Beyond Nuclear International
Ignoring the tanker on the beach
Leave the World Behind takes a deep and metaphorical dive into denial
In light of new fears emerging about Russia’s possible deployment of nuclear-powered or even nuclear-armed weapons in space — that could knock out essential satellites, potentially disabling key communications systems or worse — Leave the World Behind is ever more prescient in its messaging.
By Linda Pentz Gunter
After enduring 2021’s trying-too-hard-to-be-funny Hollywood A-list scenery chew that was Don’t Look Up, it was refreshing to watch a new feature film that truly captures our dangerous inertia with much more subtlety and thereby with far greater alarm. (Did I mention that I didn’t find Don’t Look Up funny? Why didn’t they let Armando Iannucci write it?)
Leave the World Behind, released briefly in cinemas last November before going to Netflix streaming, received, in the main, pretty mediocre reviews. But these came, I feel, from critics who missed the central point of the film and took the whole thing far too literally.
Rather, Leave the World Behind is a multi-layered and almost entirely metaphorical look at our stubborn insistence on ignoring the threats that are bearing down on us. It is a deep dive into denial.
That moment is never better exemplified than early on in the film, when a massive oil tanker charges toward a crowded Long Island shoreline, scattering panicked holiday makers before coming to rest like a massive beached whale.
Our White protagonist family — who had been enjoying a beach weekend — returns to their rented holiday house and tries to rationalize away the dramatic event and simply carry on as normal. Obviously, chorused the critics, no one would do that after such a clear indication that something is very much amiss.
But ignoring the obvious warning signs of that metaphorical beached tanker is exactly what we’ve been doing for decades in response to our three most serious existential threats — the climate crisis, nuclear war and the extreme dangers of nuclear power.
In Leave the World Behind, the threat comes from cyber attacks and our failure to harness technology before it takes over. “I need to think everyone’s going to be OK,” says the White father, perfectly encapsulating the mantra that has resulted in hopes and prayers but little or no action on serious issues, from global threats to gun control.
Read MoreRich men with the wrong answers
Pro-nukers warned coal use would rise as reactors closed in Germany. The opposite happened.
By Linda Pentz Gunter
Remember all those doomsayers from the pro-nuclear mythology unit who cast Germany’s Energiewende — or green energy revolution — as a catastrophic failure? They claimed, totally erroneously or deliberately misleadingly, that the country’s choice to close all its nuclear power plants guaranteed an increase in fossil fuel use and especially coal.
Germany vehemently denied those false predictions since they clearly knew that the country’s renewables were more than able to replace nuclear and fossil fuels. And so it has come to pass.
Germany’s use of lignite, or brown coal, dropped to its lowest level in 60 years in 2023. Even more dramatically, its hard coal use is at the lowest level since 1955. All of this happened at the same time as Germany was closing its last three reactors.
Meanwhile, according to reporting by Clean Energy Wire (CLEW), and citing an analysis (in German) from the research institute, Fraunhofer ISE, renewables “contributed a record share of more than half of the country’s power consumption” in 2023.
“The country sourced nearly 60 percent (59.7%) of its net power production from renewables, which generated a total of 260 terawatt hours (TWh), an increase of 7.2 percent compared to 2022,” the report said.
The 2022 uptick of coal production in Germany was entirely driven by high gas prices and a shortfall of French nuclear power production. The French nuclear sector was so unreliable that 50% of its reactors were out of action in April 2022, and again in November 2022, just as winter electricity usage began to rise.
Consequently, France had to import electricity to keep the lights on and the heat running.
Read MoreMenaced by five Omnicides
Hope lies with societies with deliberative democratic practices and traditions of civic engagement
By Ralph Nader
The countries that straddle our tormented world are woefully unprepared to counter and prevent five Omnicides already underway or looming menacingly on the horizon. This is increasingly true with the yearly passage of neglected opportunities. The gap between our mounting knowledge and its application to these global threats is widening.
1. The Climate Crisis, better called Climate Violence, producing record storms, wildfires, droughts, sea-level rises, floods and unprecedented heat waves, is omnicidal. The year 2023 was the hottest in recorded history. Millions of lives are already being lost, with even more people suffering from climate-related illnesses and injuries. In addition, property destruction is rampant. The consequential effects of natural disasters are mounting in terms of damaged agriculture, soil erosion, habitat destruction (leading to species extinction) and the regional spread of insect-borne diseases such as malaria.
Promised investments for mitigation and prevention made at the international “climate change” conventions have not been fulfilled. Renewable solar energy is growing, to be sure. However, the pace of proven responses required by the accelerating global warming is at abysmally low levels.
2. Viral and bacterial pandemics are looming larger by the decade. Faster transport carriers of infections often zoonotically transmitted, poor collaborations such as between China and the U.S., and increasing human-driven mutations from e.g., reckless over-use of antibiotics are exacerbating these problems. The proliferation of laboratories with inadequate safeguards for their “gain of function” and viruses and bacteria breaching containment all are raising alarming scenarios by scientists from many disciplines.
