nuclear-news

Secrecy in the the nuclear priesthood of military, industry and academia

 David Biello, the energy and climate editor at Scientific American Online, describes the nuclear industry is a
relatively small, exclusive club.

“The interplay between academia and also the military and industry is very tight……with this exclusivity comes a culture of secrecy – “a nuclear priesthood,” said Biello, which makes it very difficult to parse out a straightforward answer in the very technical and highly politicised field. ….

Nuclear safety: A dangerous veil of secrecy, Aljazeera, Dorothy Parvaz   11 Aug 2011 “…..Kathleen Sullivan, an anti-nuclear specialist and disarmament education consultant with the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs, said it’s not surprising that research critical of the nuclear energy and weapons isn’t coming out of universities and departments that participate in nuclear research and development.

“It (the influence) of the nuclear lobby could vary from institution to institution,” said Sullivan. “If you look at the history of nuclear weapons manufacturing in the United States, you can see that a lot of research was influenced perverted, construed in a certain direction.”

Sullivan points to the DOE-managed Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California in Berkley (where some of the research for the first atomic bomb was done) as an example of how intertwined academia and government-funded nuclear science are.

The situation really isn’t much different in the field of nuclear energy, said Sullivan.

…….A ‘nuclear priesthood’ David Biello, the energy and climate editor at Scientific American Online, describes the nuclear industry is a relatively small, exclusive club.

“The interplay between academia and also the military and industry is very tight. It’s a small community…they have their little club and they can go about their business without anyone looking over their shoulder. ”

This might explain how, as the Associated Press reported in June, that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission was “working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nationalise ageing reactors operating within standards or simply failing to enforce them.”

one is hard pressed to find a media report quoting a nuclear scientist at any major university sounding the alarms on the risks of contamination in Fukushima……Even anthropologists who study the behaviour of those working in the nuclear power industry, refused to comment on the culture of secrecy that surrounds it….

August 12, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, safety