power initiative for small modular reactors. Several towns pulled out and sank the project as the estimated price for power rose from $58 per megawatt-hour (MWh) to $89/MWh.

Misguided safety assumptions created a regulatory jungle so complex that startup Atomic Canyon is offering AI to help applicants navigate the NRC’s database of 52 million documents. U.S. nuclear energy regulators, Hargraves charged, do not analyze data about human health effects of radiation from nuclear power; instead, they rely on groupthink consensus evolved in NGOs originally misled in the 1950s by grant-seeking geneticists.

For decades these geneticists claimed radiation damage to chromosomes was increasing. But when children of the survivors of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima atomic bomb attacks exhibited no such effects, the anti-nuclear scientists switched to alleged cancer impacts. And a major flaw in their analysis is what caused the cost of nuclear energy to skyrocket.

While studies of those survivors found no excess cancers in people receiving less than 0.1 Gray (joules of energy absorbed by kilogram of tissue), regulators set public radiation limits 100 times lower, mistakenly limiting accumulated dose rather than dose rate. In the real world, setting a maximum daily dose of 0.02 Gray (rather than the current maximum cumulative annual dose of 0.001 Gray) would provide a large safety margin.

Salisbury University Professor of Finance Danny Ervin pooh-poohs the fears of nuclear foes, saying “the next wave of nuclear can’t come soon enough.” That “next wave” includes scalable nuclear reactors, notably the TerraPower initiative sparked by Bill Gates. This advanced facility, coupled with a molten salt energy storage system, will be capable of increasing output for nearly six hours during peak demand periods at a projected cost of about $4 billion.

The plant will be powered by an advanced Natrium reactor cooled with liquid sodium instead of water [eliminating one concern of skeptics]. With a capacity to generate up to 500 megawatts, it will provide ample energy to power approximately 400,000 homes.

Of equal importance is that its location at a former coal-fired power plant in Wyoming enables easy integration into the existing electric grid while stimulating the local economy. This contrasts with wind turbines and solar arrays, which often are located far from existing transmission lines, require massive footprints, and operate intermittently, thus requiring backup power generation.

Over in England, X-Energy, in partnership with Babcock International subsidiary Cavendish, has proposed to develop a 12-reactor plant using the company’s Xe-100 high-temperature gas-cooled reactor design.  The Teesside array, which should be operational by the early 2030s, is the first of what the companies hope will be a fleet of up to 40 of the 80 MWe power plants in locations across the United Kingdom.

Cavendish Nuclear managing director Mick Gornall boasts that, “a fleet of Xe-100s can complement renewables by providing constant or flexible power, producing steam to decarbonize industry, and manufacturing hydrogen and synthetic transport fuels. Deployment will also, he said, create thousands of high-quality, long-term jobs nationwide.

Uranium-rich Nigeria thinks it has a solution to the radioactive waste management issue that has been a big bugaboo for the nuclear energy industry worldwide. The solution relies on the NST SuperLAT, which NuclearSAFE Technology co-founder Dr. Jimmy Etti-Williams calls “a breakthrough in nuclear waste management.”

SuperLAT will, says Etti-Williams, process, package, load, store, and transport nuclear waste in casket containers to several thousand feet underground, yet able to be retrieved as needed for fuel in reactors to generate low-carbon-footprint energy. This geological nuclear waste disposal technology is designed to isolate and dilute nuclear waste in line with universal regulations.

The SuperLAT technology should, says Etti-Williams, satisfy International Atomic Energy Agency and other stakeholder concerns about nuclear waste storage accidents, leakages, or terror risks. He boasts that Nigeria can have its own uranium plants to boost its own and pan-African development efforts.

There’s an old saying, which first appeared in 1902 in Puck’s Magazine, with the message, “People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.” It is high time, many now believe, for the nay-saying over-regulators to stop interrupting nuclear progress.

And on that front, too, there is good news. Nuclear Matters has announced an online gathering entitled, “The Path to Progress: Modernizing the NRC,” scheduled for May 2.

At the event, a four-person panel moderated by the Nuclear Energy Institute’s John Kotek will discuss the urgency of NRC modernization in order to unlock the benefits of nuclear technology innovation to revitalize the U.S. nuclear energy industry.

