nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Plan to release Fukushima nuclear plant water into sea faces local opposition: “The sea is not a garbage dump”

CBS BY ELIZABETH PALMER, MAY 31, 2023

Japan’s government is asking for international backup as it prepares to release thousands of gallons of water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea. The plan has alarmed the public and outraged fishermen — even as the international energy agency looks inclined to back it.

………….The plant sits in what was a lush coastal part of Japan, famous for its seafood and delicious fruit. Today, there’s still no-go area around the power station where fields lie fallow and homes sit abandoned.

Inside a high security fence studded with warning signs, engineers are still working to remove radioactive fuel rods that melted inside the reactors. They’ll be at it for decades.

Another problem is piling up in hundreds of metal tanks on the site: they contain more than a million tons of contaminated water.

…………………………………….. “Piping water into the sea is an outrage,” said Haruo Ono, who has been fishing the ocean off the coast of Fukushima all his life.

“The sea is not a garbage dump,” he said. “The company says it’s safe, but the consequences could catch up with us 50 years down the road.”

………………………………..Haruo Ono, the fisherman, said the science is not the issue.

“People don’t understand it,” he said. “Mothers won’t choose Fukushima fish knowing it’s been swimming in radioactive water. Even if the experts say it’s safe.”

Under current rules, he can only take his fishing vessels out to sea a day or two a week, when he gets the OK from the government.

“This is the end of my livelihood,” he said.

……………. The Fukushima nuclear plant won’t be safely decommissioned for years to come. So far taxpayers have paid $90 billion to clean it up.   https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fukushima-nuclear-plant-water-plan-release-into-sea-fear-controversy/

Advertisement

June 2, 2023 Posted by | Japan, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Protest Disrupts Opening of North America’s Largest Weapons Fair

Canada, Nonviolent Activism, By World BEYOND War, May 31, 2023

OTTAWA — Over a hundred people have disrupted the opening of CANSEC, North America’s largest military weapons convention in Ottawa, where 10,000 attendees were expected to gather.

Activists carrying 50 foot banners saying “Stop Profiting from War,” “Arms Dealers Not Welcome” and holding dozens of “War Crimes Start Here” signs blocked vehicle and pedestrian entrances as attendees attempted to register for and enter the convention centre, delaying Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand’s opening keynote address for over an hour. In police efforts to remove the protesters, they grabbed banners, and handcuffed and arrested one protester, who was later released without charges.

The protest was convened to “oppose CANSEC and the profiteering from war and violence it is designed to support”, promising to “make it impossible for anyone to come anywhere near their weapons fair without confronting the violence and bloodshed these arms dealers are complicit in.”

“We’re here today in solidarity with everyone who has faced down the barrel of a weapon sold at CANSEC, everyone whose family member has been killed, whose communities were displaced and harmed by the weapons being peddled and on display here” said Rachel Small, organizer with World BEYOND War. “While more than eight million refugees have fled Ukraine since the start of 2022, while more than 400,000 civilians have been killed in eight years of war in Yemen, while at least 24 Palestinian children were killed by Israeli forces since the start of this year, the weapons companies sponsoring and exhibiting in CANSEC are raking in record billions in profits. They are the only people who win these wars.”

Lockheed Martin, one of the major sponsors of CANSEC, has seen its stocks soar 37% percent by the end of 2022, while Northrop Grumman’s share price increased 40%. Just prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lockheed Martin Chief Executive Officer James Taiclet said on an earnings call that he predicted the conflict would lead to inflated military budgets and additional sales for the company. Greg Hayes, CEO of Raytheon, another CANSEC sponsor, told investors last year that the company expected to see “opportunities for international sales” amid the Russian threat. He added: “I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.” Hayes received an annual compensation package of $23 million in 2021, an 11% increase over the previous year, and $22.6 million in 2022.

“CANSEC shows just how deeply private profiteering is embedded in Canada’s foreign and military policy” shared Shivangi M, international human rights lawyer and chairperson of ILPS in Canada. “This event highlights that plenty of people high up in the government and corporate worlds see war not as a devastating, destructive thing, but as a business opportunity. We are demonstrating today because the people at CANSEC are not acting in the interests of ordinary working people. The only way to stop them is by working people getting together and demanding an end to the arms trade.”

