Beyond Nuclear International
A nuclear Svengali on Capitol Hill?
Attempts by the Breakthrough Institute’s Ted Nordaus to derail NRC commissioner candidacies have met with mixed success, writes Linda Pentz Gunter
We’re getting used to the swagger of entitlement and the complacency of corporate nuclear lobbyists on Capitol Hill. They, in turn, have become accustomed to getting their way — usually through the powerful persuasion of big money or saturation propaganda campaigns financed with those large stashes of handy corporate cash.
But when that isn’t enough, then a nice smear campaign should do. One who appears to enjoy such an endeavor is the Breakthrough Institute’s founder, Ted Nordhaus, who has made it his business of late to decide who does and does not get a commissioner seat at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Those who should not, in Nordhaus’s views, are the Democratic candidates or incumbents who have too much of a regard for nuclear safety as a priority.
Safety is a big ticket item for the nuclear power industry. Literally. Maintaining, upgrading and replacing aging parts in these decades-old dinosaurs of the 20th century, many of them running well past their sell-by date, is an expensive undertaking. But a relaxation of — or looking the other way on — some of those pesky safety regulations would be made easier by more compliant NRC commissioners.
Cue Nordhaus, Capitol Hill’s nuclear Svengali.
His most recent target was Matthew Marzano, the candidate for the long vacant fifth seat on the NRC commission. Nordhaus pulled out all the stops to derail Marzano, beginning last September prior to Marzano’s hearing before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Nordhaus prepared a veritable death warrant in which he claimed, among other things, that Marzano would, if approved, be “the least qualified commissioner ever seated on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission”. Nordhaus also wrote that Marzano, if chosen, “will not be a voice for reform and modernization on the commission.”
Never mind that Marzano, who was then an official at the Idaho National Laboratory, has a pretty solid nuclear background, having worked both on commercial reactors and as an instructor for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program at the US Department of Energy. (As a side note, this exemplifies once again the two-way street and inexorable link between the civil and military nuclear sectors.)
Read MoreDelusional, ruinous and obsolete
The ITER fusion project is 18 years behind schedule and can do nothing for climate change, writes Antoine Calandra
ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is an international tokamak nuclear fusion research and engineering project, massively over budget and behind schedule, currently under construction next to the Cadarache nuclear facility in southern France.
India is one of 7 partner countries in the ITER project, along with the European Union, Russia, Japan, the United States, China and South Korea. No matter how much Macron boasts about it, ITER is a total fiasco, a delusional, ruinous and obsolete project.
On November 14, 2024, the annual public meeting was held in Peyrolles, entitled: ITER, 15 years on: what has been achieved?
I was expecting the event to be a great success, and to be able to pick up some recent information on the ITER project… But surprise, nothing of the sort!
An ordinary multi-purpose room, no decor, no documents available, an unpleasant white light, around forty people present, all interns (CEA ITER* employees, CLI members, local elected representatives, a few union members).
For the event, tables and chairs were arranged differently “for a more convivial, cabaret-like atmosphere”, did I hear them say? Aha!?
Pietro Barabaschi, ITER General Manager, wasn’t there.
As on previous occasions, there was no agenda with the names of the speakers to let us know how the evening would unfold. A meagre presentation of the ITER project (5 or 6 images) and that was it. And “time for questions from the floor”. Aha!
Read MoreDélirante, ruineuse et obsolète
Le projet de fusion ITER a 18 ans de retard et ne peut rien faire pour le changement climatique écrit Antoine Calandra
ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) est un projet international de recherche et d’ingénierie sur la fusion nucléaire par tokamak, dont le budget et le calendrier ont été largement dépassés, et qui est actuellement en cours de construction à côté de l’installation nucléaire de Cadarache, dans le sud de la France.
L’Inde fait partie des 7 pays partenaires du projet ITER avec l’Union européenne, la Russie, le Japon, les États-Unis, la Chine et la Corée du Sud. Macron aura beau fanfaronner, ITER est un fiasco total, un projet délirant, ruineux et obsolète.
Le 14 novembre 2024 se tenait à Peyrolles la réunion publique annuelle intitulée : ITER, 15 ans : quel bilan?
Je m’attendais au grand jeu pour l’évènement et récupérer là quelques informations récentes sur le chantier ITER…Mais surprise, rien de tout cela !
Une salle polyvalente quelconque, aucun décor, aucun document disponible, une lumière blanche peu agréable, une quarantaine de personnes présentes, que des internes ( salariés CEA ITER*, membres de la CLI, élus locaux, quelques membres syndicaux)
Pour l’événement tables et chaises étaient agencées autrement « pour une ambiance plus conviviale un peu cabaret » ai-je entendu dire. Ah !?
Pietro Barabaschi,, Directeur Général ITER n’était pas là.
