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https://taz.de/Felix-Banaszak-ueber-das-Linkssein/!6043942/

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v9KA43qAfRkrdneesm1hYjDR7YPCSIl2vHJL5WYpMeY/edit?usp=drivesdk

Felix Banaszak über das Linkssein: „Für solche plumpen Spiele fehlt mir die Langeweile“ | taz.de

taz.de

https://taz.de/Felix-Banaszak-ueber-das-Linkssein/!6043942/

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v9KA43qAfRkrdneesm1hYjDR7YPCSIl2vHJL5WYpMeY/edit?usp=drivesdk

Felix Banaszak über das Linkssein„Für solche plumpen Spiele fehlt mir die Langeweile“ Felix Banaszak will Grünen-Chef werden. Ein Gespräch über das Linkssein, Gemeinsamkeiten mit Robert Habeck und Provokationen von Christian Lindner.

3.11.2024 19:50 Uhr Felix Banaszak gestikuliert mit den Händen Will als Grünen-Chef Menschen mit Vermögen stärker in die Pflicht nehmen: Felix Banaszak   Foto: imago Tobias Schulze Sabine am Orde Interview von Tobias Schulze und Sabine am Orde taz: Herr Banaszak, in zwei Wochen sind Sie Grünen-Chef. Haben Sie schon Angst?

Felix Banaszak: Angst? Nein. Ich habe Respekt vor der Aufgabe. Aber ich habe auch Bock drauf.

taz: Ihre baldige Vorgängerin Ricarda Lang hat jüngst in einem Interview gesagt, dass sie aus Angst, Angriffsfläche zu bieten, nur noch sehr kontrolliert und glatt gesprochen habe. Am Ende habe sie sich gefühlt wie ein Sprechroboter.

Banaszak: Ich finde diese Reflexion sehr hilfreich. Es ist ja auch ein Appell, sich nicht abschleifen zu lassen. Das ermutigt mich darin, mir treu zu bleiben: zu sagen, was ich denke, und nichts zu sagen, woran ich selbst nicht glaube.

Im Interview: Felix Banaszak 35, Bundestagsabgeordneter aus Duisburg, will die Grünen künftig in einer Doppelspitze mit der Reala Franziska Brantner führen. Der Wirtschaftspolitiker gehört dem linken Flügel an. Von 2018 bis 2022 war er Landesvorsitzender in NRW und 2013 bis 2014 Sprecher der Grünen Jugend.

taz: Seit Ihrer Kandidatur klingen Sie aber auch schon vorsichtiger.

Banaszak: Meine Lokalzeitung hat gerade geschrieben: „Banaszak verspricht: Ich erzähl den Leuten keinen Scheiß.“

taz: Schauen wir mal. Sie verstehen sich als Linker. Was ist überhaupt noch links bei den Grünen?

Banaszak: Links zu sein ist für mich heute etwas anderes als das, was noch vor ein paar Jahren linker Mainstream war. Es ist richtig, sich vor einem imperialen Aggressor wie Wladimir Putin nicht in den Staub zu werfen, um Frieden herzustellen. Dazu gehört gerade auch, das angegriffene Land mit Waffenlieferungen zu unterstützen. Und ich hadere mit einem Teil der Linken, der den islamistischen Terror der Hamas verharmlost. Meine Linke steht klar gegen Antisemitismus – und sieht das entsetzliche Leid, das die Menschen im Nahen Osten erleben müssen.

taz: Und was ist links bei den Grünen?

Banaszak: Armut als ein gesellschaftliches Problem zu begreifen, das man angehen muss. Die wachsende Ungleichheit nicht einfach hinzunehmen. Und zu fragen, ob man in einer Zeit, in der Hallenbäder und Stadtbüchereien geschlossen werden, Menschen mit immer schneller wachsenden Vermögen nicht stärker in die Pflicht nehmen sollte.

taz: Das war auch Ricarda Langs Ansatz – und jetzt hat sie eingeräumt, dass sie damit gescheitert ist.