Canada has become one of the world’s top arms dealers globally, with Canadian arms exports totalling $2.73-billion in 2021. However most exports bound for the United States were not included in the government figures, despite the U.S. being a major importer of Canadian weapons, receiving more than half of all Canada’s weapons exports each year.

“The Government of Canada is slated to table its annual Exports of Military Goods report today,” said Kelsey Gallagher, researcher with Project Ploughshares. “As has been the trend in recent years, we expect huge volumes of arms to have been transferred around the world in 2022, including some to serial human rights abusers and authoritarian states.”

The promotional video for CANSEC 2023 features Peruvian, Mexican, Ecuadorean, and Israeli militaries and ministers attending the convention…………………………………………………………………………………….

BACKGROUND

10,000 people are expected to attend CANSEC this year. The weapons expo will bring together an estimated 280 exhibitors, including weapons manufacturers, military technology and supply companies, media outlets, and government agencies. 50 international delegations are also expected to attend. CANSEC promotes itself as “a one-stop shop for first responders, police, border and security entities and special operations units.” The weapons expo is organized by the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI), the “industry voice” for more than 650 defense and security companies that generate $12.6 billion in annual revenues, roughly half of which come from exports.

Hundreds of lobbyists in Ottawa represent arms dealers not only competing for military contracts, but lobbying the government to shape the policy priorities to fit the military equipment they are hawking. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, BAE, General Dynamics, L-3 Communications, Airbus, United Technologies and Raytheon all have offices in Ottawa to facilitate access to government officials, most of them within a few blocks from Parliament.

CANSEC and its predecessor, ARMX, have faced staunch opposition for over three decades. …………………………………………………

Among the 280+ exhibitors that will be at CANSEC:

Among the 280+ exhibitors that will be at CANSEC:

  • Elbit Systems – supplies 85% of drones used by the Israeli military to monitor and attack Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and infamously the bullet used to murder Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh
  • General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada – makes the billions of dollars of Light Armoured Vehicles (tanks) Canada exports to Saudi Arabia
  • L3Harris Technologies – their drone technology is used for border surveillance and targeting laser guided missiles. Now bidding to sell armed drones to Canada to drop bombs overseas and surveil Canadian protests.
  • Lockheed Martin – by far the largest weapons producer in the world, they brag about arming over 50 countries, including many of the most oppressive governments and dictatorships
  • Colt Canada – sells guns to the RCMP, including C8 carbine rifles to the C-IRG, the militarized RCMP unit terrorizing Indigenous land defenders in service of oil and logging companies.
  • Raytheon Technologies – builds the missiles that will arm Canada’s new Lockheed Martin F-35 warplanes
  • BAE Systems – builds the Typhoon fighter jets Saudi Arabia uses to bomb Yemen
  • Bell Textron – sold helicopters to the Philippines in 2018 even though its president once boasted he had thrown a man to his death from a helicopter and warned he would do the same to corrupt government workers
  • Thales – weapon sales implicated in human rights violations in West Papua, Myanmar and Yemen.
  • Palantir Technologies Inc (PTI) – provides Artificial Intelligence (AI) predictive system to Israeli security forces, to identify people in occupied Palestine. Provides the same mass surveillance tools to law enforcement agencies and police departments, circumventing warrant procedures.  https://worldbeyondwar.org/protest-disrupts-opening-of-north-americas-largest-weapons-fair/

June 2, 2023 Posted by | opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

A Mothers Day protest: Activists blockaded the entrance to the US 2 Navy’s west-coast nuclear submarine base

No survivors. Protestors bring their annual message for peace to the gates of hell

By Leonard Eiger  by beyondnuclearinternational

Activists blockaded the entrance to the US Navy’s west-coast nuclear submarine base, which is home to the largest operational concentration of deployed nuclear weapons, in a nonviolent direct action the day before Mother’s Day.

