Beyond Nuclear International
Luck 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.
Read More“We won’t be scapegoats!”
A new tongue-in-cheek rebellion has risen in France, but the cause is deadly serious
By Linda Pentz Gunter
In France, civil disobedience and defiance of authority — and authoritarianism — is in the national DNA. We have seen it most recently in the demonstrations against the raising of the retirement age, and against proposed agricultural reservoirs known as mega-basins. Before that it was the “yellow vests”, angered at a rise in fuel prices. Further back came the Resistance during World War II, and even further back, of course, the Revolution of 1789.
The French anti-nuclear movement is no exception and has engaged in protests that deliver considerable numbers and abundant creativity — and sometimes a lot of useful tractors as well.
It’s no surprise then to learn that such continued defiance has now spread: to goats.
Before continuing, it’s necessary to explain what a ZAD is. In French, it stands for Zone À Défendre (zone to defend.) ZADs are usually occupations or blocades created by citizens protecting something they deem precious from development or destruction. There are scores of ZADs across France, deemed illegal by French authorities. ZADs have sometimes won, most notably at Notre-Dame-des-Landes, where an unpopular airport project was stopped.
But raids on ZADs can sometimes turn violent, and authorities can over-react as they did in February 2018 at Bure, when 500 gendarmes went in to remove just 15 anti-nuclear activists occupying and attempting to protect the forested site targeted to become the country’s high-level radioactive waste dump.
Dressed in riot gear, the gendarmes used bulldozers, trucks, helicopters, drones and chainsaws to confront the occupiers, self-described “owls” who had been living in tree houses and lookout towers for the past 18 months.
Now, activists around the La Hague nuclear reprocessing site on the northern Cherbourg peninsula, have redefined the ZAD acronym to stand for Zone À Déchets (Waste Zone), and specifically radioactive waste.
Read MoreDogs of war
DNA research among Chornobyl’s dogs could provide answers about the effects of living in a radioactive environment
By Linda Pentz Gunter
Pity the poor dogs (and cats) of Chornobyl. Abandoned in 1986 by owners fleeing the nuclear disaster, their descendants live on in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, an area deemed too radioactive for human habitation and in a country now at war.
Shortly after the 1986 nuclear accident, that saw Chornobyl unit 4 explode and spew deadly radioactive fallout across the former Soviet Union and Western Europe, Soviet authorities made an effort to cull the abandoned pets. (For animal lovers who watched the Sky/HBO drama series, “Chernobyl”, this was a particularly disturbing episode.)
Now, Chornobyl’s hapless lost dogs and cats find themselves living in a war zone as well. Russian troops marched into the Exclusion Zone at the very start of the invasion, in late February 2022, and occupied the Chornobyl power plant site by force. When they moved on, they left behind churned up topsoil that disturbed radioactive fallout and increased radiation levels in the area. As the war drags on, it is impossible to predict whether the Russian troops will be back.
The presence today of at least several hundred semi-feral domestic dogs living around the Chornobyl plant and beyond, indicates that the 1986 cull was not, of course, entirely successful. The Dogs of Chornobyl — and their more furtive feline friends — continue to survive down the generations in a highly radioactive environment. There are other threats too, including exposure to rabies and wolf packs that prey on the dogs and their puppies.
Read More
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