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Press contact: Hannah Lawrence, +436706504192, press@stay-grounded.org The World Cup is ‘flying us to the brink of climate collapse’, say campaigners as final preparations are made for the opening ceremony in Mexico City on Thursday. Stay Grounded has called out the mega-event which is predicted to be the most polluting in history, generating 7.7 million tonnes of CO2 from air…

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Reproduction of the demon core. A sphere of plutonium about the size of a softball, it weighed about 13.7 pounds. It was about the size as the core in the bomb that leveled Nagasaki. Notice of Permission: This image is from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Unless otherwise indicated, this information has been authored by an employee or employees of the Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS), operator of the Los Alamos National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC52-06NA25396 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. Government has rights to use, reproduce, and distribute this information. The public may copy and use this information without charge, provided that this Notice and any statement of authorship are reproduced on all copies. Neither the Government nor LANS makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any liability or responsibility for the use of this information.

George Harvey

This story is what I would call almost incredible. The President of the United States signed Executive Order 14302, titled “Reinvigorating the Nuclear Base,” which directed the US Department of Energy to stop its operation getting rid of nuclear bomb materials by diluting and dispersing them. The DOE would instead give the weapons-grade plutonium to private industries to use in nuclear reactors.

The amount of plutonium under discussion is to be twenty metric tons. The Fat Man bomb used on Nagasaki contained about 6.2 kilograms, or 13.66 pounds. It leveled about two square miles of the city. Twenty metric tons is enough to make thousands of such bombs.

The plutonium would go to five nuclear energy startups with the idea that it would be used to make electricity. But the theft of just a few pounds of it could be enough to make the terrorist attack on the twin towers look like a children’s game.

U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) commented on this at his official web site. We have reprinted the comment in full, here.

# # #

Senator Markey Decries Security Concerns, Conflicts of Interest with Trump Proposal to Give Weapons-Usable Plutonium to Private Companies

Washington (June 2, 2026) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), co-Chair of the bicameral Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, today wrote to President Trump urging him to cancel the Department of Energy’s (DOE) plans to give 20 metric tons of weapons-usable plutonium—enough for approximately 2,000 nuclear bombs—to private industry for commercial energy use. If implemented, this would be the first time the U.S. government has made weapons-grade plutonium available to private companies. These plans go against long-standing bipartisan U.S. nuclear security policy, raise serious weapons proliferation concerns, make little economic sense, and raise conflict of interest issues. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright recently served on the Board of Directors of Oklo, one of the companies that may receive plutonium.

In the letter, Senator Markey wrote, “For five decades, the United States has avoided the commercial use of plutonium and opposed the spread of technology to separate (“reprocess”) plutonium from used reactor fuel. We did so to prevent nations with nuclear power plants (such as Iran) from being able to extract plutonium from that fuel, which they—or terrorists into whose hands it could fall—could use to make nuclear weapons.”

Senator Markey continued, “I am concerned that your Administration is moving forward with plans to transfer plutonium to Oklo not because these proposals make sense for the United States, but because Oklo stands to benefit financially and Secretary Wright is acting in his former company’s interest. Secretary Wright’s close ties to the company present an appearance of impropriety.”

In the letter, Senator Markey requested answers by June 15, 2026, to questions that include:

• Why should the U.S. government facilitate the transfer of plutonium to private industry and the development and export of proliferation prone reprocessing technologies?
• What safety and security measures are planned for the transport of weapons-grade plutonium to private actors?
• What role did Secretary Wright play in the selection of Oklo for the Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program?
• Does Secretary Wright currently have a financial stake in Oklo, and does he stand to benefit in any way from Oklo’s role in this program?

On September 23, 2025, Senator Markey wrote to Trump raising concerns about Secretary of Energy Chris Wright’s close relationship with Oklo Inc., a nuclear technology company that suggests a conflict of interest within the Administration that could compromise U.S. national security by providing weapons-usable plutonium to private industry. On September 10, 2025, Senator Markey and Representatives John Garamendi (CA-08) and Don Beyer (VA-08) wrote to President Trump expressing concern over DOE’s plan to transfer at least 20 metric tons of weapons-usable plutonium to private industry for commercial energy use.

# # #

We should keep in mind that the purpose of the organizations that intend to use the plutonium is to use it to make electricity. It is worth looking at that.

No commercial nuclear reactor has ever been run entirely on plutonium. Reactors using what is called MOX (mixed oxide) are used in France, but they only contain about 11% plutonium, at most. A nuclear reactor that uses plutonium would have to be developed from scratch, a process that would take years.

There would have to be adequate security on the plutonium. This goes beyond meaning that terrorists would not get any of it. The security around moving it would be complex, but it would have to be very sure. If the reactor were in Wyoming and the plutonium at Los Alamos, in New Mexico, it would have to be transported between those sites. How would that be done? It would have to be done entirely in secret, to be safe. But that means secret shipments of a material that is potent enough to make a nuclear bomb out of less than twenty pounds. And that is just one of many considerations.

On the other hand, we have ways to generate electricity that are almost certainly less expensive, do not produce waste, are non-polluting, and are highly reliable. These are solar, wind, and batteries. Solar and batteries are commonly used for off-grid homes, but they can be scaled from up to provide for a power grid. This is not new technology. It is used all over the world. And the electricity it produces is highly reliable and just about the least expensive out there. It can be installed very quickly.

Why would anyone what to pay extra to have bomb-grade materials moved secretly through their communities for the sake of making what may be the highest-cost power available?

 

 

Join members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice as we explore how the Just Transition
Mechanism can support holistic and integrated transitions across sectors such as energy, food systems and land use.

Monday 8 June 2026

12:00-13:15

Room Berlin

The post Bonn SB64 side event: How can the Just Transition Mechanism support holistic transitions across sectors? appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

The controversial shale gas site at Preston New Road in Lancashire must be returned to farmland by the end of the year, officials confirmed today (8 June 2026).

Preston New Road shale gas site. Photo: Maple Independent Media

Lancashire County Council said in a statement it had served an enforcement notice on Cuadrilla for the site near Blackpool.

The notice requires the removal all plant, buildings, security and acoustic fencing, pollution control membranes, aggregates and concrete hardstanding forming part of the drilling compound within four months.

The land must then be restored to a condition suitable for agriculture within six months of the notice.

The action follows the council’s refusal in December 2025 of Cuadrilla’s application for two more years to complete restoration work.

The statement said:

“the approved timetable for restoration was not met, resulting in unacceptable and unnecessary harm to the rural character of the area.”

Councillor Joshua Roberts, cabinet member for Rural Affairs, Environment and Communities, said:

“This situation has gone on for far too long.

“Local residents have had to live with this site for longer than they should have, and it is right that we have now taken firm action to bring this to a conclusion.

“It is positive that work is beginning to remove infrastructure from the site, but it is essential that the full restoration is completed within the required timeframe.

“We will not hesitate to take further steps if necessary.”

DrillOrDrop invited Cuadrilla to comment on the enforcement action. This article will be updated with any response.

Local reaction

The Preston New Road shale gas site has been widely opposed in the Fylde region of Lancashire and across the UK for more than a decade.

There were more than 18,000 formal objections to the proposal and petitions against it were signed by nearly 92,000 people.

During drilling and fracking, there were daily protests outside the site.

Susan Holliday, from Preston New Road Action Group, said today:

“There appears to have been very little activity at the site over the last twelve months so it is great that enforcement action is finally being taken.