The anti-nuke FOEs (sic) will have little left to argue once these and other innovative nuclear projects prove successful and safe when brought to the fore in other nations – places like England and Nigeria. But those who seek reliable, safe, and clean technologies to generate the electricity in quantities needed tomorrow will only be satisfied if the archaic rules can be recrafted to accommodate them.

Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow who writes on a wide variety of public policy issues.

Authored by Terri Wu and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Three months after the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned a Chinese mafia leader for fentanyl trafficking, he received an award in Beijing.

In March 2021, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Overseas United Working Committee recognized Wan Kuok Koi, also known as “Broken Tooth,” as a “patriotic businessman” and the “chief representative” of all international Hongmen associations. Hongmen is synonymous with triads, or Chinese transnational organized crime syndicates, to many Chinese.

The awarding entity is a CCP United Front organization and a platform under the China Association for Science and Technology. It also pushes China’s flagship infrastructure program, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), worldwide. According to the Treasury Department notice, Mr. Wan has established a security company protecting BRI investments in Southeast Asia.

In a recent interview with EpochTV’s American Thought Leaders (ATL), investigative writer Peter Schweizer cited Mr. Wan’s case as an example of the CCP’s take on the United States’ fentanyl crisis.

“The notion that ‘oh, China’s trying very hard, but they can’t fix this’ is an absolute joke in my mind,” he said.

In addition, the author of a new book titled “Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans” told ATL that the U.S. fentanyl crisis is a “CCP-run operation.”

“The drug cartels are certainly involved, but they’re the junior partner,” Mr. Schweizer said, adding that the CCP is present at “every link of the chain.”

The Chinese production of fentanyl precursors is widely known. However, Mr. Schweizer’s research also shows that China provides pill-pressing machines at cost for fentanyl-laced fake pill production, distributes the synthetic opioid in the United States, facilitates the Mexican drug cartels’ financial transactions, and provides secure communication systems to cartels so they can bypass detection by U.S. law enforcement.

Currently, fentanyl overdose is the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 45. The deadly drug was responsible for about 75,000 deaths, or 200 per day, in 2022. Compared with 3,105 deaths in 2013, the death toll increased 23-fold.

Facing this crisis, which has been growing exponentially, the U.S. government has yet to come up with an effective solution. In Mr. Schweizer’s view, U.S. leaders’ inaction is a significant factor.

He documented in his book how senior U.S. leaders, albeit initially voicing concerns about China’s involvement in fentanyl trafficking, have remained largely silent on the issue.

One of those leaders is President Joe Biden.

At a Senate hearing in 1992, the then-chair of the Judiciary Committee warned that “China is poised to become the lynchpin of the heroin trade.”

Then-Sen. Biden also criticized the then-Bush administration’s lack of action on confronting China, saying that “the truth is that the cooperation between the United States and China in fighting drugs is limited, at best, and as is its course, the administration is turning a blind eye to China’s renegade behavior.”

Yet, the Biden administration has been taking a similar approach: touting its counternarcotics cooperation with China, which relies on voluntary domestic control measures. CCP leader Xi Jinping didn’t keep similar past promises that he made to former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

Different than heroin or cocaine, fentanyl takes the lives of people who mostly take the drug unknowingly. A New York University study in 2023 showed that a majority of the people who took fentanyl didn’t intend to do so.

Therefore, Mr. Schweizer thinks calling the fentanyl crisis a drug problem is missing the mark.

To him, it’s “extremely convenient” for the Biden administration to treat fentanyl as a “drug addiction problem, rather than what it is—poisoning,” he said.

“It absolves you of trying to confront the CCP on this because you’re essentially saying this is a human nature problem in the United States.”

In Mr. Schweizer’s view, the first family’s financial ties to China prohibited them from confronting the communists to reign in the Chinese fentanyl actors—a move that could be effective “overnight” if CCP leader Xi Jinping wanted it to be, Mr. Schweizer said.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.

Mr. Schweizer’s findings don’t stop at the fentanyl crisis, which he sees as a part of the CCP’s broader approach of “disintegration warfare,” aimed at bringing down the United States by attacking its “soft underbelly” regarding Americans’ politics, economics, and psychology.