Banaszak: Ich würde das so hart nicht sagen. In der Ampel liegt es ja nicht an den Grünen, dass wir die Kindergrundsicherung bisher nicht im Bundestag beschlossen haben oder dass nicht schon zu Beginn der Debatte um das Heizungsgesetz eine soziale Förderung vereinbart werden konnte. Jetzt mag man sagen: Da haben die Grünen es nicht geschafft. Stimmt, noch nicht. Aber wir haben mehr geschafft, als sich manchmal abgezeichnet hatte. Wo wir noch einen langen Weg vor uns haben: das falsche Image loszuwerden, dass wir abgehoben seien und uns für diese Fragen nicht interessieren würden.

taz: Ihnen laufen Wäh­le­r*in­nen aus der Mitte weg – und gleichzeitig Stammwähler*innen, denen die Grünen nicht mehr links genug sind. Was tun Sie dagegen?

Banaszak: Ein Problem scheint mir eher, dass uns einige nicht mehr vertrauen, dass wir trotz aller notwendigen Kompromisse eigentlich nach mehr streben. Das liegt daran, dass wir uns stärker als unsere Koalitionspartner mit Kompromissen als notwendigem Teil der Koalitionsarbeit identifizieren und nicht vor allem kommuniziert haben, was wir alles blöd finden. Auch in Zukunft werden die Grünen nicht Opposition in der Regierung sein. Aber die Partei darf sich auch nicht als ausgelagerte Pressestelle der Regierung verstehen. Sie muss klarmachen, wofür sie weiterhin steht und kämpft. Zum Beispiel beim Klima, wo wir so viel erreicht haben wie keine Regierung zuvor – und trotzdem mehr wollen. Weil es noch nicht reicht.

taz: Viele linke Grüne, auch Sie, hatten in den vergangenen Monaten die Sorge, dass die Partei unter Kanzlerkandidat Robert Habeck zu sehr in die Mitte rutscht.

Banaszak: Eine Partei ist dann stark, wenn sie bei klarer Führung gleichzeitig ihre Vielfalt zur Geltung bringt. Wenn wir die Mitte der Gesellschaft erreichen wollen, brauchen wir ein gefestigtes Fundament und auch die Menschen, die seit vielen Jahren an unserer Seite stehen und jetzt gerade hadern. Die Grünen sind eben eine linke, progressive Partei, Punkt. Ich bin mir sicher, dass Robert Habeck das teilt.

taz: Im Juli haben Sie der Rheinischen Post gesagt: „Robert Habeck muss unter Beweis stellen, dass er die Partei in ihrer Breite mitnehmen kann und will.“ Das klingt schon nach Sorge.

Banaszak: Das war meine Empfehlung, damit das Projekt zum Erfolg wird. Und ich bin mir sicher, dass er genau das tun wird.

taz: Wie kommt es, dass Sie das jetzt anders sehen?

Banaszak: Wir sprechen viel miteinander.

taz: Das Politikmodell von Robert Habeck, anschlussfähig in alle Richtungen zu sein, ist gescheitert. Manche Realos meinen, man muss das Ganze nur konsequenter betreiben. Also: mehr Zugeständnisse bei der Migration und vorsichtiger beim Klima, um die Menschen nicht gegen sich aufzubringen.

Banaszak: Die Idee der Bündnispartei ist: Wir machen grüne Politik mit voller Überzeugung. Aber wir werben auch um diejenigen in der Gesellschaft, für die der Weg dahin weiter ist. Diese Idee finde ich weiterhin richtig. Ich kann meiner Partei nicht empfehlen, ihr Programm aus dem Abwehrkampf gegen eine gesellschaftliche Entwicklung heraus zu entwickeln. Wir müssen selbstbewusst die gesellschaftliche Mitte mit definieren. Dass das gelingen kann, haben wir von 2018 bis 2021 schon einmal bewiesen.

taz: Nehmen wir das Beispiel Migration. Da setzen Sie eine Politik durch, gegen die die Grünen vor ein paar Jahren noch auf die Straße gegangen sind. Dennoch stehen Sie als die da, die alles blockieren. Wie wollen Sie die Deutungsmacht darüber, was die Grünen sind, zurückgewinnen?

Banaszak: Viele, die uns eigentlich nahe stehen, finden uns zu kompromissbereit, während wir in der Breite der Gesellschaft als kompromisslose Ideologen gebrandmarkt werden. Das hat leider oftmals damit zu tun, dass wir intern die Vorurteile bestätigen. Wenn ein Teil meiner Partei fordert, wir müssten uns endlich der Realität öffnen, impliziert er, dass wir bisher dafür blind gewesen seien. Und wenn die anderen sagen, die Grünen seien keine Menschenrechtspartei mehr, bestätigen sie umgekehrt die Kritik aus der Zivilgesellschaft. Mein Weg ist, eine Politik der Differenzierung auch offensiv zu vertreten.

taz: Progressive sind weltweit in der Defensive. Was heißt das für die Grünen?