The Covid-19 pandemic has taken approximately 15 million lives between 2020 to 2021, according to the World Health Organization. Specialists are saying it is not a question of “if,” but a question of “when” future pandemics will occur.
Read MoreA response to the oblivion and impunity of Palomares
The importance of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
By Maribel Hernàndez (Translation from the original Spanish by DeepL)
It has been 58 years since the day that changed the history of Palomares, that small hamlet of Cuevas de Almanzora which, since January 17, 1966, has been living with the aftermath of one of the most serious nuclear weapons accidents of the Cold War.
That morning, a U.S. B-52 bomber collided with the mother plane that was refueling it during a refueling maneuver. As a result of the collision, the four thermonuclear bombs it was carrying fell, each of them 70 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, with the good fortune that, since they were not armed, no nuclear explosion occurred. But two of the bombs fell without parachutes and, as a result of the impact, dispersed their plutonium charge, contaminating Palomares.
The story that followed is well known and, as usually happens in the relationship between power and nuclear armament, is one of machismo. Thus in the midst of Franco’s dictatorship, the narrative starred then Minister of Tourism and Information, Manuel Fraga. “Palomares, clean waters”, read the front page of ABC just two months after the accident. But the problem of plutonium was not in the water, but in the ground, from where it is inhaled in the form of invisible dust and where it remains almost six decades later.
The population was not evacuated nor were they informed of the danger of radioactivity, just as the nuclear powers did with the Indigenous populations of the places they chose to test their atomic bombs, such as the Marshall Islands, Nevada or the Australian Aboriginal lands, among others. Expendable populations far from the centers of power.
Read MoreUna respuesta al olvido y la impunidad de Palomares
L’importancia del Tratado sobre la Prohibición de las Armas Nucleares
Par Maribel Hernàndez
Hace 58 años del día que cambió la historia de Palomares, esa pequeña pedanía de Cuevas de Almanzora que, desde el 17 de enero de 1966, convive con las secuelas de uno de los accidentes con armas nucleares más graves de la Guerra Fría.
Aquella mañana, un bombardero estadounidense B-52 chocó contra el avión nodriza que lo abastecía de combustible en una maniobra de repostaje. A consecuencia de la colisión, cayeron las cuatro bombas termonucleares que portaba, cada una de ellas 70 veces más potente que la de Hiroshima, con la suerte de que al no estar armadas no se produjo ninguna explosión nuclear. Pero dos de las bombas se precipitaron sin paracaídas y, a consecuencia del impacto, dispersaron su carga de plutonio contaminando Palomares.
La historia que siguió es conocida y no faltó, como suele suceder en la relación del poder con el armamento nuclear, el relato de la “hombría” que, en pleno franquismo, protagonizó el entonces ministro de Turismo e Información, Manuel Fraga, con su mediático baño. “Palomares, aguas limpias”, rezaba la portada de ABC apenas dos meses después del accidente. Con ella se daba carpetazo al tema, había que salvar los muebles y pasar página, pero el problema del plutonio no estaba en el agua, sino en la tierra, desde donde es inhalado en forma de polvo invisible y donde permanece casi seis décadas después.
La población no fue evacuada ni se les informó del peligro de la radiactividad, del mismo modo en que procedían las potencias nucleares con las poblaciones autóctonas de los lugares que elegían para probar sus bombas atómicas como Islas Marshall, Nevada o las tierras aborígenes australianas, entre otros. Poblaciones prescindibles lejanas a los centros de poder.
Read MoreWhat a turkey
Hinkley Point C costs hit a new high but nuclear plant still isn’t roasting Christmas turkeys
By Linda Pentz Gunter
The Great Mosque of Mecca is considered the most expensive building in the world at $115.2 billion. Right behind it comes….a nuclear power plant! The two-reactor 3,260MW Hinkley Point C nuclear site still under construction in the UK will now cost at least £46 billion ($59 billion) according to the latest figures released by its developer, the French energy giant, EDF.
As such, Hinkley Point C has now earned the dubious honor of becoming the second most expensive building in the world. And it’s not even finished. The price could soar still higher.
EDF originally bragged that Britons would be baking their Christmas turkeys powered by Hinkley Point C by 2017. The completion date has now been pushed to “after 2029”.
The nuclear power industry is very good at tripling things. Perhaps not global nuclear installations by 2050 as it bragged would happen during an announcement at the COP28 climate summit last December. But the price tag for a new reactor? Timelines for new reactor construction? Straight A grades all around!
That’s almost what’s happening at Hinkley Point C where the new price is more than double the original estimated cost of £18 billion ($23 billion). Getting to triple the cost still seems eminently achievable given the new completion date.
This not-so-shocking news, given nuclear power’s track record, comes after the recent, overblown announcement by Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government that Britain would launch its “biggest expansion of nuclear power for 70 years to create jobs, reduce bills and strengthen Britain’s energy security.” The plan will of course achieve none of these things.
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