Beyond Nuclear International
Back on track
Renewed support for renewables and an end to nuclear power keep Germany on its carbon neutral path
By Linda Pentz Gunter
Germany is a country of sensible shoes. And, I might add, supremely comfortable ones. Germans do buttery leather as well as they do beer.
Germany’s energy policy is similarly sensible. Germans see no reason to choose the slowest, most expensive, most dangerous and decidedly non-renewable energy source with which to address the climate crisis.
Consequently, Germany rejected nuclear power, and on Saturday April 15, it closed the last of its reactors. Germany, like its even more sensible neighbor, Austria — where nothing nuclear may even traverse its terrain — is now a nuclear-free country. Almost. The next step for the German anti-nuclear movement will be to close the URENCO uranium enrichment facility there and the Lingen fuel fabrication plant. And of course there remain nuclear weapons in Germany, not theirs, but ours.
While France continues to wobble along on its high-fashion nuclear stilettos, turning ankles and snapping off heels whenever the going gets rough, Germany will trudge on inexorably, and comfortably, to its stated goal of carbon neutral by 2045.
Germany also plans to end it coal use possibly as soon as 2030, but certainly by 2038. Although, you’d never know it, with all the alarmist hype in circulation post nuclear shutdown. The nuclear lobby, already in propaganda over-drive, has now gone supersonic in its efforts to persuade the world that Germany’s choice to close those last three reactors — never mind that their energy has already been replaced by renewables —will mean burning more coal.
Read MoreDear AOC, reprocessing is not recycling
Missteps deliver Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez into the hands of the pro-nuclear propagandists
Note: During a visit to Japan, including to the destroyed Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant site, US Representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, an outspoken Democrat from Queens, New York, made a series of Instagram posts. Despite being loaded with errors of fact and science, her pronouncements were seized upon by the nuclear power propagandists, heralding her as the latest defector from the “Left” to the pro-nuclear power cause — even though nuclear power is in fact not a partisan issue; a majority of elected Democrats support it. AOC did not state overtly that she supported nuclear power. But her errors are costly — to her credibility, as well as to the climate cause.
In April, Ralph Nader’s new newspaper, the Capitol Hill Citizen, printed Linda Pentz Gunter’s article, republished below, specifically about AOC’s descriptions of reprocessing. (AOC also made errors about Japan’s energy situation in her other Instagram posts from her trip.)
Capitol Hill Citizen comes out in print only. To subscribe or purchase single copies, click here.
By Linda Pentz Gunter
The progressive Democratic congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has 8.6 million followers on her Instagram account, a number identical to the online readership of the New York Times.
With her rock star-like AOC moniker and plenty of adoring fans, what the U.S. representative from Queens, New York writes or says has an impact. And it needs to be accurate. Presumably that is why Members of Congress deploy a slew of aides, tasked with delivering the details on a likely sometimes overwhelming array of topics.
When it comes to nuclear power, however, the Congresswoman from New York appears to be flying solo. Either that, or her aides are failing to do their homework. AOC’s stance on nuclear power was as confusing — and arguably as confused — during the introduction of the short-lived Green New Deal four years ago as her latest venture on Instagram after her February 2023 trip to Japan.
In 2019, after a February 7 joint press conference to roll out the blueprint for a Green New Deal alongside fellow Democrat, Senator Ed Markey, AOC’s office published details of the plan with nuclear power explicitly excluded. There was an immediate backlash, after which the reference to nuclear power’s exclusion was abruptly deleted. Asked to explain the switch, AOC told reporters that the Green New Deal “leaves the door open on nuclear so we can have that conversation” and that she herself did not “take a strong anti- or pro-position on it.”
From Japan earlier this year, AOC delivered a series of bubbly Instagram updates, mostly expressing her delight with Japan’s bullet trains. After her visit to the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, site of the devastating March 2011 explosions and triple meltdowns, she put up a series of informational posts, then stumbled badly on the final question, which asked: “France uses nuclear power. How do they manage it differently? They don’t have earthquakes….”
For reasons that remain unclear, other than the French connection, AOC used this opportunity to launch what sounded unmistakably like praise for the end phase of nuclear power production — reprocessing. Only she called it “recycling”, a deliberately misleading industry term that masks the highly polluting operations involved in reprocessing, which takes irradiated reactor fuel and separates the plutonium from uranium in a chemical bath.
She then made a series of points, all of which were either factually or scientifically inaccurate, or both. We reached out to AOC’s press office for a response, but as of press time there was none.
Read MoreLuck is not a safety plan
How much more perilous can the situation at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant become?
By Linda Pentz Gunter
Luck is not a sound basis on which to rely when we are dealing with nuclear risks. But luck is again what me must depend on as we watch and wait for the worst to happen — or not — at the six-reactor Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
The plant, located in the southwestern region of the country — the area most directly embroiled in some of the most intense fighting, and with parts of it already “annexed” by Russia — has already experienced some frightening near-misses. These include shelling and missile attacks and frequent losses of offsite power that, if not restored promptly, could lead to a meltdown.
The plant has been occupied by Russian forces since March 4, 2022. Rumors abound that a severely depleted workforce is laboring under stressful and even violent conditions, while other staff have fled or have disappeared.
Now we learn that mass evacuations are underway from communities close to the nuclear plant. These include residents of Enerhodar, the city that houses most of the plant workers and their families.
An estimated 3,000 people, including 1,000 children, have already reportedly evacuated, although where to is unclear. Some Ukrainian sources have suggested this is effectively a “kidnapping” or even “deportation” exercise, with evacuees being taken deeper into Russia.
There are conflicting reports about whether any plant workers number among the evacuees. Energoatom, the Ukrainian nuclear energy authority, claims that as many as 2,700 plant workers are being relocated to Russia, leaving the plant dangerously understaffed.