Banaszak: Mit Blick auf die US-Wahl bin ich noch immer zuversichtlich, dass Kamala Harris gewinnt. Die US-Demokraten haben einen Strategiewechsel vollzogen. Sie verkaufen sich weniger als das kleinere Übel zu Trump, sondern stellen ihre eigenen Vorstellungen nach vorne. Selbstkritisch muss man sagen: Grüne und SPD haben zuletzt zu sehr für sich als Bollwerk gegen die AfD geworben. Das ist aber noch keine überzeugende Antwort auf gesellschaftliche Probleme.

taz: Als Vorsitzender sind Sie eine Schlüsselfigur des linken Flügels. Der ist aktuell nicht gut aufgestellt. In der Personaldebatte konnten Sie Sven Giegold, den Wunschkandidaten der Partei-Linken, nicht als Politischen Geschäftsführer durchsetzen. Schwächt es Sie, dass Ihrem Flügel die Schlagkraft fehlt?

Banaszak: Ich möchte Vorsitzender der gesamten Partei werden. Genau wie Franziska Brantner übrigens. Unsere Politik werden wir so ausrichten, dass sich auch mein Flügel darin wiederfindet. Das ist die Aufgabe aller, die sich um Verantwortung bewerben.

taz: Manche aus dem linken Flügel sagen: dass Sven Giegold nicht Geschäftsführer wird, war Ihre erste Niederlage.

Banaszak: Sorry, aber das ist Quatsch. Sven Giegold hat nie gesagt, dass er Geschäftsführer werden will. Er kandidiert jetzt als stellvertretender Parteivorsitzender.

taz: Vier Wochen lang wurde diskutiert, dass er Geschäftsführer werden will. Als Missverständnis hätten Sie das früher aufklären können.

Banaszak: Bei Spekulationen halte ich mich zurück. Er kandidiert für den Bundesvorstand, und ich freue mich darüber. Damit ist die Frage beantwortet. Wir haben jetzt insgesamt eine Konstellation gefunden, die die Breite der Partei abdeckt und starke politische Köpfe miteinander verbindet. Ich bin fein damit.

taz: „Ich bin fein damit“ – das hat auch Markus Söder gesagt, als Friedrich Merz Kanzlerkandidat wurde.

Banaszak: Ich habe mir vorgenommen, weniger über Herrn Söder zu sprechen als er über uns.

taz: Die Ampel ist in der Krise, ein neues Papier von Finanzminister Christian Lindner wird allgemein als Provokation von SPD und Grünen bewertet. Wie sehen Sie das?

Banaszak: Für solche plumpen Spielchen fehlt mir die Langeweile.

taz: Bekommen wir Neuwahlen oder hält die Koalition bis zur Bundestagswahl im nächsten September?

Banaszak: Wenn ich das mal wüsste. Ich werde jedenfalls nicht aktiv zu einem früheren Wahltermin beitragen.

taz: Wenn die Koalition jetzt bricht: Wären die Grünen nach dem Umbruch an der Spitze überhaupt auf einen Wahlkampf vorbereitet?

Banaszak: Natürlich sind wir das. Aber wer seine Entscheidung über den Fortbestand einer Regierung daran bemisst, wann er sich den größten Vorteil für seine Kampagne verspricht, sollte die Politik anderen überlassen.

taz: Noch mal zurück zur sozia

Windows-Tablets und Laptops mit Touchscreen werden immer beliebter. Was läge da also näher, als auch mal ein Buch am Rechner zu lesen? Schließlich gibt es dank der Onleihe mittlerweile in ganz Deutschland die Möglichkeit, Bücher, Tageszeitungen und Zeitschriften so gut wie kostenlos auszuleihen. Und wer keinen E-Book-Reader besitzt, liest diese am besten am Smartphone oder Laptop. Allerdings ist die Abdeckung, was komfortable Reader-Tools anbelangt, bei Windows 10 noch dürftig. Einzig und allein PDFs lassen sich unter Windows 10 ohne weiteres öffnen, das bekannte EPUB-Format hingegen nicht.