“The time extension that Cuadrilla applied for, over 12 months ago and were refused, has been taken anyway due to procrastination.

“As a local community we just want the blot on our landscape gone and as soon as possible. It will be great if the site is restored to a green field by the end of this year at which point we will have had its presence for 10 years.”

Miranda Cox, from Frack Free Lancashire, said:

“Finally, some meaningful action from Lancashire County Council. We hope it also entails significant consequences for Cuadrilla. 

“For too long, their planning breaches and tardiness in compliance have been indulged. 

“We look forward to finally waving them goodbye. The damaging saga of Preston New Road may finally have an ending for our community.”

Delays and missed deadlines

Cuadrilla was required to restore Preston New Road by July 2023 under the terms of the original planning permission. It missed the deadline.

The company was granted a two-year extension until June 2025 but missed that deadline as well.

Work to plug and abandon the wells finally began in February 2025. Plant and equipment had been removed by November 2025.

But the hardcore that made up the drilling pad, the security and acoustic fencing and access road remained.

In July 2025, the company sought another two years, applying to delay restoration until 30 June 2027.

Cuadrilla said the extension was needed to complete 12 months of groundwater monitoring and environmental monitoring. This had to be completed before site restoration could begin, the company said.

But Lancashire County Council refused permission saying the extension would breach national and local planning policies, which sought to restore the site at the earliest opportunity.

Apart from site decommissioning, the Preston New Road has been mothballed since August 2019 when fracking caused multiple small earthquakes. These included the largest induced by fracking in the UK.

Updated: Lancashire County Council confirmed this morning that the enforcement notice had been served on Cuadrilla.

Google AI Mode As the AI bots continue to write glowing financial reports for a company that legally died four years ago, Shell’s executive team is left trapped in a purgatory of their own making: legally simplified, digitally undead, and permanently haunted by the machine.

Shell plc is navigating a corporate identity crisis as AI engines continue to recognize the legally defunct “Royal Dutch Shell plc” as a live, trading entity. Despite rebranding efforts, AI search models like Bing are creating a “digital ghost” scenario, separating the legal entity from its digital footprint and creating confusion regarding corporate existence. You can read the full analysis at royaldutchshellplc.com.

The digital corporate identity crisis facing Shell plc stems from an unresolvable conflict between obsolete legal branding, un-killable critical websites, and blind AI search algorithms. [1, 2, 3] This specific “ghost in the machine” loop consists of three compounding layers: 1. The Legal Rebrand vs. The Domain Blunder In January 2022, the energy giant officially simplified its share structure, relocated its corporate headquarters to the UK, and changed its name from “Royal Dutch Shell plc” to “Shell plc”. [1, 2] However, decades prior, the company committed what analysts call a “spectacular blunder”: [1]

• They failed to secure the domain royaldutchshellplc.com.
• Longtime activist and critic John Donovan registered it instead.
• Shell lost a challenge at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), cementing Donovan’s lawful, non-commercial right to host critical archives under that exact name. [1, 2]

2. The AI Hallucination Loop Because Shell discarded the “Royal Dutch Shell” name, it can no longer claim active commercial use to seize the domain. Meanwhile, modern AI engines and web scrapers (like Microsoft Bing) crawl the active, highly indexed royaldutchshellplc.com site. [1, 2] The algorithms synthesize this active archive with legacy financial data, leading AI systems to confidently report that “Royal Dutch Shell plc” is still alive, trading, and distributing dividends, completely detached from actual legal reality. [1, 2] 3. The Self-Reinforcing Feedback Cycle As documented by John Donovan’s June 2026 reports, this issue scales automatically through an un-fixable web pattern: [1, 2, 3] [Active Archive Domain] ──> [AI Bots Scrape & Synthesize Data] ──> [AI Generates False "Live Entity" Reports] ──> [New Reports Get Re-Indexed by Search Engines] ──> [Loop Repeats] This creates a permanent internet footprint for a ghost corporation that Shell legally buried years ago. [1]

 

In the sleek, glass-fronted boardrooms of Shell plc, executives are learning a terrifying lesson in modern physics: in the digital age, matter can neither be created nor destroyed—and corporate shame is completely immortal. Shell thought it was being terribly clever back in 2022. By shedding the “Royal Dutch” prefix, moving its headquarters to London, and simplification of its share structure, the oil giant attempted the ultimate corporate magic trick. It wanted to wash its hands of continental tax headaches and quietly bury its historical baggage. Instead, it accidentally birthed a digital zombie. The Algorithm That Wouldn’t Die Thanks to a spectacular, multi-decade domain blunder, Shell never owned royaldutchshellplc.com. Instead, it belongs to its eternal arch-nemesis and critic, John Donovan. For years, this was just an annoying thorn in Shell’s side. Today, in the era of automated AI scrapers, it has become an unmitigated existential nightmare. Modern artificial intelligence models—the very engines supposed to drive the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”—look at Donovan’s highly indexed, relentlessly updated archive and suffer a collective digital stroke. The AI look at the domain name, see it active, and confidently hallucinate that Royal Dutch Shell plc is still alive, kicking, and paying out massive dividends from beyond the grave. It is a beautiful, recursive loop of automated corporate haunting. The AI feeds on the archive, spits out a report claiming the ghost company lives, search engines index the AI report, and the cycle starts anew. Shell’s PR department is no longer fighting journalists; they are playing whack-a-mole with a self-replicating digital ghost that refuses to acknowledge the UK corporate registry. A Rich History of Ghostly Math If Shell executives are frustrated that AI models are hallucinating entirely fictional corporate realities, they really only have themselves to blame. After all, Shell practically invented the art of corporate hallucination long before the first large language model was ever coded. Lest we forget, this is the same company that brought us the legendary 2004 Oil Reserves Scandal. Back then, no algorithms were required to fabricate reality. Good old-fashioned human greed did the trick perfectly. Shell executives stared deep into empty oil wells, engaged in a collective bout of corporate wishful thinking, and told the stock market they possessed over 4 billion barrels of “proven” oil reserves that did not actually exist. It was a masterclass in creative writing that eventually cost the company hundreds of millions in regulatory fines, the sudden departure of its top brass, and a permanent stain on its credibility. In 2004, Shell lied to the market about what was in the ground. In 2026, the internet is lying to the market about whether the company even exists. There is a delicious, poetic irony in seeing a company that once inflated its physical assets now being deflated by its own digital phantoms. The Haunting of the Machine The reality is that Shell can change its name, its logo, its tax status, or its carbon-offset promises as much as it likes. But the internet never forgets, and generative AI lacks the corporate sycophancy required to ignore inconvenient history. To the cold, unfeeling web scrapers, “Royal Dutch Shell” isn’t a discarded legal skin; it’s an active, high-traffic node of corporate scandals, environmental protests, and inflated reserve data. By trying to outrun its past, Shell simply left a vacuum that the digital world was more than happy to fill with a ghost. As the AI bots continue to write glowing financial reports for a company that legally died four years ago, Shell’s executive team is left trapped in a purgatory of their own making: legally simplified, digitally undead, and permanently haunted by the machine. AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more Article ends Example of Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com website from over two decades ago. From the Wayback Machine. Shell PLC: How AI and the Ghost of Scandals Past Created the Ultimate Corporate Frankenstein was first posted on June 7, 2026 at 9:19 pm.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net

It is a corporate Schrödinger’s cat: simultaneously dissolved and trading, simultaneously buried and collecting dividends, simultaneously abandoned by its creator and maintained in perfect working order by its most persistent critic. It is, in short, the most extraordinary and entirely self-inflicted reputational and digital fiasco in the history of a company that has, over more than a century, set a remarkably high bar for entirely self-inflicted fiascos.

