California May Flip 50-Year Nuclear Moratorium California, long a leader in aggressive renewable energy mandates, is showing early signs of softening its decades-old ban on new nuclear power. Bloomberg reported cracks are appearing in the state’s 1976 moratorium, driven by surging electricity demand from AI data centers and the challenge of hitting absurd climate targets like 90% clean electricity by 2035 and 100% by 2045. At the center of the development is Assembly Bill 2647, introduced last month by Democratic Assembly Member Lisa Calderon with Republican co-sponsors. The legislation would exempt “advanced nuclear reactors”, defined as systems licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission since 2005, from the state’s long-standing prohibition. Calderon stated the bill keeps nuclear “on the table” as an essential tool for reliable, low-carbon power. The move aligns with a broader U.S. resurgence in nuclear interest, but in California it comes against a backdrop of chronic grid strain. The state has already leaned on its sole remaining nuclear facility, Diablo Canyon, to avoid worse outcomes. In 2022/23, Governor Gavin Newsom pushed through lawsuits for an extension of the plant’s operations past its original 2025 closure date after warnings of rolling blackouts. It was a glaring admission that electric grids are far from being sustainable with just wind and sunlight.  PG&E Launches $73B California Grid Plan To Feed Starving AI https://t.co/tsmtfalX1K — zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 30, 2025 Just last week, Diablo Canyon cleared its final state permitting hurdles, paving the way for continued operation through at least 2030 and potentially longer pending federal relicensing. We’ve chronicled these pressures for years. As far back as 2023 we detailed the legal battles surrounding Diablo Canyon’s then-planned shutdown. Last year, we also noted Newsom’s clean-energy claims and how extensions of both Diablo Canyon and natural-gas plants were critical to preventing blackouts during

Why’d The US Temporarily Waive Sanctions On India’s Purchase Of Russian Oil? Authored by Andrew Korybko, The “politically inconvenient” truth is that the US is unilaterally reshaping the world order in a bid to restore unipolarity, and regardless of one’s opinion about this, it’s objectively achieved some tangible progress as of late. Treasury Secretary Scott Bennett announced that Indian refiners had just been provided with a 30-day waiver to purchase Russian oil, but only if it’s that which is already stranded at sea, thus ensuring “no significant financial benefit to the Russian government”. The stated purpose is “To enable oil to keep flowing into the global market” due to disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz caused by the Third Gulf War, which the US initiated as part of its grand strategy against China as explained here. Depriving China of the 13.4% of its oil imports that it received from Iran last year is designed to give the US enormous leverage ahead of Trump’s upcoming trip at month’s end with the hope of then coercing the People’s Republic into agreeing to a lopsided trade deal for derailing its superpower rise. It’s beyond the scope of this analysis to critique that strategy, but the point in referencing it is to draw attention to how India could have suffered collateral damage had the US not temporarily waived its sanctions. After all, Trump threatened last month to reimpose his punitive 25% tariffs on India for these purchases if they’re resumed after claiming that Modi agreed to zero them out as part of the Indo-US trade deal, which India denied. Nevertheless, India did indeed reduce its imports under what top Russian expert Fyodor Lukyanov described as “US pressure”, though he also clarified that this doesn’t mean that India isn’t a sovereign state despite the US unofficially exerting influence over its energy security. In his words, “India’s