Der beliebte Konverter und eBook-Alleskönner Calibre ist für viele die einzige Alternative. Zwar ist hier ein Readermodul integriert, das ist aber weder benutzerfreundlich noch besonders schnell. Wer also unter Windows komfortabel E-Books lesen möchte, muss zu Alternativen greifen - CHIP zeigt die besten Tools.

Download: Aquile Reade

Der brandneue Aquile Reader ist im Microsoft Store zu haben. Die Software bündelt Ihre E-Books im EPUB-Format in einer Bibliothek und bringt jede Menge Features komplett kostenlos mit. Dazu zählen unter anderem Lesezeichen, Notizen, Text to Speech und eine Bibliotheksfunktion, über die sich kostenlose Bücher laden lassen.

Mit an Bord ist außerdem ein Dark Mode sowie die Unterstützung für eigene Themes, ein transparenter Hintergrund im Acrylic-Designs und jede Menge Personalisierungsmöglichkeiten. Allerdings unterstützt das Tool nur EPUBs ohne Kopierschutz und kommt mit anderen Formaten wie PDF noch nicht zurecht, die Benutzeroberfläche ist außerdem bisher nur auf Englisch verfügbar.

Download: Aquile Reader

Circular Design Is Here to Make Our Homes More Sustainable

flip.it Every item on this page was chosen by a Veranda editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.

If you’re anything like me, the word “sustainability” can be fraught with anxiety. It’s something I deeply want to embrace, especially more in my home with my family. Yet I find myself getting overwhelmed with where to start, then feeling paralyzed about by skepticism over whether or not my actions will make a difference.

For a little more perspective on this, I recently interviewed three design experts on how we can live more sustainably in our homes. One of my biggest questions had to do with circularity, one of the biggest buzzwords in sustainability these days.

Circular design is already huge in the fashion and apparel industries: industry veteran and Paravel founder Indre Rockefellar recently launched The Circularity Project, a nonprofit that champions eliminating waste and minimizing environmental impact of the fashion industry; companies like ThredUp, an online consignment and thrift store, have made buying and selling secondhand clothing fun and easy, and brands like Bode have elevated upcycling vintage garments into a high art.

I wanted to know what circularity looks like when designing a home—and when manufacturing products for home design. To find out more, I asked Laura Hodges, an interior designer with an eponymous boutique design firm and retail shop, Domain, in the Baltimore/Washington, DC area, to share with me how her design firm approaches the idea of circularity when working with clients.

“There’s a phrase, ‘cradle to cradle,’ which means once a product is actually created, it can go on to be something else,” said Hodges. At the start of each project, Hodges assesses what her clients already have that could be used for something else. “This can be anything from looking at what furniture we could reuse and reupholster to reusing materials to build something else.”

I’ll be exploring how the home design industry can more fully embrace circularity during a panel discussion I am moderating with Hodges, Patricia Bell, a professor of industrial design at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and Amanda Cimaglia, Vice President, ESG & Corporate Affairs at The AZEK Company, which makes sustainable outdoor living products, including TimberTech decking and railing, AZEK Trim and StruXure pergolas.

The panel is part of Hearst’s Eco-Conscious Living Summit on Friday, April 26, during which editors and industry leaders will discuss sustainable innovations and solutions across a range of topics, from circularity in design to regenerative farming, electrification, deforestation, clean beauty, sustainable design, and more. You can find more information and tune in live to the summit April 26 from 12-2 p.m. EST here.

In the meantime, Hodges, Bell and Cimaglia shared with me five easy steps to living more sustainably at home.

Stay super organized. “It’s a big help to know what products you already have at home, so you don’t rebuy things you have lost or forgotten about, and so you don’t let things go to waste,” says Bell. Choosing soaps or other products that have refillable container options also helps to reduce waste.

Make simple product swaps when it’s time to replace something. “I love to think about baby steps towards living a more sustainable lifestyle, like considering a more sustainable product swap when you run out of something,” says Hodges. “For example, instead of plastic items, you could consider biodegradable and recycled materials like beeswax wraps, bamboo or recyclable electrical toothbrushes (I love Suri), natural deodorant, and powdered detergents instead of plastic pouches.”

Lavender Deodorant Cream Lavender Deodorant Cream $14 at domainbylaurahodgesstudio.com Bee's Wrap Bee's Wrap Reusable Beeswax Food Wraps Bee's Wrap Reusable Beeswax Food Wraps $17 at Amazon $15 at farmandfleet.com SURI Sustainable Electric Toothbrush SURI Sustainable Electric Toothbrush $78 at trysuri.com $69 at Amazon Shop at Walmart Update old furnishings with sustainable accessories. “You can easily refresh your space with new accessories, like replacing throw pillows instead of getting rid of an old couch and purchasing a new one,” says Cimaglia.