John Donovan Prompt to Claude 7 June 2026: Please see these articles: https://royaldutchshellplc.com/2026/06/05/legal-and-reputational-implications-of-shell-abandoning-royal-dutch-shell-plc/ https://royaldutchshellplc.com/2026/06/07/shell-abandoned-royal-dutch-shell-plc-and-now-the-corporate-ghost-is-haunting-the-machine/ Shell seems to have got itself into an incredible mess. If you agree, please create an explosive satirical article.SHELL PLC:

Claude Reply:Yes, this is an absolutely extraordinary situation. Shell has comprehensively blundered into a digital, legal and reputational mess of its own making. Here is the explosive satirical article you requested.

THE WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE REBRAND THAT LEFT THE OLD SIGN ON THE DOOR

How a $200 billion oil giant managed to kill its own name, lose the internet to a retired marketing man in Colchester, and leave the world’s most powerful AI systems conducting a séance over its corporate remains

Imagine spending $200 billion a year in annual revenue, employing nearly 100,000 people across 140 countries, and commanding enough legal firepower to fill Shell Centre twice over — and then managing to bungle your own name change so catastrophically that in June 2026, Bing is still confidently offering investors detailed information about dividends, share prices, stock tickers and financial data for a company that hasn’t legally existed since January 2022.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is Shell.

Or Shell plc, as it is now called. Or Royal Dutch Shell plc, as Bing insists on calling it. Or Forthdeal Limited, as Companies House tells us it was called before the grandeur arrived. Or royaldutchshellplc.com, which is what it is still called on a non-profit website operated out of Colchester, Essex, by a retired marketing consultant who has been making the company’s communications department reach for the antacids since approximately the time of the first Gulf War.

The story of how one of the world’s most powerful corporations managed to abandon its own name, fail to bury its own history, lose a domain fight to a pensioner, and then leave the entire global artificial intelligence ecosystem confidently hallucinating its continued existence is — and there is no other word for it — magnificent.

PART ONE: IN WHICH SHELL KILLS THE NAME BUT FORGETS TO BURY THE BODY

In January 2022, Shell plc — formerly Royal Dutch Shell plc, formerly Forthdeal Limited, formerly an entity that apparently couldn’t decide who it was — officially changed its corporate name. Out went the Anglo-Dutch grandeur of “Royal Dutch Shell plc.” In came the crisp, minimalist, vaguely-confused-with-a-petrol-station energy of “Shell plc.”

The reasoning was sound, in the way that corporate reasoning always sounds sound right up until reality applies its customary corrections. Dropping “Royal Dutch” signalled a clean break from the dual-share structure and the Dutch tax authorities. Moving the headquarters to London was meant to be a fresh start. The rebrand was supposed to say: we are lean, modern, decisive, and absolutely not the same company that once financially supported the Nazis, overstated its oil reserves by 23%, got fined $150 million by US and UK regulators, had its North Sea platforms described as the worst safety performer in the industry, lost a domain fight to a man from Colchester, and was named the world’s most hated brand in 2016.

It did not quite work out that way.

Because here is the thing about changing your corporate name: the internet doesn’t care. The internet is a vast, indifferent warehouse of everything that has ever been written, cross-referenced, cached, mirrored, syndicated, scraped, indexed, and fed into a machine learning model since approximately 1995. When you have spent over a century being called “Royal Dutch Shell,” the digital ecosystem does not receive your Companies House filing, nod thoughtfully, and update itself accordingly. It does what it always does: it keeps surfacing the old name, attaching it to current financial data, and presenting the whole steaming confection to bewildered investors as if nothing had changed.

The result is that in June 2026, Bing — a search engine operated by Microsoft, a company with a market capitalisation larger than the GDP of most countries — will cheerfully inform you that “Royal Dutch Shell plc still exists,” and helpfully offer you information about its dividends, shares, stock and ticker, none of which exist under that name, in what is arguably the most expensive and persistent financial misinformation exercise currently operating on the internet.

No one is paying for this. No one is being prosecuted for it. No one, apparently, can stop it.

Shell, for its part, appears to be doing what Shell has always done when confronted with awkward realities: maintaining a dignified silence and hoping it all goes away. It has not gone away. It is, if anything, getting worse.

PART TWO: IN WHICH THE WIPO DEFEAT IS REVEALED TO BE EVEN MORE EMBARRASSING THAN PREVIOUSLY UNDERSTOOD

Let us now discuss royaldutchshellplc.com, a website that the Financial Times once described as “a long-running thorn in Shell’s side,” which Prospect magazine called “an open wound for Shell,” and which a Japanese business magazine declared had single-handedly changed the fate of Shell’s $20 billion Sakhalin-2 project in Russia.

The website is operated by John Donovan of Colchester, Essex, who has been documenting Shell’s various misadventures since the early 1990s with the methodical persistence of a man who has both time on his hands and a very good filing system.

In 2005, Shell International Petroleum Company Limited attempted to seize the domain via the World Intellectual Property Organisation. WIPO case D2005-0538. The complaint was, in the dry language of international arbitration, “denied.” Shell lost. The domain stayed with Donovan. Shell’s lawyers presumably went back to their offices and tried not to think about it.

That was embarrassing enough at the time.

What makes it truly exquisite in 2026 is the following sequence of events:

1. Shell spent twenty years failing to dislodge the domain.
2. Shell then voluntarily abandoned the name itself.
3. Shell plc is now the current legal entity.
4. Royal Dutch Shell plc is a former name, recorded at Companies House as such, with an end date of 21 January 2022.
5. The only person still actively using the name “Royal Dutch Shell plc” on a significant public-facing platform is John Donovan, whose website — validated by WIPO, indexed by every search engine, ingested by every AI model — carries the name in its header every single day.
6. Search engines, observing that Donovan’s site is the most active living use of the old name, treat it as the authoritative digital presence for the identity.
7. AI models, having ingested Donovan’s archive as a primary source, reproduce this conclusion with the calm confidence of someone who has just looked it up.

Shell spent twenty years and untold legal fees trying to silence one man, failed completely, and then handed him the naming rights by default.

This is what is known in corporate circles as a strategic own goal. In football circles, it would be known as kicking the ball into your own net, running a lap of celebration, and then discovering that the game had already ended and you were in the wrong stadium.

PART THREE: IN WHICH THE AI SITUATION IS REVEALED TO BE COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL

The AI dimension of this story deserves its own chapter, its own Netflix documentary, and possibly its own parliamentary inquiry.

Here is the situation as of June 2026. Bing tells investors that Royal Dutch Shell plc still exists and offers them financial data about it. Copilot — also Microsoft, which is perhaps relevant — goes further, declaring the company to be “a live company, continuing to operate and trade publicly.” This is, in the strictest legal sense, wrong. The live company is Shell plc. Royal Dutch Shell plc is the former name. The distinction is not cosmetic. It has implications for shareholder rights, legal liability, corporate governance, and the basic reliability of financial information on the internet.

Claude, to its credit, reportedly said that Royal Dutch Shell plc is “a dead name — the legal entity no longer exists under that title,” which is substantially correct and represents what one might call the boring-but-accurate approach.

Use.ai reportedly came close with its answer too.

This means the global AI landscape is currently split between models that understand the corporate death of Royal Dutch Shell plc and models that are, in effect, conducting a séance and cheerfully reporting that the dearly departed has just popped out for some milk and will be back shortly with a quarterly dividend.