Eight peace activists from the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, holding banners reading “The Earth is Our Mother Treat Her With Respect”  and “Nuclear Weapons are Immoral to Use, Immoral to Have, Immoral to Make,” briefly blocked all incoming traffic at the Main Gate at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in Silverdale, Washington as part of a May 13th Mothers Day observance. 

Traffic was diverted as the 15 member Seattle Peace Chorus Action Ensemble, facing the Navy’s security detail, sang “The Lucky Ones”, an original composition by their director, Doug Balcom of Seattle, to the assembled guards and Navy personnel. 

The song describes the different stages of personal, regional and global destruction that a nuclear war would inflict on humanity and the earth’s biosphere, and posits whether survivors to later stages of the devastation would wish they’d perished earlier; it ends with a call to save us from this fate by eliminating all nuclear weapons.  …………………………………

Tom Rogers, a retired Navy captain and former nuclear submarine commanding officer, stated: “The destructive power of the nuclear weapons deployed here on board Trident submarines is beyond human imagination. The simple fact is, that a nuclear exchange between the great powers would end civilization on our planet. I understand this. If I fail to protest the existence of these evil weapons, then I am complicit.”

The civil disobedience was part of Ground Zero’s annual observance of Mothers Day, first suggested in the United States in 1872 by Julia Ward Howe as a day dedicated to peace.  Howe saw the effects on both sides of the Civil War and realized destruction from warfare goes beyond the killing of soldiers in battle. …………………………………….

The Navy is currently in the process of building a new generation of ballistic missile submarines — called the Columbia-class — to replace the current OHIO-class “Trident” fleet. The Columbia-class submarines are part of a massive “modernization” of all three legs of the nuclear triad that also include the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, which will replace the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the new B-21 stealth bomber. 

The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action was founded in 1977. The center is on 3.8 acres adjoining the Trident submarine base at Bangor, Washington. We resist all nuclear weapons, especially the Trident ballistic missile system.

Leonard Eiger is with Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action.

May 31, 2023 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

An Open Letter to the Australian Government from concerned scholars regarding the AUKUS Agreement

By Concerned Academics and ExpertsMay 24, 2023,  https://johnmenadue.com/an-open-letter-to-the-australian-government-from-concerned-scholars-regarding-the-aukus-agreement/

We the undersigned are scholars of the humanities and social sciences and other disciplines with expertise in the following issues. We write this open letter to express our concerns regarding the Australia, United Kingdom, United States (AUKUS) trilateral security agreement. Specifically, our concerns relate to pillar one of the agreement, the joint development with the US and the UK of a nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) capability for Australia.

The underlying strategic rationale behind the AUKUS decision has not been adequately explained to the Australian public. Even if it is argued that the SSNs may provide certain capability advantages, the government has not made clear how AUKUS will translate into a safer Australia.

AUKUS will come at a huge financial cost and with great uncertainty of its success. It is likely to compound Australia’s strategic risks, heighten geopolitical tensions, and undermine efforts at nuclear non-proliferation. It puts Australia at odds with our closest neighbours in the region, distracts us from addressing climate change, and risks increasing the threat of nuclear war. Australia’s defence autonomy will only be further eroded because of AUKUS. All of this will be done to support the primacy of an ally whose position in Asia is more fragile than commonly assumed, and whose domestic politics is increasingly unstable

There is no question that a submarine capability is critical for Australia’s defence, particularly for undertaking surveillance and protecting our maritime approaches. The central and critical question, however, is does defending Australia require the offensive long-range power-projection capabilities provided by SSNs?

The answer provided by Defence, and successive Australian governments, has until recently been consistently in the negative. The procurement of French-designed diesel-electric powered submarines, initially sought to replace the ageing Collins-class boats, would be, it was promised, ‘regionally superior’. Now, we are told, it is only the superior attributes of SSNs that fulfil Australia’s defence requirements.

Perhaps this is the case. But Australia should not proceed based solely on these publicly untested assumptions. Peter Varghese, former head of the Office of National Assessments and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, makes the salient point that AUKUS is too momentous a decision to be left to the ‘echo chamber’ of classified discussions. It demands a yet to be had ‘proper and forensic public discussion about other options and their underlying rationale’.