Rosie Floral Stripe Pillow Cover Rosie Floral Stripe Pillow Cover $49 at greenrow.com Reversible Cotton Stripe Quilt Reversible Cotton Stripe Quilt $269 at greenrow.com Printed Pleated Lamp Shade & Slipcover Printed Pleated Lamp Shade & Slipcover $59 at greenrow.com Find a good home for your castoffs. One way to give your old furnishings new life is to find a good next home for them—but the key is to make sure the recipient will really use the pieces. “Donating old furnishings or home décor is a great way to give these items a second life, benefiting others in need and reducing demand for new products,” says Cimaglia.

Start composting. “You can cut your waste down by about half each week, and there are even companies who will pick it up for you,” says Hodges. "Plus, composting makes your plants so happy,” adds Bell.

AIRTHEREAL Airthereal Revive Electric Kitchen Composter Airthereal Revive Electric Kitchen Composter Now 23% Off $270 at Amazon $270 at Wayfair Lomi Classic Lomi Classic Shop at Amazon Vitamix Vitamix FC-50-SP Food Cycler Vitamix FC-50-SP Food Cycler Now 33% Off $270 at Amazon $400 at Walmart $400 at Wayfair Headshot of Steele Marcoux Steele Marcoux Editor in Chief Steele Thomas Marcoux is the editor in chief of VERANDA, where she oversees brand strategy and content across all platforms and manages a team of editors and writers. She also writes about architecture, design, travel, jewelry, and gardening. Prior to joining VERANDA in 2018, Steele held editorial leadership roles at national design and lifestyle brands for over ten years. She has also worked as a freelance writer on articles ranging from celebrity profiles and gift guides to food and beverage trends. Steele has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Williams College (art history) and a Master of Arts degree from University of Alabama (American history). When not working, Steele can be found cooking for her family, cheering her sons on at cross country meets, soccer games, or lacrosse tournaments, playing with her dogs, planning her next design-oriented trip, or trying to find a way to squeeze in a few more minutes on a tennis court. Follow her at @steelemarcoux.

Atomic Power: Dangerous Hype: Big Tech's Nuclear Lies - CounterPunch.org flip.it

Small Modular Reactor, Credit Westinghouse.

In the last couple of months, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, in that order, made announcements about using nuclear power for their energy needs. Describing nuclear energy using questionable adjectives like “reliable,” “safe,” “clean,” and “affordable,” all of which are belied by the technology’s seventy-year history, these tech behemoths were clearly interested in hyping up their environmental credentials and nuclear power, which is being kept alive mostly using public subsidies.

Both these business conglomerations—the nuclear industry and its friends and these ultra-wealthy corporations and their friends—have their own interests in such hype. In the aftermath of catastrophic accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima, and in the face of its inability to demonstrate a safe solution to the radioactive wastes produced in all reactors, the nuclear industry has been using its political and economic clout to mount public relations campaigns to persuade the public that nuclear energy is an environmentally friendly source of power.

Tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, too, have attempted to convince the public they genuinely cared for the environment and really wanted to do their bit to mitigate climate change. In 2020, for example, Amazon pledged to reach net zero by 2040. Google went one better when its CEO declared that “Google is aiming to run our business on carbon-free energy everywhere, at all times” by 2030. Not that they are on any actual trajectory to meeting these targets.

Why are they making such announcements?

Greenwashing environmental impacts

Earlier this year, the Wall Street company Morgan Stanley estimated that data centers will “produce about 2.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions through the end of the decade”. Climate scientists have warned that unless global emissions decline sharply by 2030, we are unlikely to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a widely shared target. Even without the additional carbon dioxide emitted into the air as a result of data centers and their energy demand, the gap between current emissions and what is required is yawning.

But it is not just the climate. As calculated by a group of academic researchers, the exorbitant amounts of water required in the United States “to operate data centers, both directly for liquid cooling and indirectly to produce electricity” contribute to water scarcity in many parts of the country. This is the case elsewhere, too, and communities in countries ranging from Ireland to Spain to Chile are fighting plans to site data centers.

