Beyond Nuclear International
Atoms for Peace was never the plan
Early reactors were primarily intended as producers of plutonium
By Linda Pentz Gunter
Atoms for Peace had a nice ring to it. But it was a fantasy at best, at worst, a lie. Atoms for Peace was never the intention. Atoms for war, as it turned out, was brewing in the background even before Dwight Eisenhower became president of the United States.
After summarily tossing aside the Paley Commission report delivered to his predecessor, President Truman, and which advocated the US choose the solar pathway for energy expansion, Eisenhower embraced a very different report. In 1953, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) delivered a series of studies on Nuclear Power Reactor Technology from four groups of private industry companies.
On the cover of the report is a familiar rogues’ gallery of corporations, including Dow, Monsanto, and Bechtel.
These reports, an initiative of the companies themselves, were designed to find a way to bring private industry into the nuclear power sector. Hitherto, the nuclear sector — almost entirely focused on weapons of course — was firmly under the control of government and the military.
Whose idea was it? Says the AEC:
“Accordingly, when Dr. Charles A. Thomas, of Monsanto Chemical Co., in the summer of 1950 proposed that industry might with its own capital design, construct and operate nuclear reactors for production of plutonium and power, the AEC gave the suggestion interested consideration.”
Plutonium and power. Note which came first.
Before long there were four groups all vying to come up with the best proposal for a dual-purpose reactor — and that’s what they called them — that would make plutonium for the nuclear weapons sector, and oh yes, as a by-product, also generate electricity.
Read More2023 Nuclear-Free Future Awards event and winners announced
Prizes to be awarded at November 28 ceremony in New York City
UPDATE: The venue has changed! The Awards will now be held at the Blue Gallery, 222 E 46th St, New York, NY 10017. A reception at 6pm will be followed by the awards ceremony. All our welcome. The event is free and open to the public. The event is a joint presentation of Beyond Nuclear, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Reverse the Trend.
The winners of the 2023 Nuclear-Free Future Awards, an annual event that honors the many heroes of the global anti-nuclear movement who work to rid the world of uranium mining, nuclear power and nuclear weapons, have now been announced.
They are:
Tina Cordova, a seventh generation native New Mexican, cancer survivor and the co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium. She has campaigned for more than 18 years to bring attention to the negative health effects suffered by the unknowing, unwilling, uncompensated, innocent victims of the first nuclear blast on Earth that took place at the Trinity site in New Mexico. Shockingly, the Trinity victims were never classified as downwinders but Tina and her allies are making extraordinary progress to ensure they are included under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
Benetick Kabua Maddison, a young US-based Marshallese activist who last year became the Executive Director of the Arkansas-based Marshallese Educational Initiative. He works to educate both US and international audiences about the terrible legacy of the 67 US atomic tests conducted in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 and the ongoing health, environmental, and cultural consequences that affect multiple generations with previously unknown epidemics of birth defects and cancers. Benetick works for justice and for a universal commitment to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Hinamoeura Morgant-Cross, a French Polynesian in her mid thirties, whose realization that her own leukemia was a legacy of the French atomic tests in the South Pacific led her into activism. Hinamoeura works to ensure that the stories and experiences of the victims and their families will not be forgotten and to pressure the French government into both acknowledgement of responsibility and medical and financial support. She was elected to the Polynesian Assembly of Representatives last May and in September 2023 shepherded through a unanimous Assembly vote supporting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Daniel Ellsberg for Lifetime Achievement, honored posthumously. (Ellsberg died earlier this year.) Ellsberg is best known for exposing US government decision-making about the Vietnam war when he leaked the Pentagon Papers. However, he was also a nuclear insider, a person who saw firsthand and even participated in planning for nuclear war, something he exposed in detail in his remarkable and chilling final book, The Doomsday Machine. Dan dedicated his life’s work to peace and the prevention of nuclear war.
Deadly dust
A look at the studies of professor Masaharu Hoshi
From Impact
The risks of radiation exposure are better understood today thanks to researchers dedicated to working with the victims of exposure, understanding their symptoms, identifying treatments and developing safety protocols. This article looks at the work of one such researcher, Dr. Masaharu Hoshi.
Harnessing atomic particles and radiation led to powerful and world changing technologies. The field of medical imaging has saved countless lives and continues to push the boundaries of medical interventions and research, which would have been impossible without the first x-ray machines. Unfortunately, not all inventions have been so altruistic.
The advent of nuclear weapons showed the world the destructive potential possible via scientific inquiry. While the dangerous effects of radiation exposure were documented from the inception of this technology, catastrophic events like the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and nuclear disasters at Chernobyl, Semipalatinsk or Fukushima provide a real-time glimpse into the long-term effects of exposure.
Investigating the causes of this exposure in order to prevent future accidents is essential, but so too is cataloguing the rates and types of exposure among the victims. With this information, correlations between exposure and health effects, both short- and long-term, can be assessed. This data is crucial for understanding the mechanisms behind radiation effects on living creatures and in assessing risks, safety protocols and treatment. Since the 1980s, Dr Masaharu Hoshi, Professor Emeritus at Hiroshima University, has been traveling around the world, visiting the sites of nuclear disasters in an effort to fully comprehend the risks. In doing so he is also revealing that there is still much we need to learn regarding the effects of radiation exposure.
Quantifying the risks
“I started my research with the people exposed to radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the year 1980,” says Hoshi. “Before that I completed my dissertation on nuclear physics with a specialty in radiation measurement.” This graduate training positioned him to become an expert on the effects of radiation.
The work that commenced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki right after the blast showed that with higher doses of radiation, the greater the effect on the human body, in the form of symptoms like carcinogenesis. The ratio between exposure and effects is termed risk. This measure of risk is useful in treating people exposed to radiation and it can quantify how much risk individuals face depending on the dose of exposure.