In the ATL interview, he also talked about the CCP’s links to activities that sow social discord by inflaming racial and gender divisions in U.S. society and “dumbing down the West” with TikTok.

The interview premieres on April 18.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) is refusing to release additional information about an agreement it reached over a COVID-19 vaccine that has earned it at least $400 million.

The NIH declined to provide any materials in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Epoch Times.

“The NIH withholds the entirety of the records as they are protected from release,” Gorka Garcia-Malene, an NIH officer, told The Epoch Times in a letter.

She cited an exemption outlined in the act that allows government agencies to partially or fully withhold information.

“In this case, exemption 3 incorporates 35 U.S.C. 209 (f), which reads in relevant part, ‘No Federal agency shall grant any license under a patent or patent application on a federally owned invention unless the person requesting the license has supplied the agency with a plan for development or marketing of the invention, except that any such plan shall be treated by the Federal agency as commercial and financial information obtained from a person and privileged and confidential and not subject to disclosure under section 552 of title 5,’” Ms. Garcia-Malene wrote.

“Exemption 4 protects from disclosure trade secrets and commercial or financial information that is privileged and confidential,” she added.

In February 2023, Moderna announced that it had paid $400 million to the NIH and would make additional payments in the future as part of a licensing agreement for spike proteins used in the company’s COVID-19 vaccine. The Epoch Times obtained a copy of the contract, which confirmed the payment but redacted details of the future payments.

The Epoch Times then lodged a new request, seeking more details about the future payments, which are said to be based on how many COVID-19 vaccines are sold.

Ms. Garcia-Malene was responding to the new request.

James Love, director of the nonprofit Knowledge Ecology International, said the information should be made public.

“The NIH put out several press statements about the royalty dispute with Moderna, and they should not now claim it is some secret confidential information. And when hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, the public interest in transparency is large too,” Mr. Love told The Epoch Times in an email.

“There are a lot of NIH officials who resent transparency,” he added.

Inquiries to NIH spokespersons received away messages. Another request for comment, sent to one of the addresses provided in the away messages, was not returned.

The Epoch Times plans to appeal the NIH’s decision.

The NIH is one of several government agencies that receive royalty payments. Officials there have fought against attempts to acquire information on these payments, but in 2023, they disclosed some $325 million in royalties received between 2009 and 2020 after being sued.

Some experts say the payments, made to the agency and many of its top scientists, should be stopped.

“Neither the government nor any government employee should have any financial interest in a product for which the government has any involvement in licensing or promoting,“ Aaron Siri, managing partner of Siri & Glimstad LLP, told The Epoch Times in an email. ”It creates a dangerous conflict of interest.”

Move on BioNTech

The NIH is trying to obtain more money from COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, according to recent filings.

BioNTech, Pfizer’s partner, said in the forms that the NIH served it with a notice of default because the NIH’s position is that BioNTech owes it money from COVID-19 vaccine sales.

BioNTech said it does not think it owes the NIH money but that “the ultimate outcome of these matters is uncertain and we cannot guarantee that our interpretation of these license agreements will prevail, or that we will not ultimately need to pay some or all of the royalty and other related amounts in dispute.”

The NIH did not return inquiries on the BioNTech filings.

The NIH has said previously it licensed its spike protein technology to BioNTech for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

The Epoch Times has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the notice of default and related documents. Another request seeks information on whether the NIH has threatened or served Pfizer with a similar notice.

However much money the U.S. government receives in royalties will be much less than it has paid for the vaccines. The government has purchased hundreds of millions of shots, spending north of $30 billion.

Authored by Sina McCullough via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Imagine starting your day with a bowl of cereal that could be silently affecting your family’s health. Recent studies show that chlormequat, a pesticide linked to reproductive issues, has been found in popular breakfast cereals like Quaker Oats and Cheerios. As this substance infiltrates the American food supply, the potential risks to our health and future generations loom larger, raising urgent questions about the safety of our everyday food choices.

In a study published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology on Feb. 15, 2024, researchers revealed alarming findings regarding the prevalence of chlormequat.