SSNs, it has been proclaimed, are superior vessels when compared to conventionally-powered submarines in terms of stealth, speed, manoeuvrability, endurance, and survivability. This is correct in some respects, but only to an extent, and with important qualifications. Many of the apparent advantages of SSNs are conditional on the specific operational environment, and technological developments may render them less stealthy and effective than defence officials assume.

More importantly, possible superior capabilities alone do not translate into direct defence benefits, and many of the claims made in favour of SSNs enhancing Australia’s security do not survive scrutiny. For example, it’s been argued that the superior speed and endurance of SSNs provides advantages for protecting Australia’s vital shipping routes. However, the volume of our seaborne trade is much too large to patrol effectively, and that which passes through the South China Sea goes mainly to China.

Similarly, the argument that SSNs are required to protect Australia’s undersea communications infrastructure is overstated. Spread across a large geographic area, undersea cables are difficult to protect militarily, vulnerable to attack not only by submarines but also by relatively unsophisticated and cheap underwater technologies.

Significantly, there has been no compelling strategic argument made for why a small number of expensive nuclear-powered submarines confers greater defence advantages rather than a much larger number of cheaper conventionally powered ones.

Whatever the tally of defence benefits that SSNs might offer Australia, they must be carefully weighed against the costs and risks.

With an official estimate of up to $368 billion, almost certain to rise to even greater heights, AUKUS constitutes the most expensive defence procurement in Australian history by a wide margin. Equally importantly, the significant and ongoing opportunity costs and trade-offs this presents for defence and broader social spending are not easily dismissed.

Constructing SSNs will be one of the biggest engineering feats Australia has ever undertaken. There are immense execution risks involved in this effort to build, operate, maintain, and crew eight SSNs, and two types of boat simultaneously – the existing American Virginia-class and the yet to be designed AUKUS-class – with no experience in the management of nuclear-propulsion technology.

The political uncertainly inherent across all three nations, over a period of 10 terms of the Australian government, also raises the risk profile. It seems imprudent to hitch Australia’s most expensive and lethal defence capability to an increasingly uncertain ally that is in relative decline, politically unstable, and exhibiting troubling signs of sliding into an illiberal democracy.

Australia’s future nuclear naval reactors, fuelled by weapons-grade uranium, will not be subject to routine International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards on the grounds of protecting sensitive American military information. Although Australia is in negotiations with the IAEA to develop alternative safeguards, this establishes a troubling precedent for other non-nuclear armed states to exploit, and risks undermining international controls to prevent nuclear proliferation.

Australia’s degree of dependence on the United States to safely operate the SSNs is likely be high and risks the possibility of a US veto over their operation. It may not be wholly unusual for Australia to have limited operational sovereignty of its defence assets, but as former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has remarked, AUKUS takes this dependency to new heights. The pressure to submit this capability to American strategic interests will be almost impossible to resist.

Still, the most significant risks are strategic. The tripartite enterprise risks incorporating Australia into the more offensive-oriented aspects of our American ally’s military strategy in East Asia, most worryingly with respect to nuclear warfare. AUKUS will equip Australia with a potent capability to strike Chinese naval forces close to their home ports and, in coalition with the US, play a frontline role in hunting China’s nuclear-armed submarine force and its second-strike nuclear deterrent capability. ‘For this reason alone’, warns the Australia Institute’s International and Security Affairs head, Allan Behm, ‘China will view Australia’s decision as a wilful contribution to an existential nuclear threat to China’.

Many of our closest neighbours in Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific have expressed concerns that the agreement will heighten geopolitical tensions, contribute to a regional arms race, and undermine nuclear non-proliferation. Such criticism reflects that AUKUS is at odds with regional desires to achieve a peaceful and balanced strategic order, and with the deep antinuclear sentiment that is an especially central element of Pacific regionalism.

