Peter Barus writes: "I have quite a lot of information about the nuclear power/weapons industry, and the AI industry, and a lot to say about them," which is central to his volunteer work with the Veterans for Peace Uranium Weapons Working Group. "This year we produced a the Ratcliffe Mobile Community Mass-Spectrometry Lab, which is now in New Mexico, having just visited the site of the infamous Church Rock spill. This lab provides free analysis for communities showing how much radioactive material is in soil, air and water, and where from," he writes. "It's a start."
WHITINGHAM-Vernon, Vt., is low-hanging fruit for the federal plan to resurrect an industry that is economically, technologically, and morally bankrupt by marrying it to another extractive industry that is also on the verge of collapse.
Of all the ways to boil water to turn steam turbines, nuclear power is the least cost-effective and most lethal, from end to end.
To understand this, one must also understand that "nuclear power" is not just electric, it's military, and the two are as separate as the front and the back of your hand: not separate at all. Without the atomic bombs, it isn't sustainable, and without reactors you can't make the bombs. There is no other reason to split atoms, except to cause a cancer epidemic.
But now they're sending in the cavalry.
New off-the-charts energy demand from AI "data centers" may give humanity's biggest mistake a new lease on life. What is driving the "nuclear renaissance" is neither carbon emissions nor the need to "modernize" weapons that will outlast humanity by four billion years. It's AI's insatiable demand for energy.
And then there's all that surveillance data waiting to be extracted: what you do, who your friends are, what bores you, what makes you nervous, your drinking habits, your sexual habits, your reading comprehension, your undiagnosed illness, your tolerance for intrusive scrutiny...and the same for your children.
Vermont is not the only place where government contractors are now probing community attitudes about the toxic wastelands left by our aging nuclear infrastructure across the country.
People living near active or "decommissioned" nuclear sites are being invited to "panels" to hear about "clean" energy and "modernization" for "national security" and consider the "advantages" of permanent "safe" on-site storage, hinting at new "opportunities."
Contractors with cheery names like "Good Energy Collective" ask attendees "to help answer" questions like: "Can siting for nuclear waste facilities truly be community-centric?"
Community-centric? Like a burning coal mine under the Town Hall?
They see you as a commodity. They're just haggling about your price.
* * *
As reported on VTDigger and as published in The Commons, representatives of PowerTransitions, which holds a lease for the former Vermont Yankee site, discussed "short-term and long-term goals including battery storage, a small nuclear reactor, and even a data center at [the] town's planning commission meeting in May."
Here we have the crux of the matter in a short sentence: the three biggest issues in the three biggest categories: energy, nukes, and mass surveillance. All three issues in all three categories. A portentous planetary alignment of interdependence.
This isn't a list of ideas off the top of their heads for your consideration - it's a shopping list. They're telling you what they have planned for you.
1. Battery storage plants: subject to unquenchable, horribly toxic fires, but they protect data centers (surveillance centers) from costly power blackouts.
2. A "small nuclear reactor"? None exist. If one were even on the horizon, why would they be cranking up Three Mile Island again? It will take years to "decommission" if its replacement ever comes online. So while we're at it, why not Yankee?
But here's the real deal: even a "small" one makes the same amount of poison per gigawatt as Chernobyl or Fukushima. Just lots of little piles instead of one mountainous landfill.
In 2026, a Harvard University team studied cancer mortality and showed that the risk of death significantly increased in Massachusetts ZIP codes near the nuclear sites. "Small" reactors are an equal-opportunity radiation exposure plan.
3. "And even a data center." Who are we kidding? Especially a data (surveillance) center? It's the whole point. To save the bankrupt nuclear-power-and-weapons complex, by hooking up a system that requires more and more nuclear reactors. That's "economic growth."
We're not alone. In Socorro, New Mexico, a developer proposed a data center, solar farm, and nuclear reactor project on a firing range contaminated with 40 tons of "depleted" uranium. Uranium dust is associated with birth anomalies and cancers.
But think of the incredible ROI. Don't think of the communities left holding the bag.
It's a Stage Four Bad Idea. But it's big business now.
Local communities have some catching up to do.
This Voices Viewpoint was submitted to The Commons.
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