Chlormequat was detected in the urine of 4 out of 5 people or 80 percent of Americans tested. Additionally, 92 percent of oat-based foods tested contained chlormequat, including Quaker Oats and Cheerios.

This study—the first to report urinary chlormequat measurements in adults living in the United States—highlights the possible widespread presence of chlormequat and the necessity for transparency and further investigation into potential health implications for consumers.

 What Is Chlormequat?

Chlormequat, widely known in the salt form as chlormequat chloride, is an agricultural chemical first registered in the United States in 1962 as a plant growth regulator. Plant growth regulators are chemical substances employed to control and regulate plant growth, flowering, and fruit yield, according to a 2006 study in the International Journal of Andrology.

Chlormequat application in grain crops results in reduced stem height, thereby minimizing the occurrence of lodging (bending over), which can reduce the efficiency of the harvesting process.

Chlormequat is the world’s most common plant growth regulator according to a 2020 study published in Toxicology. “Chlormequat is often the most detected pesticide residue in grains and cereals, as documented by monitoring surveys spanning several years,” according to the 2024 study. It is approved for use in Europe and parts of North America.

In the United States, chlormequat is permitted exclusively for use on ornamental plants and is prohibited for application on food crops grown within the country. Therefore, the presence of chlormequat in Cheerios and other oat-based foods sold in the United States raises questions regarding its introduction into the food supply chain.

How Did Chlormequat Enter the US Food Supply?

In April 2018 the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allowed chlormequat into the food supply by establishing acceptable food tolerance levels for chlormequat chloride in imported oats, wheat, barley, and select animal products. This action allowed for the importation and sale of those agricultural products even if treated with chlormequat.

Consequently, U.S. consumers may unknowingly be ingesting tainted imported foods—potentially exposing themselves to chlormequat or its residues.

In 2020, the allowable chlormequat levels were increased for oats. In April of 2023, the EPA proposed allowing the first-ever use of chlormequat on barley, oat, wheat, and triticale grown in the United States. If passed, exposure levels may increase, raising concerns about its implications on health and food safety.

Heath Concerns Surrounding Chlormequat

Chlormequat, while not as notorious as other pesticides, has long been linked to reproductive and developmental concerns in animal research.

In the 1980s, Danish pig farmers observed reproductive declines in pigs consuming chlormequat-treated grains, according to a 2006 article in the International Journal of Andrology.

The observation led to a controlled laboratory study, which confirmed impaired reproduction. Specifically, sows fed chlormequat-treated grain experienced impaired reproduction, primarily disruptions in oestrus cycling, and difficulty mating, as cited in the 2006 article.

These findings prompted the Danish pig industry to recommend restricting the use of crops treated with chlormequat and other growth regulators (up to a maximum of 30 percent of diet energy) due to potential reproductive issues.

Similar findings were observed in 1999 when male mice exposed to chlormequat through food or drinking water demonstrated “significantly diminished fertilization and cleavage rate” of sperm, indicating a decrease in sperm function, according to a study in Reproductive Toxicology.

Of significance, the estimated intake of chlormequat in the abovementioned pig (0.0023 milligrams (mg)/kilograms (kg) body weight (bw) per day) and mouse (0.024 mg/kg bw/day) experiments fell below the reference dose published by the EPA (0.05 mg/kg bw per day) and the acceptable daily intake published by the European Food Safety Authority (0.04 mg/kg bw/day), according to the 2024 study. These findings raise concerns regarding the current established limits set by regulatory authorities.

Recent studies further demonstrate chlormequat’s reproductive and developmental toxicity, including:

• Delayed onset of puberty: According to a 2020 study in Toxicology Letters, male rats exposed to chlormequat from postnatal day 23 to 60 demonstrated reduced prostate weight and delayed onset of puberty.
• Reduced sperm motility: Male rats exposed to chlormequat in utero demonstrated a delayed onset of puberty as well as decreased sperm motility, according to a 2021 study in Toxicology Letters.
• Decreased testosterone: Male adult rats exposed to chlormequat by oral gavage (delivering substances directly to the stomach via a bulb-tipped needle) demonstrated lower testicular weight, decreased sperm motility, and decreased testicular testosterone, according to a 2018 study in Toxicology Letters.