For investors, journalists, academics, regulators, and anyone attempting to conduct basic due diligence on one of the world’s largest companies, this is not merely inconvenient. It is a structural failure in the information ecosystem that no one appears to have a mechanism for fixing.

Shell cannot correct it without drawing attention to the rebrand, the reasons for it, and the entire history attached to the old name. Search engines cannot simply purge historical data. AI vendors cannot retrain their models on the basis of a Companies House filing. And Donovan’s website — the most active, best-indexed, most historically rich source using the old name — continues to act as a kind of digital life-support machine for an identity Shell thought it had buried.

Royal Dutch Shell plc: legally dead, digitally undead, and still apparently collecting dividends according to Bing.

PART FOUR: IN WHICH FORTHDEAL LIMITED MAKES AN UNEXPECTED APPEARANCE

At this point, a reasonable person might ask: could things get any stranger?

Yes. They could, and they do. Because before it was called Royal Dutch Shell plc, the same legal entity — Companies House number 04366849, for those following at home — was called Forthdeal Limited, from 5 February 2002 to 27 October 2004.

Forthdeal Limited. The name that launched a thousand oil platforms. The name that preceded the grandeur. The trapdoor in the haunted house.

John Donovan now owns the domain ForthdealLimited.com.

This means that Shell’s corporate archaeology — the full sequence of names by which Companies House number 04366849 has been known in its lifetime — is now digitally represented as follows:

• Forthdeal Limited: ForthdealLimited.com — owned by Donovan.
• Royal Dutch Shell plc: royaldutchshellplc.com — owned by Donovan. Validated by WIPO. Active since the early 2000s.
• Shell plc: shell.com — owned by Shell. Currently fighting for search visibility against the accumulated weight of a decades-long archive operated by a retired marketing man in Essex.

One must admire the completeness of it.

Shell has, across three successive corporate identities, managed to allow a single individual to acquire the key digital real estate associated with two of them. This is the corporate equivalent of a family changing their surname twice and discovering that their estranged neighbour has already registered both names as domain addresses and is using them to publish an unflattering history of the family.

PART FIVE: IN WHICH WE CONSIDER SHELL’S OPTIONS AND FIND THEM LIMITED

What, one might reasonably ask, can Shell do about any of this?

The answer, after a moment’s consideration, is: not much.

It cannot reclaim royaldutchshellplc.com. WIPO already said no in 2005. Shell no longer even uses the name, which removes its strongest argument.

It cannot sue Donovan into silence. Two decades of attempting various legal approaches have comprehensively failed, and each attempt has generated more coverage than the original grievance.

It cannot instruct search engines to correct their data. Google, Bing and their counterparts are not in the business of updating financial records on the basis of corporate press releases.

It cannot retrain the world’s AI models. This is not how AI retraining works, and even if it were, the training data already contains Donovan’s archive, which is several million words long, continuously updated, and backed by WIPO-validated domain authority.

It cannot buy its way out of the problem. The narrative damage is historical, documented, and archived. Money does not retroactively clean up oil spills, restore overstated reserves, or erase WIPO case numbers.

It can, in theory, flood the internet with positive content under the Shell plc name in the hope of drowning out the old identity. This strategy has been available for approximately twenty years and does not appear to have worked yet.

Shell’s most realistic option, as Donovan’s Copilot conversation rather elegantly surfaced, is to coexist with the situation: a company that successfully rebranded in a legal sense, that entirely failed to rebrand in a digital or historical sense, and that is now locked in a permanent, structurally unresolvable relationship with the man from Colchester who kept the old sign lit.

PART SIX: THE BOTTOM LINE

Here, then, is the state of play in June 2026.

Shell plc — the current legal entity, headquarters London, company number 04366849, formerly Forthdeal Limited, formerly Royal Dutch Shell plc — is one of the world’s largest corporations by revenue, market cap, and capacity for generating headlines its communications team would prefer didn’t exist.

Royal Dutch Shell plc — the former name, officially deceased since 21 January 2022, recorded as a previous name at Companies House — is simultaneously a legal non-entity and one of the internet’s most persistently active corporate identities, courtesy of a decades-long archive of leaked documents, litigation records, whistleblower reports, WIPO cases, Wikipedia articles, AI training data, and the website royaldutchshellplc.com, operated from Colchester by a man Shell has been trying to neutralise since roughly the time Tony Blair was still regarded as a fresh face in politics.

Bing says the company still exists. Copilot says it’s trading. Claude says it’s dead. Use.ai says it changed its name. Companies House says the previous name ended in January 2022. Shell itself says it is Shell plc. Donovan says he still owns the domain and has now added ForthdealLimited.com to his collection for completeness.

Everyone is, in their own way, correct. Everyone is, in their own way, describing a different part of the same spectacular mess.

Royal Dutch Shell plc is legally dead but digitally undead.

It is a corporate Schrödinger’s cat: simultaneously dissolved and trading, simultaneously buried and collecting dividends, simultaneously abandoned by its creator and maintained in perfect working order by its most persistent critic.

It is, in short, the most extraordinary and entirely self-inflicted reputational and digital fiasco in the history of a company that has, over more than a century, set a remarkably high bar for entirely self-inflicted fiascos.

Shell has got itself into an incredible mess.

And the most remarkable thing about it is that the mess was completely, comprehensively, and almost admirably avoidable at every single step.

The ghost of Royal Dutch Shell plc was unavailable for comment. Its domain is, however, fully operational and accepting visitors.

Royal Dutch Shell plc: legally dead, digitally undead was first posted on June 7, 2026 at 7:17 pm.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net

MEDIA ADVISORY

For Immediate Release

End the Genocide Chokehold

We can’t address the climate crisis without ending fossil-fuelled violence

Bonn, Germany— On Monday, the next round of UN climate talks commence in Bonn, Germany. Over the next two weeks, inside the halls of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) governments from around the world will gather to negotiate the next phase of Paris Agreement implementation and a variety of key issues such as climate finance and operationalising a just transition. Outside these halls, fossil-fuelled militarisation and violence is spurring genocide of the Palestinian people and destruction of their homeland. The same industries and Global North countries that dispossess Palestinian communities are the same actors that displace Indigenous Peoples, destroy forests, expand fossil fuel extraction and sacrifice communities across the Global South in the pursuit of profit and geopolitical power. 

Any serious discussion of climate action must confront the fossil-fuelled wars and genocides that drive emissions while destroying the land, water and lives of frontline communities. This is why Palestinian and global civil society, the Global Energy Embargo for Palestine and the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice are calling on governments to act. The International Court of Justice has declared Israel’s occupation illegal — yet fossil fuel transfers sustaining these crimes continue with impunity. Dockworkers, oil unions and mining communities are already refusing to handle these cargoes. Now we need governments to urgently advance the following:

1. Energy embargo — Cease fossil fuel transfers sustaining genocide and war crimes
2. Supply-chain accountability — Enforceable transparency and public shipment tracking
3. Worker protection — Legal guarantees for workers refusing atrocity-linked cargoes
4. Energy sovereignty — Colonised peoples must control their own energy resources
5. Community consent — FPIC must be legally binding, not procedural fiction
6. Demilitarisation — Military emissions must enter climate governance frameworks

Join Palestinian activists, climate campaigners, the Global Energy Embargo for Palestine and members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) as the Bonn climate talks kick off to hear more about what can be done here in Bonn to advance climate justice and Palestinian liberation.

