nuclear-news

Clamshell Alliance returns to the barricades

November 8, 2026 by beyondnuclearinternational

Anti-nuclear protesters from the 1970s were back in force at Lowell, MA to protest a pro-nuclear gathering of northeastern governors who didn’t turn up, reports David Detmold

In a protest vaguely reminiscent of the 70s, three dozen antinuclear, pro-democracy activists from New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts gathered in front of the Meehan Center at UMass Lowell on September 30 to tell the governors of the six Northeastern states, “No Nukes.” The governors had been invited to attend a conference promoting the advantages of next generation nuclear power in the Northeast.

Outside the conference hall, the small crowd of protestors seemed a bit dazed by the circularity of time and circumstance since they first got together to stop the construction of the Seabrook nuke in the mid-70s, and to decommission the Vermont Yankee reactor in the early 80s………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Reactors for war?

This summer, in a further attempt to jumpstart the moribund domestic nuclear power industry, the White House ordered the Department of War to construct nuclear reactors on five Army bases, at an estimated cost to the taxpayers of $2.5 billion. In an end-run around the rickety regulatory framework that once tried to prevent workers and the general public from being exposed to excessive radiation from the daily operation of civilian nukes, these military nukes would be exempt from even the nominal oversight of the neutered Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Under the current regime, all pretense of protecting the public has been tossed overboard at the NRC, which is ditching its ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) radiation standard and going all out to make nuclear power profitable for its balky investors, public health be damned.

The governors of the six Northeastern states can read the nuclear tea leaves as well as anyone, and Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts is the chief culprit here. She was the one who invited her five neighboring chief execs for the pronuclear booster day rally on September 30 in Lowell.

None of the governors bothered to show up, including Healey, but they sent their aides to declare to the media: “We’ve all Gone Fission.”

The real action was outside the canned conference where members of antinuclear groups like CAN and the Clamshell Alliance held a lively press conference under the overarching umbrella of the Coalition for Democracy and Safe Energy……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Cancer cluster evidence

Dr. Peter Moyer, chair emeritus at Boston University’s School of Medicine, spoke on behalf of Physicians for Social Responsibility, citing two recently published epidemiological studies by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, evaluating the human health impact of living within 20 miles of a nuclear reactor.

“I was not surprised to find an increase in cancer fatalities statistically correlated to living in proximity to nuclear reactors,” said Moyer, who added the worst area for excess cancer fatalities in Massachusetts is Plymouth County, near the mothballed Pilgrim reactor site.

The Harvard studies found that around the country, since the year 2000, 115,000 excess cancer deaths were statistically associated with living in proximity to nuclear reactors, according to data published in Nature Communications in February of this year.

Drawing on statistics from the Massachusetts Cancer Registry, a second Harvard study (published in December of 2025) found an excess of 20,600 cancer deaths in Massachusetts linked to nuclear reactor proximity in the same time period, with a spike around Plymouth.

Dr. Moyer urged everyone in the audience to read a book published by a nuclear physicist named M.V. Ramana called Nuclear Power is Not the Solution, which details the high costs, slow deployment, and radioactive hazards of this uniquely unforgiving technology. Perhaps a collection could be taken up to buy a copy for each of the Northeastern governors…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2026/11/08/clamshell-alliance-returns-to-the-barricades/

November 11, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, USA