Pacific island states have made clear that their primary and immediate security concern is climate change, and expressed the view that AUKUS indicates a lack of serious commitment from Australia in helping them to deal with that risk. Pacific voices should remind us that we too are facing a first-order strategic threat from climate change, and AUKUS serves as a distraction from addressing that critical threat to our security.

Put simply, the public case for AUKUS has yet to be made with any degree of rigour or reliability. The government must justify how the agreement will make Australia safer and at an acceptable cost. We the undersigned call on the government not to proceed with pillar one of AUKUS until and unless the questions and issues raised in this letter are adequately explained and addressed.

Signatories (as of 23 May 2023): (There’s a lot of them – here

Continue reading →

May 26, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

How a small activist sailing ship successfully challenged the nuclear arms race

The 1958 voyage of the Golden Rule offers important strategic lessons on how to confront an overwhelming evil and win.

Waging Peace , George Lakey May 19, 2023

In today’s polarized context, progressive movements need their best strategic thinking. One source for inspiration should be the Golden Rule, a historic sailing ship that’s currently visiting ports along the Eastern U.S.

Organized by Veterans for Peace, this national tour puts the 1958 Golden Rule voyage back in the news. Nearly 65 years ago, the Golden Rule defiantly sailed toward the Pacific Ocean site where U.S. nuclear weapons were being tested, sparking a movement that forced the U.S. government to sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Putting the opponent in a dilemma

The strategy deployed by the voyage of the Golden Rule — and the civil rights movement before it and the Phoenix after it — builds the kind of power more activists could be using today. It comes from a tactic I call a “dilemma demonstration,” which basically puts the opponent in a lose-lose situation.

The Montgomery city government, for example, was in a dilemma. If it allowed Rosa Parks to continue to sit wherever she pleased, it would have lost its segregated transit policy. At the same time, however, it also lost by arresting her, because it stimulated a widespread resistance movement.

Similarly, if the U.S. government allowed the Golden Rule crew to reach the nuclear testing zone and the crew members developed cancer, the government would have lost. It would publicize the growing medical evidence that the U.S. government was actively spreading cancer among American babies.

In 1958, the U.S. chose the other horn of its dilemma: arresting the gallant crew of the Golden Rule, which of course also benefitted the nuclear test ban movement. The impetus helped the movement grow large and pressure the U.S. government into signing the 1963 treaty banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere.

Dilemma demonstrations have shown their power in a wide range of situations……………………………………..

We’re lucky that Veterans for Peace rebuilt — and is sailing — the Golden Rule once again. It gives all of us activists inspiration and the opportunity to think more about how to use direct action for building our movements.  https://wagingnonviolence.org/2023/05/how-the-1958-golden-rule-voyage-successfully-challenged-the-nuclear-weapons-arms-race/

May 20, 2023 Posted by | 2 WORLD, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Anti-nuclear activists protest Japanese government plans to release radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean

DOZENS of anti-nuclear activists protested today to demand Japan scrap its plan to release radioactive water from a tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant into the sea, which may begin this summer.

”Don’t dump contaminated water into sea,” protesters chanted outside the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holding’s (Tepco) headquarters in Tokyo, holding banners with their demands such as “Don’t nuke the Pacific,” and “Stop contaminated water.”………………………………………………………………..

Several activists from South Korea joined Tuesday’s rally.

“The Pacific Ocean does not belong to Japan. It belongs to all living things in the ocean and everyone who depends on it for their livelihoods,” said Kyoungsook Choi, a Korea Radiation Watch co-ordinator.

“We are here today to send the message that Japan does not have the right to dump the radioactive water…………………. more https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/anti-nuclear-activists-protest-japanese-government-plans-release-radioactive-water

May 19, 2023 Posted by | Japan, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Japanese protesters call for US military to be evicted

 https://www.rt.com/news/576288-okinawa-protesters-us-bases-china/ 15 May 23

Increasingly hostile relations between Washington and Beijing have dialed up the urgency of Okinawan protesters’ demands

Thousands of Japanese protesters assembled near Kadena Air Base in Okinawa to protest the US occupation of the island on Saturday, on the 51st anniversary of the island returning to Japanese control.