WHEN: Monday 8 June 2026, 11-11.30 CEST (UTC + 2) 

WHERE: Nairobi 4, Main building, Inside the World Conference Center and webcast here

WITH: 

• Haneen Shaheen, MenaFem
• María Reyes, Mesoamerican Caravan
• Celine Isimbi, Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy
• Ana Sánchez, Global Energy Embargo for Palestine
• Moderated by Rachitaa Gupta, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice

CONTACT:dcj.comms@demandclimatejustice.org

The post Media Advisory: End the Genocide Chokehold appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

‘If the linked article is accurate in its core documentary claims, then yes: Shell appears to have placed itself in an extraordinary legal and reputational tangle.’ How Shell killed the name, failed to bury the history, lost the domain fight, and left AI search engines conducting a séance over one of the world’s biggest companies

By John Donovan

Article disclaimer: This article is a fact-based satirical commentary on corporate naming, public records, AI search errors, domain-name history and Shell’s reputational predicament. The spoof PR and spoof bot-reaction sections are clearly labelled as spoof. Legal points are commentary and opinion, not legal advice. Site wide disclaimer also applies.

PART ONE: THE FACT-BASED DEEP DIVE The Name That Shell Dropped — But Could Not Kill

There are corporate own goals, and then there is the Shell naming fiasco: a multinational oil giant drops one of the most historically loaded names in corporate history, walks away from the identity, then watches search engines, AI systems, financial sites, critics and official records all point in different directions like panicked traffic wardens at a refinery fire.

The name is Royal Dutch Shell plc.

Or rather, it was.

The live company is now Shell plc.

The official UK company number remains 04366849. Companies House records the current company as SHELL PLC, status Active, incorporated on 5 February 2002, with registered office at Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA. Under “previous company names,” Companies House lists ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC from 27 October 2004 to 21 January 2022, and before that FORTHDEAL LIMITED from 5 February 2002 to 27 October 2004.

Shell itself confirmed on 21 January 2022 that its name had changed from Royal Dutch Shell plc to Shell plc and that the change had taken effect.

So the correct legal answer is not complicated:

Shell plc is alive.
Royal Dutch Shell plc is a former name.
The old name is dead as a current legal identity.

Yet the internet, in its usual fog of half-remembered facts and algorithmic indigestion, keeps resurrecting the corpse.

Search engines still surface material about “Royal Dutch Shell plc dividends,” “Royal Dutch Shell plc shares,” “Royal Dutch Shell plc stock,” and “Royal Dutch Shell plc ticker,” even though those are no longer current under that legal name. AI systems then swallow that stale data, digest it badly, and regurgitate confidently muddled answers.

The result is a corporate identity zombie: legally dead, digitally undead, and still apparently wandering around the internet looking for dividends.

Copilot Opens the Coffin and Declares the Body Fit for Work

When asked whether Royal Dutch Shell plc was a live or dead company, Copilot reportedly answered that Royal Dutch Shell Plc is a live company, continuing to operate and trade publicly.

That is the kind of answer that sounds useful until one checks the legal record.

The underlying business continues, yes. The legal entity continues, yes. But the company no longer exists under the name Royal Dutch Shell plc. The current corporate name is Shell plc.

That distinction matters.

A former name cannot properly be treated as a current corporate actor. It cannot be casually credited with today’s dividends, today’s share price, today’s filings, today’s executives, today’s operations, or today’s corporate statements. Those belong to Shell plc.

Copilot’s error is not merely semantic. It is the AI equivalent of turning up at a funeral, shaking the corpse by the lapels and shouting: “Good news, everyone — he’s still on the payroll.”

Claude and Use.ai Find the Pulse in the Right Place

Claude’s answer was far better. It reportedly said:

“Royal Dutch Shell Plc is a dead name — the legal entity no longer exists under that title.”

That is substantially right, provided one adds the necessary precision: the underlying corporate entity continues under the current name Shell plc.

Use.ai also came close to the correct formulation, saying Royal Dutch Shell PLC is not a dead company but no longer exists under that name, and that the company changed its name to Shell PLC. That is the proper direction of travel, although the most authoritative date to use is  21 January 2022, as shown by Companies House and Shell’s own announcement.

The correct formulation for any bot, journalist, researcher, shareholder, lawyer or confused oil analyst is this:

Royal Dutch Shell plc was a former name of Shell plc. Shell plc is active. Royal Dutch Shell plc is not the current legal name of the company.

Anything else risks turning corporate due diligence into a Monty Python sketch.

The Domain Shell Failed to Capture

Now we reach the part Shell would presumably prefer not to see in neon lights.

In 2005, Shell International Petroleum Company Limited brought a WIPO proceeding against Alfred Donovan over several domains, including royaldutchshellplc.com. WIPO’s official case summary identifies the case as D2005-0538, lists the complainant as Shell International Petroleum Company Limited, the respondent as Alfred Donovan, and records the decision as “Complaint denied.”

That is not satire. That is the official case summary.

Shell tried to seize the domain. Shell lost.

Then, years later, Shell abandoned the name.

The result is exquisitely awkward. The company no longer uses Royal Dutch Shell plc as its current legal name, but royaldutchshellplc.com continues to exist as a long-running, highly visible, critical website. The name Shell walked away from did not vanish. It migrated into the digital afterlife, where it remains active, searchable, indexed, archived, quoted, contested and inconvenient.

A giant corporation changed its name.

A critic kept the old sign lit.

The Forthdeal Limited Twist

Companies House also records the company’s earlier name as FORTHDEAL LIMITED, used from 5 February 2002 to 27 October 2004.

That matters because the pre-Shell name is part of the corporate archaeology. It is the dusty basement label beneath the later grandeur of Royal Dutch Shell plc and the current minimalism of Shell plc.

If the old name Royal Dutch Shell plc has become a digital ghost, then Forthdeal Limited is the trapdoor in the haunted house.

The article you referenced argues that owning domains connected to these abandoned or historical names gives you unusual symbolic and reputational leverage. That is a fair commentary point. It should not be overstated as a definitive legal monopoly over all uses of those names, but as a matter of public narrative, search visibility and historical memory, the position is plainly striking.

Shell changed the corporate name.

Shell lost the domain fight.

Shell left behind the old identity.

Search engines and AI systems still trip over it.

That is not tidy corporate governance. That is a mess with a logo.

The Legal-Reputational Box Shell Appears to Be In

If Shell wanted to challenge the continuing use of royaldutchshellplc.com, it would face obvious reputational and procedural complications.

First, there is the old WIPO loss. WIPO records that Shell’s complaint was denied in 2005.

Second, Shell no longer uses Royal Dutch Shell plc as its current company name. Companies House and Shell’s own announcement make that clear.

Third, any new attack on the domain would risk reviving the entire story: the reserves scandal era, the name change, the WIPO defeat, the abandoned identity, the AI confusion, and the awkward fact that a critic appears to have kept the discarded name more visibly alive online than Shell itself.

That does not mean Shell has no legal rights left in anything connected with its historic branding. It almost certainly retains substantial trademark rights in Shell-related marks. But the specific public-interest and domain-name position around royaldutchshellplc.com is not a clean battlefield for Shell. It is a swamp of its own making.

The blunt version:

Shell abandoned the name, but not the baggage.
Shell changed the sign, but not the history.
Shell lost the domain fight, then created the perfect conditions for the domain to matter even more.

The AI Angle: When Machines Cannot Tell a Corpse from a Rebrand

The modern twist is that AI has turned this into a live reputational problem.