These conditions could lead to human error, a leading cause of accidents, including the nuclear power plant disasters at Three Mile Island and Chornobyl.
Read MoreA nuclear Bacchanalia
Insufferable pro-nuclear hyperbole saturates the media, but it’s fake delivered as fact
By Linda Pentz Gunter
The pro-nuclear reprobates are enjoying their Bacchanalia. They are reveling in the tidal wave of propaganda they have unleashed across multiple media platforms. They are basking in their new-found role as the cool dudes on the block, the defiers of what they see as traditional old thinking that relegates nuclear power to the past.
While our blood pressure rises, faced with a lavishly funded saturation campaign that plants pro-nuclear falsehoods absolutely everywhere, the hedonists of nuclear are soaring on a fanfaronade of hot air (emanating from which orifice we shall not say).
They are trained dissimulators, skilled at delivering fake as fact. And they believe they are winning. But theirs is a vainglorious and entirely temporary victory, a conquest of cozenage.
There is a puncture in their balloon of bombast. And, like many a Dickens villain, they are due for their comeuppance.
In the meantime, they’ve managed to beguile film director, Oliver Stone, their new favorite attack dog. Like his namesake director before him, Robert Stone, who made a pro-nuclear cinematic vanishing act called Pandora’s Promise, Oliver Stone brings us Nuclear Now, a “documentary” about a failed technology of yesteryear dressed up as a fresh idea. It is duly presented not as one of the solutions to the climate crisis — a line even the nuclear industry rarely steps across with their “do everything” credo — but the only solution!
What is it with these Stone dudes? (Excuse me while I break into a chorus of “everybody must get stoned” because you’d have to be to believe this stuff.)
Read MoreA life uprooted and stolen
Wherever they went, it wasn’t home
From Voices of Nuclear Victims, a project of Nos Voisins Lontains. 311
The callous dismissal of those who suffered, were sickened, or died as a result of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, is pervasive among the nuclear lobby. But even as they dismiss those directly affected by the nuclear accident, they ignore victims of the earthquake and tsunami who, because of the high radiation levels caused by the subsequent nuclear disaster, could not be rescued. (See our earlier article about the short film Munen (Remorse) on this.) Shouldn’t their deaths also be ascribed to the nuclear accident, asks Fukushima evacuee, Mizue Kanno? Her poignant testimony forms the second installment of the short film series, Voices of Nuclear Victims. You can watch her 12-minute testimonial below and also a short interview feature with Ms. Kanno made by Friends of the Earth Japan. (Note: We are unable to find a source to verify Ms. Kanno’s claim that people who could not be rescued from the earthquake/tsunami destruction were left to starve to death. This does not necessarily mean it did not happen and it possibly refers to those who were also physically trapped or injured.)
Mizue Kanno tells her story:
There is one thing I would like to tell you: there are lives that could have been saved, if the nuclear accident had not occurred. The coastal areas of our municipality were severely affected by the tsunami, and that on March 11, there were people who were frantically searching: they were firefighters.
Because of the earthquake and tsunami, all electricity sources were cut off. As there was no emergency power supply, at nightfall, it was impossible to light up the sea. There were moans and groans. “Hold on, we’ll be back!” shouted the rescuers. “We’ll be back at dawn!” There were voices of victims responding.
In the pre-dawn darkness of March 12, firefighters and families took the path to the sea.
But it was forbidden to enter within a 5 km radius of the plant. This was because of the nuclear accident. Because radioactive elements were present. That’s why it was forbidden to enter. Family members who had taken refuge in our house returned to rescue the victims, but they were prevented from entering the coastal area.
Finally, when the ban on entry was lifted, among the dead, autopsies revealed many who had died of starvation. These are lives that could have been saved. If the nuclear accident had not happened, these people would have been rescued.
Haven’t they also died because of the nuclear accident?
If it hadn’t been for the nuclear accident, they would still be alive. They were waiting for rescue. They couldn’t survive on their own. And they starved to death. I think they should be counted among the dead due to the nuclear accident. But our government does not recognize that these are deaths due to the nuclear accident.
Read MoreTritium dump paused
Citizen opposition blocks discharge of radioactive water from Indian Point nuke into Hudson River, for now
Note: Beyond Nuclear is holding online teach-ins on tritium. The first — Tritium: Don’t Dump It! Tritium in the US Nuclear Power Sector — will take place on Tuesday, May 16, 10am-11:30am EDT and features: Dr. Ian Fairlie providing an overview of tritium and the harm it causes; Mary Lampert of Pilgrim Watch describing opposition to tritium dumping by Holtec into Cape Cod Bay from the closed Pilgrim, MA nuclear power plant; and lawyer, Michel Lee of the Council on Intelligent Energy & Conservation Policy, who will discuss the similar threat of tritium dumping by Holtec from the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York into the Hudson River. Register here.
By Julia Conley, Common Dreams
Clean water and public health advocates in New York’s Hudson Valley applauded on April 13 as the energy technology company Holtec International announced it will not move ahead with plans to dump wastewater in May from the former Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, following intense pressure from local communities and state lawmakers.
The company had initially planned to complete its first discharge of wastewater from pools that were used to cool spent nuclear reactor fuel rods late this summer, but recently announced that in May it would discharge 45,000 gallons of the water into the Hudson River, which at least 100,000 people rely on for their drinking water.
The company ultimately plans to release one million gallons of wastewater into the river.
Holtec International said it was taking a “voluntary pause” in the plan to better explain the process of decommissioning the plant, which was shut down in 2021, to the local community and elected officials.
Local clean water group Riverkeeper expressed appreciation that Holtec “heard the concerns of public” and said advocates will continue pushing for an alternative to releasing the wastewater into the Hudson.
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