Then, there are the indirect impacts on the climate. Greenpeace documented, for example, that “Microsoft, Google, and Amazon all have connections to some of the world’s dirtiest oil companies for the explicit purpose of getting more oil and gas out of the ground and onto the market faster and cheaper.” In other words, the business models adopted by these tech behemoths depend on fossil fuels being used for longer and in greater quantities.

In addition to the increasing awareness about the impacts of data centers, one more possible reason for cloud companies to become interested in nuclear power might be what happened to cryptocurrency companies. Earlier this decade, these companies, too, found themselves getting a lot of bad publicity due to their energy demands and resulting emissions. Even Elon Musk, not exactly known as an environmentalist, talked about the “great cost to the environment” from cryptocurrency.

The environmental impacts of cryptocurrency played some part in efforts to regulate these. In September 2022, the White House put out a fact sheet on the climate and energy implications of Crypto-assets, highlighting President Biden’s executive order that called on these companies to reduce harmful climate impacts and environmental pollution. China even went as far as to banning cryptocurrency, and its aspirations to reducing its carbon emissions was one factor in this decision.

Crypto bros, for their part, did what cloud companies are doing now: make announcements about using nuclear power. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are now following that strategy to pretend to be good citizens. However, the nuclear industry has its reasons for welcoming these announcements and playing them up.

The state of nuclear power

Strange as it might seem to folks basing their perception of the health of the nuclear industry on mainstream media, that technology is actually in decline. The share of global electricity produced by nuclear reactors has decreased from 17.5% in 1996 to 9.15% in 2023, largely due to the high costs of and delays in building and operating nuclear reactors.

A good illustration is the Vogtle nuclear power plant in the state of Georgia. When the utility company building the reactor sought permission from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2011, it projected a total cost of $14 billion, and “in-service dates of 2016 and 2017” for the two units. The plant became operational only this year, after the second unit came online in March 2024, at a total cost of at least $36.85 billion.

Given this record, it is not surprising that there are no orders for any more nuclear plants.

As it has been in the past, the nuclear industry’s answer to this predicament is to advance the argument that new nuclear reactor designs would address all these concerns. But that has, yet again, proved not to be the case. In November 2023, the flagship project of NuScale, the small modular reactor design promoted as the leading one of its kind, collapsed because of high costs.

Supporters of nuclear power are now using another time-tested tactic to promote the technology: projecting that energy demand will grow so much that no other source of power will be able to meet these needs. For example, UK energy secretary Ed Davey resorted to this gambit in 2013 when he said that the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant was essential to “keep the lights on” in the country.

Likewise, when South Carolina Electric & Gas Company made its case to the state’s Public Service Commission about the need to build two AP1000 reactors at its V.C. Summer site—this project was subsequently abandoned after over $9 billion was spent—it forecast in its “2006 Integrated Resource Plan” that the company’s energy sales would increase by 22 percent between 2006 and 2016, and by nearly 30 percent by 2019.

This is the argument that the growth in data centres, propped up in part by the hype about generative artificial intelligence, has allowed proponents of nuclear energy to put forward. It remains to be seen whether this hype about generative AI actually materializes into a long-term sustainable business: see, for example, Ed Zitron’s meticulously documented argument for why OpenAI and Microsoft are simply burning billions of dollars and why their business model might “simply not be viable”.

In the case of the V.C. Summer project, South Carolina Electric & Gas found that its energy sales actually declined by 3 percent compared to 2006 by the time 2016 rolled around. Of course, that did not matter, because shareholders had already received over $2.5 billion in dividends and company executives had received millions of dollars in compensation, according to Nuclear Intelligence Weekly, a trade publication.

One wonders which executives and shareholders are going to receive a bounty from this round of nuclear hype.

What about emissions?

Will the investments in nuclear power by companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon help reduce emissions anytime soon?

The project expected to have the shortest timeline is the restart of the Three Mile Island Unit 1 reactor, which Constellation Energy projects will be ready in 2028. But if the history of reactor commissioning is anything to go by, that deadline will come and go without any power flowing from it.

Restarting a nuclear plant that has been shutdown has never been done before. In the case of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California, which hasn’t been shut down but was slated for decommissioning in 2024-25 till Governor Gavin Newsom did a volte-face, the Chair of the Diablo Canyon Independent Safety Committee explained why doing so was very difficult: “so many different programs and projects and so on have been put in place over the last half a dozen years predicated on that closure in 2024-25 and each one of those would have to be evaluated and some of them are okay, and some of them won’t be and some are going to be a real stretch and some are going to cost money and some of them aren’t going to be able to be done maybe”.