Aucun ordre du jour pour annoncer le déroulement de la soirée avec le nom des intervenants, comme les fois précédentes. Une très maigre présentation du projet ITER ( 5 ou 6 images) et c’en était fini. Et « place aux questions de la salle ». Ah !
Read More“Difficult-to-Return” zones
Some have returned to areas contaminated by the Fukushima disaster but they should never be considered safe, writes Ruiko Muto
While perplexed by rapid changes in the state of world affairs at the start of 2025, I am deeply appreciative of your various anti-nuclear activities around the world.
Last summer, I had the opportunity to visit parts of the Difficult-to-Return zones in Fukushima. A hospital, where more than 50 patients died during evacuation efforts in the 2011 nuclear disaster, was now overgrown with dense trees and grasses. In a care home for older people, I saw disarrayed beds and scattered items, such as diapers, medicines and documents, all left untouched since the residents had to evacuate suddenly for safety. The meal plan for 11th March 2011 was still written on the whiteboard.
At a nearby primary school, I found dictionaries placed on each small wooden desk. Pupils’ bags, shoes, brush washers, and even fallen bicycles as well as helmets were still there – everything was left behind. No sounds were to be heard except for the hum of cicadas. There is no doubt that people lived here until just 13 years ago, but now, there is no one. These places remain abandoned even today.
Only a very small number of people have returned to the areas where evacuation orders were lifted. Empty houses need to be demolished one by one. Grand gates and storehouses, seemingly with centuries of history, are being torn down. New homes have been built nearby for disaster-affected families, with some residents with children moving in from outside Fukushima. A resident told me that the current indoor radiation level was as high as 0.3μSv/h, five to ten times higher than the levels before 2011. Part of the Difficult-to-Return zone begins just behind the fences surrounding these homes. Such living conditions should never be called safe.
Read MoreLife as a “displaced person”
Fleeing the Fukushima disaster left many families fatherless, including my own, writes Akiko Morimatsu
I am Akiko Morimatsu. I left Fukushima to avoid radiation exposure caused by the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, and I have been living as an internally displaced person.
Fourteen years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011 and the subsequent accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The accident is far from over and the crippled power plant continues to contaminate the oceans, air, and land connected to the rest of the world. The situation is anything but “under control”, and I am outraged that none of the leaders of the Japanese State have acknowledged this fact.
Even after 14 years, many people continue to remain displaced. The number of evacuees registered with the government (Reconstruction Agency) is still approximately 29,000 people in all 47 prefectures of Japan, and they are in desperate need of government protection and relief.
However, the exact number of evacuees has never been counted by the Japanese government.
In fact, many more people than registered in official statistics have been compelled to flee their homes and are still in distress with no relief in sight, as they are not officially recognized as evacuees.
I have two children. At the time of the disaster, they were a 5-month-old baby and a 3-year-old toddler. For the past 14 years, my husband (the children’s father) lived in Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture, and I was living with my children in Osaka City, far apart one from the other.
Thus, people living in contaminated areas outside of the mandatory evacuation zones, made their not-easy-to-take decision to escape from the radiation source with only mothers and their children, who are more vulnerable to radiation. And this, without official aide or support. Even now, there are many people displaced living by their own means, and among them, a large number of households without fathers.
Read MoreThe truths they won’t tell you
The nuclear industry deliberately hides its radiation dangers, write Cindy Folkers and Amanda M. Nichols
Scientists have been arguing about the health risks from radiation since the end of the 19th century, when radioactivity was first discovered. Today, with electricity demand soaring and AI companies clamoring for their own nuclear power plants, from small modular reactor projects to giant new nuclear builds, that century-old argument is ongoing.
But now it’s mostly a battle between scientists on the one hand and the nuclear industry, the politicians it lobbies and gullible media on the other.
Currently, scientists are being drowned out. The Biden administration proposed to triple U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050, and President Trump is perceived as favoring nuclear expansion as well. Despite reams of peer-reviewed studies and books showing radiation’s harmful effects, there is persistent denialism that seems impervious to fact-checking.
It took until this century for the U.S. government to finally admit that radiation had killed workers at nuclear weapons plants. For Congress, compensating them remains politically radioactive: lawmakers failed to reauthorize the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act that expired in 2024. Media coverage increasingly and uncritically repeats the talking points of nuclear industry spokespeople, who preposterously claim you would have to stand next to nuclear waste for a year to get as much radiation as having an X-ray, or that eating a banana gives you as much radiation exposure as living next to a nuclear plant.
This is dangerous disinformation in a long line of dangerous disinformation.
After the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Japan, the director of the Manhattan Project, Gen. Leslie R. Groves, debunked reports of radiation sickness as Japanese “propaganda.” Later, when he had to admit its existence, Groves misled Congress and the public by saying it was “a very pleasant way to die.”