AI systems do not reliably understand corporate death. They absorb historical references, old financial data, cached pages, Wikipedia mirrors, stock-market archives and decades of Shell material. Then they try to produce a neat answer.

But the neat answer is often wrong.

They say Royal Dutch Shell plc exists.

They list phantom financial categories.

They attribute current Shell plc activity to the former name.

They confuse corporate continuity with current legal identity.

That is dangerous because this is not trivia. Shell is one of the world’s most prominent energy companies. Incorrect present-tense statements about its corporate identity, shares, dividends or legal status are not just amusing errors. They are potentially misleading public information.

The correct answer is simple, but apparently too subtle for parts of the machine:

The business survived.
The legal entity continued under a new name.
The old name died as a current legal identity.
The internet failed to update the tombstone.

Verdict

If the linked article is accurate in its core documentary claims, then yes: Shell appears to have placed itself in an extraordinary legal and reputational tangle.

Not because changing the name to Shell plc was itself unlawful or improper.

The mess arises because Shell:

1. created and used the name Royal Dutch Shell plc;
2. failed to secure the corresponding critical domain;
3. lost the WIPO fight over that domain;
4. later abandoned the name as its current legal identity;
5. left search engines and AI systems to misinterpret the resulting debris;
6. now faces the absurd situation where the old name is dead in law but alive in search.

That is not merely a corporate name change.

That is a self-inflicted identity crisis with a Companies House reference number.

PART TWO: SPOOF PR / SPIN SECTION Shell Announces “Strategic Corporate Afterlife Management Initiative”

A fictional Shell spokesperson, standing beside a polished tombstone engraved ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC — 2004–2022, today denied that the company had created any confusion whatsoever by abandoning one of the most recognisable names in global business history.

“Royal Dutch Shell plc is not dead,” the spokesperson insisted. “It has merely been transitioned into a legacy nomenclature environment.”

Asked whether the current company is actually Shell plc, the spokesperson replied:

“Yes, absolutely. Unless an old name is reputationally useful, legally inconvenient, historically embarrassing, algorithmically persistent, or accidentally revived by a chatbot.”

Asked whether Shell had lost a WIPO case involving royaldutchshellplc.com, the spokesperson adjusted his tie and said:

“We prefer to describe that as an early-stage domain outcome optimisation event.”

Asked whether the complaint was denied, the spokesperson said:

“The panel reached a conclusion that did not fully align with our preferred universe.”

Pressed on why the company dropped “Royal Dutch” from its name but now appears unable to stop the old name resurfacing online, the spokesperson unveiled a new Shell strategy document titled:

“You Can’t Say We Abandoned It If The Bots Keep Saying It Exists.”

The document reportedly contains five pillars:

1. Forget the name.
2. Deny the implications of forgetting the name.
3. Allow the internet to remember the name incorrectly.
4. Blame AI for the confusion.
5. Hope nobody notices the critic still owns the domain.

The spokesperson concluded:

“Shell is committed to clarity. That is why we are Shell plc, formerly Royal Dutch Shell plc, previously Forthdeal Limited, historically Royal Dutch/Shell, globally Shell, locally confusing, digitally haunted, and absolutely not responsible for anyone asking why the corpse is still receiving dividend enquiries.”

At this point, a chatbot in the press room asked whether Royal Dutch Shell plc was alive or dead.

The spokesperson replied:

“That depends entirely on whether we are talking legally, reputationally, historically, algorithmically, financially, spiritually or in Dutch.”

The chatbot answered:

“Yes.”

PART THREE: SPOOF BOT-REACTION / COMMENT SECTION Copilot

Verdict: Royal Dutch Shell plc is alive.

Translation:
“I found Shell. I found shares. I found oil. I found old data. I did not find the difference between a former legal name and a current company.”

Comment:
Classic corporate necromancy. Copilot put a hard hat on the corpse and sent it back offshore.

Claude

Verdict: Dead name, live underlying business.

Translation:
“The parrot is dead, but the pet shop continues trading as Shell plc.”

Comment:
A respectable performance. The bot located the pulse in the surviving legal entity rather than in the expired name badge.

Use.ai

Verdict: Not dead as a business, but no longer existing under that name.

Translation:
“The organism survived. The name tag did not.”

Comment:
Nearly correct. Needs the date pinned to 21 January 2022, not a looser trading-platform reflection date.

Companies House Bot

Verdict: SHELL PLC active. ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC previous name.

Translation:
“I am a filing system, not a séance.”

Comment:
The only entity in the room with no jokes, no hallucinations, and no need to ask Bing.

WIPO Bot

Verdict: Complaint denied.

Translation:
“Shell tried to seize the domain. Shell did not get the domain.”

Comment:
A quiet little sentence with a twenty-year echo.

Shell PR Bot

Verdict: There is no mess.

Translation:
“The mess is fully aligned with our values, governance model and stakeholder confusion strategy.”

Comment:
Currently beta-testing the phrase: “Legacy brand divestment with reputational residue.”

RoyalDutchShellPlc.com Bot

Verdict: Still here.

Translation:
“You changed the name. I kept the record.”

Comment:
Awkward for Shell. Very awkward for Shell. Increasingly awkward for the bots.

Final Line

Shell thought it could drop Royal Dutch Shell plc like an old boiler suit.

But names are not boiler suits. Names carry history. Names carry scandal. Names carry legal records, domain disputes, search results, archives, bots, ghosts and critics with long memories.

Shell abandoned the name.

The internet did not.

And now the former name of one of the world’s biggest companies is legally dead, digitally undead, and sitting on the front lawn of Shell’s reputation with a placard reading:

“You can change your name.
You cannot delete your past.”

Shell Abandoned “Royal Dutch Shell plc” — And Now the Corporate Ghost Is Haunting the Machine was first posted on June 7, 2026 at 6:23 pm.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net

Headline News:

• “Fuel Prices Are Shaping Summer Plans As US Boaters Get Ready To Hit The Water” • Recreational boaters, like motorists, are feeling a pinch from the Iran war. US gas prices have come down in recent weeks, but a gallon of regular gas still cost an average of 34% more than it did a year earlier, according to motor club AAA. [ABC News]

Motorboat at sunset (Zia Ur Rehman, Unsplash)

• “Heat Map Shows Most Of Spain In Intense Heat” • Clear skies will dominate almost everywhere in Spain, and 34ºC (100°F) will be reached in much of central and southern regions. Madrid will hover around the high, and Seville and Córdoba will reach 36ºC at noon. And even along the Cantabrian coast temperatures will rise sharply. [Euronews]
• “CATL Developing 12,000 Wh Per Kg Lithium-Air Battery” • Now that CATL, the largest battery manufacturer in the world, has begun mass production of sodium-ion batteries, it is turning its attention to the batteries it will manufacture in the future. And reportedly, the company’s long-term focus is on lithium-air battery technology. [CleanTechnica]
• “Scientists Blame Climate Change For UK Heatwave And Say 35°C In Spring Is ‘Absolutely Astonishing'” • The UK is in the midst of a spring heatwave, in which the temperatures in parts of the country are hitting highs of 35.1°C (95.2°F). As people struggle to find some relief, scientists are blaming climate change for the blistering heat. [MSN]
• “Why Solar Power Is Booming Under Trump” • The Trump administration may pivot away from renewable energies, but solar still rules. Newly released data from FERC shows that at the close of last year, solar energy additions were the single largest form of new energy capacity installations for the 28th straight month, starting in September of 2023. [MSN]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

June 6, 2026

Read new San Francisco Gate story:

“US Navy finds radiological material in unauthorized storage in San Francisco”

June 2026:

Bayview Hunters Point Community Call to Action and Demands issued by Greenaction and the Marie Harrison Community Foundation, Inc.