The cost of keeping Diablo Canyon open has been estimated by the plant’s owner at $8.3 billion and by independent environmental groups at nearly $12 billion. There are no reliable cost estimates for reopening Three Mile Island, but Constellation Energy, the plant’s owner, is already seeking a taxpayer-subsidized loan that would likely save the company $122 million in borrowing costs.

One must also remember that Microsoft already announced an agreement with Helion Energy, a company backed by billionaire Peter Thiele, to get nuclear fusion power by 2028. The chances of that happening are slim at best. In 2021, Helion announced that it had raised $500 million to build its fusion generation facility that would demonstrate “net electricity production” in three years, i.e., “in 2024”. That hasn’t happened so far. But going back further, one can see a similar and unfulfilled claim from 2014: then, the company’s chief executive had told the Wall Street Journal that the company hoped that its product would generate more energy than it would use “in the next three years” (i.e., in 2017). It is quite likely that Microsoft’s decision-makers knew of how unlikely it is that Helion will be able to supply nuclear fusion power

Dangerous Hype: Big Tech's Nuclear Lies - CounterPunch.org flip.it

Small Modular Reactor, Credit Westinghouse.

In the last couple of months, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, in that order, made announcements about using nuclear power for their energy needs. Describing nuclear energy using questionable adjectives like “reliable,” “safe,” “clean,” and “affordable,” all of which are belied by the technology’s seventy-year history, these tech behemoths were clearly interested in hyping up their environmental credentials and nuclear power, which is being kept alive mostly using public subsidies.

Both these business conglomerations—the nuclear industry and its friends and these ultra-wealthy corporations and their friends—have their own interests in such hype. In the aftermath of catastrophic accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima, and in the face of its inability to demonstrate a safe solution to the radioactive wastes produced in all reactors, the nuclear industry has been using its political and economic clout to mount public relations campaigns to persuade the public that nuclear energy is an environmentally friendly source of power.

Tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, too, have attempted to convince the public they genuinely cared for the environment and really wanted to do their bit to mitigate climate change. In 2020, for example, Amazon pledged to reach net zero by 2040. Google went one better when its CEO declared that “Google is aiming to run our business on carbon-free energy everywhere, at all times” by 2030. Not that they are on any actual trajectory to meeting these targets.

Why are they making such announcements?

Greenwashing environmental impacts

Earlier this year, the Wall Street company Morgan Stanley estimated that data centers will “produce about 2.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions through the end of the decade”. Climate scientists have warned that unless global emissions decline sharply by 2030, we are unlikely to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a widely shared target. Even without the additional carbon dioxide emitted into the air as a result of data centers and their energy demand, the gap between current emissions and what is required is yawning.

But it is not just the climate. As calculated by a group of academic researchers, the exorbitant amounts of water required in the United States “to operate data centers, both directly for liquid cooling and indirectly to produce electricity” contribute to water scarcity in many parts of the country. This is the case elsewhere, too, and communities in countries ranging from Ireland to Spain to Chile are fighting plans to site data centers.

Then, there are the indirect impacts on the climate. Greenpeace documented, for example, that “Microsoft, Google, and Amazon all have connections to some of the world’s dirtiest oil companies for the explicit purpose of getting more oil and gas out of the ground and onto the market faster and cheaper.” In other words, the business models adopted by these tech behemoths depend on fossil fuels being used for longer and in greater quantities.

In addition to the increasing awareness about the impacts of data centers, one more possible reason for cloud companies to become interested in nuclear power might be what happened to cryptocurrency companies. Earlier this decade, these companies, too, found themselves getting a lot of bad publicity due to their energy demands and resulting emissions. Even Elon Musk, not exactly known as an environmentalist, talked about the “great cost to the environment” from cryptocurrency.

The environmental impacts of cryptocurrency played some part in efforts to regulate these. In September 2022, the White House put out a fact sheet on the climate and energy implications of Crypto-assets, highlighting President Biden’s executive order that called on these companies to reduce harmful climate impacts and environmental pollution. China even went as far as to banning cryptocurrency, and its aspirations to reducing its carbon emissions was one factor in this decision.

Crypto bros, for their part, did what cloud companies are doing now: make announcements about using nuclear power. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are now following that strategy to pretend to be good citizens. However, the nuclear industry has its reasons for welcoming these announcements and playing them up.