“This work can inform us whether a medical check-up is required every two years depending on the degree of exposure, or if hospitalization is necessary if there has been too much exposure,” explains Hoshi.
He says that the work done in Japan has informed laws regarding radiation exposure safety and protocols in countries around the world, but this is only one scenario in which a person can come into contact with the deadly rays.
“The people exposed to radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the atomic bomb were exposed to gamma rays, including a few neutrons, in a short instant,” outlines Hoshi. “From 1 microsecond to about 1 minute which is quite different from the gradual exposure of actual workers in the radiation industry.”
Read MoreSenators worry about Saudi nuclear arms plans
US should reconsider helping Saudi Arabia develop domestic nuclear power, they wrote
Editor’s introduction: Brett Wilkins with Common Dreams has reported on an important step taken by a handful of US Senators who pushed back last week on selling commercial nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia as part of a deal to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. (Note: this article was originally published before the recent Hamas attacks and Israel’s declaration of war. As always, any views expressed in the article are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Beyond Nuclear.) But while the Senators’ letter to President Joe Biden voices concern that the Saudis could use a domestic reactor program to transition to nuclear weapons, it fails to recognize that this is an inevitable outcome of nuclear power technology no matter whose hands it is in.
By Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams
Amid reports that Saudi Arabia is seeking United States support for its nuclear energy program—whose capacities critics fear could be utilized to develop nuclear weapons—a group of 20 U.S. senators on Wednesday urged President Joe Biden to “seriously consider” whether such a move is in the national interest as the administration brokers a possible normalization deal between the kingdom and Israel.
In addition to concerns over the fundamentalist monarchy’s desire for a U.S. security guarantee as a condition for normalizing relations with apartheid Israel, as well as the future of a two-state solution in illegally occupied Palestine, the senators note in a letter to Biden that “the Saudi government is also reportedly seeking U.S. support to develop a civilian nuclear program, and to purchase more advanced U.S. weaponry.”
“While we should seriously consider whether it is in U.S. interests to help Saudi Arabia develop a domestic nuclear program, we should always maintain the high bar of the ‘gold standard’ 123 Agreement and insist on adherence to the Additional Protocol,” the senators wrote, referring to a provision of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 requiring a country seeking a nuclear cooperation deal with the United States to commit to a set of nine nonproliferation criteria and expanded International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. The U.S. has entered into such agreements with more than two dozen countries, Taiwan, and the IAEA.
Citing “the devastating war in Yemen” waged by a U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition for nearly eight years at the cost of more than 375,000 lives, the senators added that “the provision of more advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia should be done with careful deliberation to ensure that such equipment only be used for truly defensive purposes and does not contribute to a regional arms race.”
Read MoreThe solar world we might have had
Nuclear power has long stifled renewables. Now it needs to go extinct
By Linda Pentz Gunter
We needn’t have had Fukushima at all, now 12 years old and still emitting radiation, still not “cleaned up”, still responsible for forbidden zones where no one can live, play, work, grow crops. We needn’t have had Chornobyl either, or Three Mile Island, or Church Rock. We needn’t have almost lost Detroit.
We could have avoided climate change as well. Not just by responding promptly to the early recognition of the damage fossil fuels were doing. But also by heeding one sensible plan that, if it had been acted upon, would have removed the nuclear power elephant from the energy solutions room and possibly also saved us from plunging into the climate catastrophe abyss in which we now find ourselves.
Right from the beginning, nuclear power made a significant contribution to the climate crisis we now face.
And unfortunately, as is often the case, the United States played the starring role.
Nuclear power was never the answer to climate change and it’s only pretending to be now as a desperate, last-ditch survival tactic. Renewables were always the answer and we’ve known this for decades.
Read MoreA strategy of concealment
Agencies that promote nuclear power are quietly managing its disaster narrative
By Kolin Kobayashi
This year marks the 13th year since the Fukushima accident began, yet the path to a conclusion is by no means clear. The declaration of a state of emergency still cannot be lifted because of the various dangers and difficulties that have arisen. Despite this, Prime Minister Kishida’s government is doing more than ever to promote nuclear power as a basic energy source. This approach is similar to that of the French administration, which is also trying to promote nuclear energy as a dual-use nuclear weapon.
The international nuclear lobby, which represents only a minority, has the influence and money to dominate the world’s population with immense power and has now united the world’s minority nuclear community into one big galaxy. Many of the citizens who have experienced the world’s three most serious civil nuclear accidents have clearly realized that nuclear energy is too dangerous. These citizens are so divided and conflicted that they feel like a helpless minority.
The current situation with the Fukushima accident
Let’s start with the total amount of radiation that the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant still contains today. The spent fuel at the site contains 85 times more cesium-137 than Chornobyl and 50,000 to 100,000 times more than the Hiroshima bomb.
The fuel is still stored in pools on the top floor of the reactor buildings (30 metres above ground), with the exception of Unit 3, the removal of which was completed in 2019.
Now, although 12 years have passed, the precise program for future decommissioning is unclear. While the approximate overall radiation levels are known, the buildings and reactors themselves, where the decommissioning and dismantling work will take place, are highly radioactive and cannot be easily penetrated by workers.
The true extent of the accident is not known, nor is the exact state of dispersion of the corium (the molten magma from the nuclear fuel rods in the reactor core). In Unit 1, for example, it is clear from the images taken by a robot that many parts of the circular concrete foundation supporting the pressure vessel have been damaged by the high heat of the corium. There is a significant risk of collapse in the event of a strong earthquake, and if the 440-tonne vessel collapses, it could hit the storage pool next to it. If this pool is damaged, even partially, another major disaster could occur.
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