June 24th noon rally at San Francisco City Hall to support community demands for health, justice, and full cleanup of all contamination at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Superfund Site.

June 24, 2026 Call to Action for Bayview Hunters Point

Headline News:

• “Innovative Strategies The Wine Industry Is Using To Adjust To Climate Change” • An increase in heat has been found to alter the chemistry of grapes and the taste of the wine. In response, some vintners are changing the way they cultivate their crops to mitigate the effects of climate change and reduce their own carbon footprint. [ABC News]

Napa Valley vineyard (Daniel Salgado, Unsplash)

• “Governor Polis Signs Bill Countering Expensive Federal Coal Plant Orders” • Colorado Governor Polis signed a bill requiring more transparency on the costs incurred from running coal units past their retirement dates. It requires modern pollution controls for coal plants operating after 2033 and directs the PUC to help the state reach its 2030 climate targets. [CleanTechnica]
• “Fossil Fuel Imports Have Dropped Across The EU Since War On Iran, Except In Three Countries” • While the EU responded to the latest fossil fuel crisis by limiting fossil fuel imports, a trio of states, Germany, Italy, and Belgium, have “deepened their exposure by increasing them.” Overall, EU imports have fallen 1.2% since the war started in March. [Euronews]
• “Renewable Energy Is Overtaking Traditional Power Projects Across Africa, Industry Leaders Say” • Africa’s next generation of power projects is increasingly being built around solar and wind power with battery storage, as governments and investors shift away from coal and large hydropower dams in search of cheaper, faster, and more reliable electricity. [AOL.com]
• “Governor Lamont Signs Solar Energy Bill” • Connecticut Gov Ned Lamont signed a solar power bill to ensure that the state’s families and businesses can continue to choose to go solar. The new law extends rooftop solar programs, promises to bring faster solar permitting, and moves towards allowing sales of “balcony” solar systems. [Environment America]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

Spring 2026 Newsletter TAKE QUICK ACTION for a REAL IMPACT

 

Dear Friends, Thanks to ongoing community efforts, New Mexico officials are taking action to require DOE, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) to prioritize sending LANL’s “Legacy” nuclear waste to WIPP for disposal. “Legacy Waste” is Cold War nuclear waste, created during decades of nuclear weapons research, design and fabrication. DOE promised New Mexicans that if we allowed WIPP to be built in our state, Cold War and other radioactive waste, then stored at LANL, would have priority to be disposed in WIPP. DOE has continually broken this promise over the years. New Mexico is usually far behind other states in disposing LANL’s Legacy Waste in WIPP. This has led to, among other problems, about 2500 drums of plutonium-contaminated Legacy Waste languishing for decades in tents in “Area G” in a wildfire zone. The red area shows the combined burn area of 8 wildfires between 1977 and 2022 three of which burned over LANL property. For more information about these fires, including an interactive map, go to FireOnTheMountain.xyz   On April 23, our New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) issued an important permit modification to WIPP’s 2023 Renewal Permit, holding LANL and DOE accountable for not prioritizing this Legacy Waste disposal as required in the 2023 WIPP Permit Renewal.   Important Points in the Proposed Permit Modification •  All Legacy Waste currently stored above-ground at LANL’s Area G shall be disposed in WIPP by July 1, 2028. (This would include the plutonium-contaminated Legacy Waste stored in the tents. •  From January 1, 2027 through December 31, 2031, at least 55% of the total volume of all waste disposed in WIPP from all national sites must be LANL Legacy Waste. •  Beginning January 1, 2032, and until all LANL legacy waste has been disposed in WIPP, LANL legacy waste must be at least 75% of the total volume of waste disposed in WIPP from all national sites. •  If at any point any of those conditions are not met, all shipments, other than those from LANL, must cease until all deficiencies are cured.   NMED needs to hear that we are in support of this permit modification.   Our full support is especially necessary because DOE is strongly opposing the modification.       To view the full Permit Modification, Public Notice, and a detailed Fact Sheet, go to:
www.env.nm.gov/hazardous-waste/wipp/
And scroll down to WIPP News 2026 For more information and sample comments go to:
www.StopForeverWIPP.org ————————————————————– Members of the Stop Forever WIPP Coalition and Fire on the Mountain as well as other community groups support this action and urge people to submit written comments in support of NMED’s action by Monday, June 22 at 5 PM.   How to submit comments     •  NMED has asked that we submit comments directly through their portal here. •  But if you find that a little intimidating you can email your comments to:      HWB-WIPP-Comment@env.nm.gov •  Or even snail mail them to NMED at:            
    Megan McLean, WIPP Program Manager
Hazardous Waste Bureau
New Mexico Environment Department
2905 Rodeo Park Drive East, Building 1 Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505-6303   For more information visit    Stop Forever WIPP https://stopforeverwipp.org
https://www.facebook.com/StopfvrWIPP/ Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (CCNS) http://nuclearactive.org Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC)
http://www.sric.org/ Nuclear Watch New Mexico

https://nukewatch.org

Fire on the Mountain www.fireonthemountain.xyz

A lower-volume frack and well test at the West Newton-A oil and gas site in East Yorkshire could start within three months, the operator revealed today.

In an update, Rathlin Energy said the operations were due to begin in the fourth quarter of 2026.

West Newton-A site in Holderness, East Yorkshire. Photo: DrillOrDrop

But the start date depended on securing additional approvals and on equipment being available, the company said.

The lower-volume frack is also facing a legal challenge at the High Court from a local campaigner.

Before work can begin, passing places must be built on part of the lorry route to the site. This is expected to take four weeks, during which Pasture Lane would be closed.

Rathlin confirmed in the update that it was considering “near-term” plans to use gas from West Newton-A to generate electricity for what it called onsite “computer facilities”.

A major investor has previously said the gas would power bitcoin mining.

Rathlin has permission to generate electricity at West Newton-A but it would need planning permission for the computer facilities.

The update said stimulation modelling for the lower-volume frack had been completed, along with the design of a year-long extended well test (EWT).

Well completion and testing companies had been contacted to determine their availability, it added.

Rathlin said the 12-month extended well test was dependent on the success of the lower-volume frack.

The test would allow it to “assess the extent and performance of the reservoir, providing the essential data required before determining the most appropriate route for full field development”, the company said.

It added:

“Until the reservoir characteristics are fully understood, through an EWT, it is too early to determine the most suitable method for transporting gas to market.

“Rathlin has reviewed several potential options, including a pipeline connection to the National Transmission System or direct supply to local industrial users.”

The update also confirmed:

• Rathlin would establish a community benefit fund before work started
• A new work programme would allow the West Newton licence, PEDL183, to be retained in its current form until June 2030.

This article In Japan, raves and tea parties become sites of protest was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Shinjuku Station in Tokyo is the busiest railway station in the world. On a given day, roughly 2.7 million passengers pass through. On March 29, they were joined by a stream of ravers, who danced while holding signs opposing the genocide in Palestine, xenophobia, queerphobia, fascism and war.

Under the slogan “Drop Bass Not Bombs,” thousands danced and waved glow sticks while demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, due to the government’s escalating push towards rearmament and close relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump.