Moreover, developmental toxicity studies suggest that chlormequat exposure during pregnancy can disrupt fetal growth and metabolism postnatally, indicating a lasting impact on offspring development in rats. For instance, a 2020 study published in Toxicology reported maternal exposure to chlormequat in rats led to adverse effects on postnatal health, including hypoglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and hyperproteinemia seven days after birth compared with controls.

A 2007 study in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry reported detectable levels of chlormequat in blood, as well as its transfer into milk, in pigs exposed to chlormequat. While these markers have not been thoroughly investigated in humans, they raise concerns regarding potential implications for fetal exposure during pregnancy and infants’ exposure through breastfeeding.

Some studies have failed to detect significant impacts of chlormequat on reproduction in female mice or male pigs, or the fertilization capacity in male mice exposed to chlormequat during development and postnatally. The equivocal findings in the toxicological literature concerning chlormequat could stem from variations in tested doses, outcome measures, and/or funding sources. According to a 2006 study in the International Journal of Andrology, “Reports from the industry do not show any effects at these low levels.”

Aim of New Ground-Breaking Study

Considering the health concerns underscored in the scientific literature, the goal of the 2024 study was to assess the impact of the EPA’s decision to permit chlormequat in the United States food supply.

Study Design

The 2024 study assessed chlormequat levels in the urine of individuals from three distinct geographic regions in the United States spanning from 2017 to 2023. Specifically, 21 urine samples were gathered in South Carolina in 2017, 25 samples were collected in Missouri from 2017 to 2022, and 50 samples were obtained in Florida in 2023.

The study also examined chlormequat levels in oat and wheat-based products acquired in the United States during 2022 and 2023. Specifically, 25 conventional oat-based food items were analyzed during this period, along with eight organic oat-based products and nine conventional wheat-based food products.

Study Results

Urine Analysis

Chlormequat was detected in 80 percent (77 out of 96) of urine samples.

The authors noted a rising trend in chlormequat exposure over time, with detection frequencies notably elevated in 2023 samples compared to those from 2017 and the years 2018 to 2022. Specifically, in 2017, 69 percent of samples tested positive, while from 2018 to 2022, 74 percent were positive. In stark contrast, 90 percent of samples in 2023 were positive, representing a significant increase compared to all previous years examined.

According to the researchers, “These data indicate likely continuous exposure given the short half-life of chlormequat [2–3 hours].”

To assess whether the rising concentrations detected in the urine samples reflected potential dietary exposure to chlormequat, the researchers analyzed chlormequat levels in oat and wheat-based food products purchased in the United States.

Food Exposure Analysis

The results of the food analysis were equally concerning: a high percentage of conventional oat-based products tested positive for chlormequat, with popular brands like Quaker Oats and Cheerios among those affected.

Specifically, 92 percent (23 out of 25) of conventional oat-based products tested positive for the presence of chlormequat, “indicating a high prevalence of chlormequat in oats,” according to the study. This highlights the potential risk posed to consumers, particularly children, who may consume these products regularly.

Chlormequat was detected in 12.5 percent (one out of eight) of organic oat-based products tested. Additionally, 22 percent (two out of nine) of conventional wheat-based products tested positive for chlormequat.

Collectively, the urinary and food exposure data “may reflect the likely recent introduction of chlormequat into the U.S. food supply due to EPA regulatory action changes involving chlormequat, including establishing a limit on chlormequat in food in 2018 and raising those limits for oats in 2020,” according to the study.

Conclusion

This groundbreaking study sheds light on the possible widespread prevalence of chlormequat in the United States food supply, as documented in both urinary and food exposure analyses. The findings reveal a concerning trend of increasing chlormequat exposure over time, with detection frequencies spiking notably in recent years.

Chlormequat’s documented toxicological properties, particularly its association with reproductive and developmental issues, raise significant concerns about its long-term effects on human health. Moreover, there is currently no monitoring of chlormequat in food products in the United States, leaving consumers vulnerable to potential risks.

With the EPA’s proposed expansion of chlormequat usage on domestically grown crops, the study’s findings serve as a crucial call to action for greater transparency in pesticide usage and monitoring, as well as consumer awareness so we can work toward a food supply that safeguards the well-being of the individual.