The annual demonstration comes amid rising regional tensions as the US supplies Taiwan with weapons in what China views as open provocation.

Chanting slogans including “Give us back our peaceful life” and “Osprey get out,” the latter being a reference to US military helicopters, the demonstrators demanded the closure of the US’ Okinawa bases. The island’s inhabitants are weary of the pollution – both chemical and aural – produced by Washington’s military outposts, as well as the high number of crimes committed by American servicemembers, from petty theft and drunk driving to rape and murder. 

Governor Denny Tamaki has urged the Japanese and US governments to reduce the Pentagon’s footprint on the island, which hosts 70% of all US military facilities in Japan despite comprising just 1% of the country’s total land area. 

The protests come as an increasingly militarized Japan becomes a focal point in the great-power rivalry between the US and China. The US recently fast-tracked a $500 million defense package to Taiwan, just a month after hosting Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen for a hugely controversial “unofficial” visit, eliciting warnings and massive military maneuvers from Beijing.

Last year, Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force held its first-ever large-scale maritime drill with US troops stationed in Okinawa, enacting scenarios aimed at deterring “competitor and adversary aggression.” 

NATO is reportedly even planning to open a liaison office in Tokyo, as the bloc last year discarded the pretense of limiting itself to the ‘North Atlantic’ part of North Atlantic Treaty Organization by inviting its regional allies – Japan, Australia, South Korea, and New Zealand – to its annual summit in a signal of increased focus on Beijing. 

Should war break out between the two countries, it is widely understood that the US would use its Japanese bases to stage operations, making Japan a likely target of Chinese retaliation. 

Japan approved its largest defense budget ever last year and plans to double defense spending to 2% of GDP by 2027, making its defense budget the world’s third-largest after the US and China, in a drive to acquire “counterstrike capability.” This represents a significant strategic shift away from the solely defensive posture Tokyo has been legally required to maintain since the end of World War II, though the constitution’s language was relaxed in 2017.

May 17, 2023 Posted by | Japan, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

8 arrested at nuclear protest on Mother’s Day

https://www.kitsapdailynews.com/news/8-arrested-at-nuclear-protest-on-mothers-day/ By Staff report • May 15, 2023 

A small group of nuclear arms protesters celebrated Mother Earth on Mother’s Day by getting arrested.

Despite the heat, eight peace activists held banners that read, “The Earth is Our Mother Treat Her With Respect” and “Nuclear Weapons are Immoral to Use, Immoral to Have, Immoral to Make.”

Brenda McMillan, 89, wore a T-shirt with Julian Ward Howe’s plea, “Disarm, Disarm!”

The activists are all with Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo. They were cited and released by state troopers for pedestrian on roadways infractions.

Demonstrators included Lee Alden of Bainbridge Island, Sue Ablao of Bremerton, Carolee Flaten of Hansville and Tom Rogers of Keyport.

Traffic was halted and diverted as the 15-member Seattle Peace Chorus Action Ensemble, sang “The Lucky Ones,” an original composition by director Doug Balcom, to the guards and Navy personnel. The song describes the different stages of personal, regional and global destruction that a nuclear war would inflict on humanity.

The civil disobedience was part of Ground Zero’s annual observance of Mother’s Day, first suggested in the United States in 1872 by Howe as a day dedicated to peace.

Earlier in the day 45 people gathered to plant rows of sunflowers at the Ground Zero Center directly across from the Trident Submarine Base. Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor is homeport to the largest concentration of deployed nuclear warheads in the U.S. The nuclear warheads are deployed on Trident D-5 missiles on SSBN submarines and are stored in an underground nuclear weapons storage facility on the base.

Rogers, a retired Navy captain and former nuclear submarine commanding officer who was cited for participating in the action, said, “The destructive power of the nuclear weapons deployed here on board Trident submarines, is beyond human imagination. The simple fact is, that a nuclear exchange between the great powers would end civilization on our planet.”

May 16, 2023 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

UK’s Nuclear Waste Services ignore overwhelming local council opposition to siting plan for waste dump.

