Beyond Nuclear International
Black mist memories
Aboriginal and veteran delegates tell Australian parliament the horrors of nuclear testing
By Gem Romuld, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Australia
In mid-June, four special people who know intimately the personal impacts of nuclear weapons testing, on physical health, mental health, and on the land, travelled to Parliament House in Canberra, Australia’s capital city.
The four were:
Karina Lester: Yankunytjatjara Anangu woman, senior Aboriginal language worker, ICAN Ambassador. Karina’s late father was blinded by the Totem 1 nuclear test at Emu Field.
June Lennon: Yankunytjatjara, Antikarinya and Pitjantjatjara woman who survived the Totem 1 nuclear test as a baby. Her mother, Lallie, and brother Bruce, were recipients of compensation due to their ill-health, caused by radioactive contamination.
Douglas Brooks: was stationed at Monte Bello Islands as a serving member of the Royal Australian Navy in 1956. He was aboard HMS Alert when a 98 kiloton nuclear bomb was detonated just ten miles away, exposing him and the rest of the crew to the full blast of the explosion.
Maxine Goodwin: is the daughter of an Australian nuclear veteran, who became ill as a result of his involvement in the first atomic test in Western Australia. He passed away at 49, leading Maxine to a lifelong search for the truth on how the tests have affected veterans and their families.
The delegates brought their expertise and personal testimonies to speak with parliamentarians about recognition, respect, and repair, and to urge Australia to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Read MoreOppenheimer’s tragedy — and ours
“Father of atomic bomb” paid price for renouncing his “child”
By Lawrence S. Wittner
The July 21, 2023 theatrical release of the film Oppenheimer, focused on the life of a prominent American nuclear physicist, should help to remind us of how badly the development of modern weapons has played out for individuals and for all of humanity.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, American Prometheus, written by Kai Bird and the late Martin Sherwin, the film tells the story of the rise and fall of young J. Robert Oppenheimer, recruited by the U.S. government during World War II to direct the construction and testing of the world’s first atomic bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico. His success in these ventures was followed shortly thereafter by President Truman’s ordering the use of nuclear weapons to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
During the immediate postwar years, Oppenheimer, widely lauded as “the father of the atomic bomb,” attained extraordinary power for a scientist within U.S. government ranks, including as chair of the General Advisory Committee of the new Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).
But his influence ebbed as his ambivalence about nuclear weapons grew. In the fall of 1945, during a meeting at the White House with Truman, Oppenheimer said: “Mr. President, I feel I have blood on my hands.” Incensed, Truman later told Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson that Oppenheimer had become “a crybaby” and that he didn’t want “to see that son of a bitch in this office ever again.”
Oppenheimer was also disturbed by the emerging nuclear arms race and, like many atomic scientists, championed the international control of atomic energy. Indeed, in late 1949, the entire General Advisory Committee of the AEC came out in opposition to the U.S. development of the H-bomb―although the president, ignoring this recommendation, approved developing the new weapon and adding it to the rapidly growing U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Read MoreRed alert at Zaporizhzhia?
The threatened deadly scenarios could not happen at a wind farm
By Linda Pentz Gunter
Amidst accusations from both the Russian and Ukrainian sides that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine has been wired for detonation or could be deliberately attacked during the current war there, one absolute truth remains: nuclear power plants are inherently dangerous.
Whether the rhetorical threats are real or not remains subject for debate. What is incontrovertibly real is the danger a nuclear power plant poses. After all, that is why the two sides are making these threats in the first place: because the outcome would be so deadly. If Zaporizhzhia was a wind farm, it wouldn’t even be mentioned.
Each nuclear reactor contains a lethal radioactive inventory, in the reactor core and also in the fuel pools into which the irradiated fuel is offloaded and, over time, densely packed. Casks also house nuclear waste offloaded from the fuel pools.
Zaporizhzhia is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe with (as of 2017, the last time figures were available) at least 2,204 tons of highly radioactive waste fuel in storage at the site – 855 tons inside the spent fuel pools, and 1,349 tons in the dry cask storage facility, according to a Greenpeace analysis.
Depending on the severity of what transpires, any or all of this radioactive fuel could be ignited.
Amidst the confusion and unreliability of any pronouncements uttered through the “fog of war”, there remain several unanswered questions that have led to heightened rumor and speculation:
Has the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in fact been wired for detonation and whose interests would be served by blowing up the plant?
Why is there an exodus of both Russian and Ukrainian plant personnel?
Will the sabotage of the downstream Kakhovka dam that resulted in catastrophic flooding, also lead to an equally catastrophic loss of available cooling water supplies for the reactors and fuel pools?