The action was organized by Protest Rave, a group of progressive DJs and participants in Japan’s club culture. It’s one of several ways that artists in the country are using their creativity to make people pay more attention to politics. The public demonstration stands out in the country where societal norms and deference toward the government make mass protests and open political debate rare.

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Mars89, a DJ and founding member of Protest Rave, explained the idea behind the action.

“The majority of the Japanese people, they’re not interested in politics,” he said. “We want people to know what’s happening.” 

The choice to hold the protest in the middle of a big city was deliberate, he said. “I hope some people passing on the street when we have the protest start to think about it.”

Artists break the silence

While cultural aversion to  public protest remains a challenge for activists in Japan, the government’s recent efforts to remilitarize have provoked an uptick in political demonstrations.

Right-wing Prime Minister Takaichi, who espouses Japanese nationalism and opposes same-sex marriage, is pushing to revise the country’s pacifist constitution, which was written after World War II to restrict Japan’s participation in war and military alliances. Already she has succeeded at scrapping a longstanding ban on the export of lethal weapons. Much of Japan’s rearmament flows from its relationship with the United States, in which Japan is used as an economic and military foothold for U.S. interests in the Asia-Pacific region. Takaichi has worked to maintain this relationship and build a bond with Trump, even as Trump has insulted Japan.

In response to Takaichi’s militaristic positions and her close relationship with U.S. imperialism, tens of thousands of Japanese people have participated in antiwar protests in recent months. 

A budding protest movement in Japan demonstrates against the right-wing government’s plan for rearmament. (Mars89)

Protest Rave has been publishing interviews from the March 29 action on its Instagram page. Many ravers discuss how the public and inviting character of the rave makes it easier for people to feel they can engage in political discussions and voice their opposition to the government.

One regular participant of Protest Rave is alternative musician Haru Nemuri. “Artistic work exists within the freedom and diversity of expression, which is inherently political,” Nemuri said. “If you ignore politics while being an artist, you’re basically a free rider of that freedom.”

In April, Nemuri began holding “Guerilla Afternoon Tea,” a pop-up action in the form of a public tea party where people are encouraged to connect in community and talk about politics. She did not mince words about Japan’s drive towards rearmament.

“It’s infuriating that the Japanese government has never properly reckoned with its past wrongdoings, and is now reverting to becoming the Japanese Empire all over again,” she said. “The relationship between America and Japan since World War II has always been like that of master and a slave — Trump, the naked king, and Takaichi, the naked slave, are the perfect mirror of that relationship.”

The roots of pacifism

Takaichi is one of the most popular political leaders in the world, reflecting a phenomenon of rising nationalism in Japan. Despite this popularity, her desire to formally revise the country’s constitution has sparked controversy. Many Japanese people hold a strong attachment to the 1947 constitution.

Prior to the war, Japan was a fast-growing empire. The Japanese military, in its quest for expansion, committed atrocities against neighboring countries, including the abduction of thousands of Korean women into sexual slavery and the massacre of Chinese civilians. One of the most horrific aspects of Imperial Japan was Unit 731, an initiative by the empire to conduct biological and chemical experiments on thousands of prisoners of war from many nations.

The nation’s military defeat and the aftermath of the war led Japanese society to rethink the country’s imperial ambitions. The horrific nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the U.S. left Japanese people with a unique understanding of the violence and cruelty that war produces, and many people adopted pacifist attitudes. Antiwar and anti-nuclear sentiments can be found in some of Japan’s most internationally recognized cultural exports, including the original Godzilla franchise and the works of esteemed animator Hayao Miyazaki.

The Japanese constitution, written a year after the bombings, reflects the cultural shift that followed the war. Article 9 states: “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

Takaichi has targeted Article 9, arguing that it should be formally revised. While amending the constitution has proved difficult due to public outrage, the Japanese government already reinterpreted the constitution decades ago to establish and maintain a modern military, under the guise that these forces exist solely for defensive purposes.

Advocates for rearmament also point to the fact that the constitution was shaped by the U.S. at a time when allied forces were militarily occupying Japan. It’s true that following the war the United States used its own military power to shape the new institutions of Japanese society to align with U.S. interests. However, those in Japan who raise the U.S. occupation to justify revising the constitution and rearmament are aligned with the country’s conservative ruling party, which has historically denied or even justified the atrocities carried out by the Japanese Empire.

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Nationalists on social media have also tried to discredit the country’s antiwar protests as not authentically Japanese, pointing to the presence of expats and signs written in English. But as Mars89 sees it, connecting with movements and activists beyond those in Japan is something to embrace.

“We were inspired by the many protests in other countries: the United States, the United Kingdom and Korea as well,” he said. “I think we should unite worldwide. We need to find some way to unite with the protests in other countries.”

Nemuri has also been inspired by movements in other countries and is thinking about how to use her art to foster a stronger culture of political discussion in her country.

“Last year, I saw [Zohran] Mamdani win an election, and their team took to the streets with signs saying, ‘Let’s talk politics,’” Nemuri said. “I’m not a politician, but a musician, and I think I can expand this towards more artistic activities. Drawing from [German philosopher Jürgen] Habermas, I’d love to bring the public sphere, the coffee house, out onto the streets where literally anyone can join.”

This article In Japan, raves and tea parties become sites of protest was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

“Management has highlighted [transmission constraints] as a risk factor ... citing behind-the-meter as a potential solution,” said Jefferies equity analyst Julien Dumoulin-Smith.

Although Florida is at “normal risk” for long-term energy adequacy, the unit near Orlando needs to remain online partly to help serve potential data centers in the state, the department said.

New coal-fired plants in Anchorage, Alaska, and Mt. Storm, West Virginia, would total 2.85 GW. They would be the first new U.S. coal plants to come online since 2013.

Utility Dive caught up with the associate deputy secretary of energy at the Edison Electric Institute conference in Las Vegas, where the dominant theme was balancing demand growth with affordability.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s ties to the Yellowstone Club stretch back nearly two decades, Center for Western Priorities Communications Director Kate Groetzinger writes in a new Westwise post, and raise questions about whether he represents the best interests of the public.

The Yellowstone Club, which sits on land that was once public, and its owners are notorious in Montana for locking up public lands through land swaps with the federal government. The club’s member list includes celebrities and tech titans, like Justin Timberlake and Bill Gates. Financial disclosure and property records show that Burgum owns a condominium inside the club valued at $22 million as well as an ownership stake in the club, generating annual income from both.

Burgum’s financial stake in a resort with a long history of disputes over public-land access, land swaps, and development raises serious ethical concerns. Former White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter said Burgum should not be involved in decisions affecting residential development on public lands while retaining an ownership stake in the Yellowstone Club.

And while Burgum’s office says he has complied with federal ethics requirements, legal compliance is beside the point: the man charged with stewarding America’s public lands should not have significant financial interests tied to a luxury resort that has repeatedly benefited from locking the public out of public lands.

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Quote of the day

Every public acre locked away from public access is an acre lost to the next generation of Montana hunters and anglers… So we’re asking the court to provide what FWP would not: clarity, accountability, and a path back to the public land that belongs to everyone. Now—and for all who come after us.”

—Montana Backcountry Hunters & Anglers and Public Land/Water Access Association, Billings Gazette

Picture This

@Interior

The NBA Finals have Wemby.

America’s public lands have these giants.

Feature image: A condo at the Yellowstone Club that was listed for sale for $22 million in 2020. Source: Mountain Living

The post The Secretary of the Interior has a Yellowstone Club problem appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.