The state of nuclear power

Strange as it might seem to folks basing their perception of the health of the nuclear industry on mainstream media, that technology is actually in decline. The share of global electricity produced by nuclear reactors has decreased from 17.5% in 1996 to 9.15% in 2023, largely due to the high costs of and delays in building and operating nuclear reactors.

A good illustration is the Vogtle nuclear power plant in the state of Georgia. When the utility company building the reactor sought permission from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2011, it projected a total cost of $14 billion, and “in-service dates of 2016 and 2017” for the two units. The plant became operational only this year, after the second unit came online in March 2024, at a total cost of at least $36.85 billion.

Given this record, it is not surprising that there are no orders for any more nuclear plants.

As it has been in the past, the nuclear industry’s answer to this predicament is to advance the argument that new nuclear reactor designs would address all these concerns. But that has, yet again, proved not to be the case. In November 2023, the flagship project of NuScale, the small modular reactor design promoted as the leading one of its kind, collapsed because of high costs.

Supporters of nuclear power are now using another time-tested tactic to promote the technology: projecting that energy demand will grow so much that no other source of power will be able to meet these needs. For example, UK energy secretary Ed Davey resorted to this gambit in 2013 when he said that the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant was essential to “keep the lights on” in the country.

Likewise, when South Carolina Electric & Gas Company made its case to the state’s Public Service Commission about the need to build two AP1000 reactors at its V.C. Summer site—this project was subsequently abandoned after over $9 billion was spent—it forecast in its “2006 Integrated Resource Plan” that the company’s energy sales would increase by 22 percent between 2006 and 2016, and by nearly 30 percent by 2019.

This is the argument that the growth in data centres, propped up in part by the hype about generative artificial intelligence, has allowed proponents of nuclear energy to put forward. It remains to be seen whether this hype about generative AI actually materializes into a long-term sustainable business: see, for example, Ed Zitron’s meticulously documented argument for why OpenAI and Microsoft are simply burning billions of dollars and why their business model might “simply not be viable”.

In the case of the V.C. Summer project, South Carolina Electric & Gas found that its energy sales actually declined by 3 percent compared to 2006 by the time 2016 rolled around. Of course, that did not matter, because shareholders had already received over $2.5 billion in dividends and company executives had received millions of dollars in compensation, according to Nuclear Intelligence Weekly, a trade publication.

One wonders which executives and shareholders are going to receive a bounty from this round of nuclear hype.

What about emissions?

Will the investments in nuclear power by companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon help reduce emissions anytime soon?

The project expected to have the shortest timeline is the restart of the Three Mile Island Unit 1 reactor, which Constellation Energy projects will be ready in 2028. But if the history of reactor commissioning is anything to go by, that deadline will come and go without any power flowing from it.

Restarting a nuclear plant that has been shutdown has never been done before. In the case of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California, which hasn’t been shut down but was slated for decommissioning in 2024-25 till Governor Gavin Newsom did a volte-face, the Chair of the Diablo Canyon Independent Safety Committee explained why doing so was very difficult: “so many different programs and projects and so on have been put in place over the last half a dozen years predicated on that closure in 2024-25 and each one of those would have to be evaluated and some of them are okay, and some of them won’t be and some are going to be a real stretch and some are going to cost money and some of them aren’t going to be able to be done maybe”.

The cost of keeping Diablo Canyon open has been estimated by the plant’s owner at $8.3 billion and by independent environmental groups at nearly $12 billion. There are no reliable cost estimates for reopening Three Mile Island, but Constellation Energy, the plant’s owner, is already seeking a taxpayer-subsidized loan that would likely save the company $122 million in borrowing costs.

One must also remember that Microsoft already announced an agreement with Helion Energy, a company backed by billionaire Peter Thiele, to get nuclear fusion power by 2028. The chances of that happening are slim at best. In 2021, Helion announced that it had raised $500 million to build its fusion generation facility that would demonstrate “net electricity production” in three years, i.e., “in 2024”. That hasn’t happened so far. But going back further, one can see a similar and unfulfilled claim from 2014: then, the company’s chief executive had told the Wall Street Journal that the company hoped that its product would generate more energy than it would use “in the next three years” (i.e., in 2017). It is quite likely that Microsoft’s decision-makers knew of how unlikely it is that Helion will be able to supply nuclear fusion power by 2028. The p