Will the backup diesel generators, frequently turned to for powering the essential cooling each time the plant has lost connection to the electricity grid, last through each crisis, given their fuel must also be replenished, potentially not possible under war conditions?
Read MoreHoltec hogs the money
Michigan ratepayers will foot the bill for reactor resuscitation
By Jeff Alson
The 52-year old Palisades nuclear power plant near South Haven, Michigan, on the shore of Lake Michigan near both Chicago and Grand Rapids, is one of the oldest and most degraded reactors in the country. In 2006, Palisades’ original owner, Consumers Energy, cited a wide range of major safety concerns when it sold the plant to Entergy, including that Palisades had one of the most embrittled reactor vessels in the country, needed a new reactor vessel head and steam generator, and had suffered from control rod drive mechanism seal leaks since it first opened.
As natural gas, and then wind and solar, became cheaper and cheaper, Palisades’ electricity became increasingly uncompetitive. Michigan ratepayers subsidized its electricity for years, sometimes paying as much as 57% above market rates. Trying to minimize additional costs, Entergy refused to invest in the most important safety repairs.
In 2018, Entergy announced it would sell the old and dangerous plant to Holtec, a decommissioning company, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved. The plant was formally closed on May 20, 2022, nuclear fuel was removed on June 13, and the plant was sold to Holtec on June 28, 2022.
The NRC then terminated Palisades’ operating license.
For four years, from 2018 through 2022, every major stakeholder—Entergy, the NRC, the Michigan Public Service Commission, energy and environmental NGOs, groups representing electricity consumers, and, notably, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer—agreed that Palisades should be shut down.
The Governor’s own MI Healthy Climate Plan, released in April 2022, appropriately ignored Palisades’ imminent closure, since there are far cheaper and safer alternatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
What changed? Holtec saw an opportunity to feed from the public trough by getting billions of dollars of corporate welfare, from both the state and federal government, to raise Palisades from the dead.
Read MoreHigh nuclear crimes don’t pay
Politicians and executives snared for their roles in bribery and racketeering schemes
By Linda Pentz Gunter
Breaking: On June 29, former Ohio Speaker of the House, Republican, Larry Householder, was handed down the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for his role in the high crimes described below. His co-conspirator, Matt Borges, the former Ohio GOP Chairman, was sentenced on June 30 to five years in federal prison.
This is part one of a two-part story on bribery and corruption in the nuclear power realm and the questionable ethics of legal lobbying. The original article was published in its entirety in Capitol Hill Citizen, a print-only newspaper published by Ralph Nader. These articles are reproduced with kind permission of the editor. Part two will be published in the next few weeks. Capitol Hill Citizen comes out in print only. To subscribe or purchase single copies, click here.
It all began when Ohio nuclear power plant owner, FirstEnergy, began “bleeding cash” in a desperate effort to keep its aging and uneconomical Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants solvent.
The effort bankrupted FirstEnergy subsidiary, FirstEnergy Solutions, then owner of the two nuclear plants. The shareholders wanted out. FirstEnergy threatened to close the plants. But Ohio House Republican, Larry Householder, had other plans.
Householder concocted a nefarious scheme to extract $61 million from the failing company to ensure his re-election and that of enough political allies to guarantee his return to the House Speakership.
This, in turn, would secure enough votes to ensure passage of a $1.3 billion bailout bill, known as HB6, that would rescue the two nuclear plants along with struggling coal plants.
And it worked. For a while.
Read MoreComing together for peace
American, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians gather in Vienna to call for peace
By Medea Benjamin
During the weekend of June 10-11 in Vienna, Austria, over 300 people representing peace organizations from 32 countries came together for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine to demand an end to the fighting. In a formal conference declaration, participants declared, “We are a broad and politically diverse coalition that represents peace movements and civil society. We are firmly united in our belief that war is a crime against humanity and there is no military solution to the current crisis.”
To amplify their call for a ceasefire, Summit participants committed themselves to organizing Global Weeks of Action—protests, street vigils and political lobbying—during the days of September 30-October 8.
Summit organizers chose Austria as the location of the peace conference because Austria is one of only a few neutral non-NATO states left in Europe. Ireland, Switzerland and Malta are a mere handful of neutral European states, now that previously neutral states Finland has joined NATO and Sweden is next in line. Austria’s capital, Vienna, is known as “UN City,” and is also home to the Secretariat of the OSCE (the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), which monitored the ceasefire in the Donbas from the signing of the Minsk II agreement in 2015 until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Surprisingly, neutral Austria turned out to be quite hostile to the Peace Summit. The union federation caved in to pressure from the Ukrainian Ambassador to Austria and other detractors, who smeared the events as a fifth column for the Russian invaders. The ambassador had objected to some of the speakers, including world-renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs and European Union Parliament member Clare Daly.
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