Candidates opposed to the siting of a Nuclear Waste facility on the border
of Mablethorpe and Theddlethorpe not only took control of all the parish
councils in the search area but also took all of the allocated seats on the
dissstrict council, plus two seats in Sutton on Sea.

Turnout was high for a local election. In Theddlethorpe and Withern 39.6% of those eligible to
vote did so and more than seventy per cent of the voted for Travis Hesketh
(pictured) In Sutton on Sea, Where one Green and one independent anti dump
candidates overturned a Conservative majority, the turnout topped forty per
cent.

With such an overwhelming result we wrote to the leaders of both
Lincolnshire County Council and East Lyndsey District Council demanding
that they honour the people’s decision and withdraw from the so-called,
Community Partnership.

We await their decision. However, NWS has spoken to
the press and intend to ignore the result. That makes the second “Test Of
Public Support ” they have chosen to ignore. The first, a survey carried
out by Theddlethorpe Residents Association, showed 85% against with a
turnout of 56%.

Guardians of the East Coast 13th May 2023

https://preview.mailerlite.io/emails/webview/385711/88100923539195491

May 15, 2023 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, wastes | Leave a comment

Pacific leaders remain steadfast against nuclear waste disposal

National Indigenous Times, Gorethy Kenneth (PNG Post Courier) – May 11, 2023

Pacific has a combined voice on “no nuclear waste” in the Pacific, Prime Minister James Marape told reporters in Port Moresby on Tuesday.

He was asked by reporters if the country would support Japan on its nuclear waste issue.

Mr Marape said that he would release a statement at a later date on the latter.

Japan allegedly reported that it was due to start dumping one million tonnes of nuclear waste from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific ocean in only a few months.

And according to Japan’s government, the waste water was to be treated by an Advanced Liquid Processing System, which would remove nuclides from the water.

However, the Pacific island leaders united and demanded that Japan share pivotal information about the plan.

Japan, however, assured the Pacific leaders that there was no such threat, and instead defended that the country and their government had no plans to dump more than one million tonnes of radioactive waste water into the Pacific ocean………..  https://nit.com.au/11-05-2023/5922/pacific-leaders-remain-steadfast-against-nuclear-waste-disposal-png23

May 14, 2023 Posted by | indigenous issues, OCEANIA, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Nuclear Free Local Authorities issue appeal to King over Lincolnshire Nuke Dump

Save our sceptred isle: NFLAs issue appeal to King over Lincolnshire Nuke Dump. https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/save-our-sceptred-isle-nflas-issue-appeal-to-king-over-lincolnshire-nuke-dump/ 11 May 23

Just days after the Coronation, the English Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLAs) have written to the nation’s new Sovereign to ask His Majesty King Charles III to intercede over the plan to locate a nuclear waste dump in East Lincolnshire right next to the first Royal nature reserve.

The East Lincolnshire coast has been selected as the first of the ‘King’s Series of National Nature Reserves’ to mark the commencement of His Majesty’s Reign. A formal announcement by Natural England is expected in the summer.

The ‘Lincolnshire Coronation Coast Nature Reserve’ will cover some 21 square miles, centred upon existing protected areas at Theddlethorpe and Saltfleetby comprising mud flats, salt- and freshwater marshes and sand dunes, which support a diverse variety of wintering and breeding birds, natter jack toads, insects, and plants. The establishment of the reserve would enhance the area’s existing offer to visitors, many of whom flock to adjoining Mablethorpe to enjoy the beautiful Blue Flag award winning beaches.

So it was with regret that Councillor David Blackburn, Chair of the English Forum of the NFLAs had to sound a note of caution in his letter to His Majesty that Nuclear Waste Services has plans to locate a Geological Disposal Facility, a nuclear waste dump, right next to the reserve.

This would be the destination for Britain’s high-level, heat emitting radioactive waste, including its huge stockpile of plutonium. This waste has either already been generated through the UK’s military and civil nuclear programmes over the last 70 years or will be generated in the future through their continuance.

The GDF would comprise a surface facility approximately 1 square KM, which would most likely be located on the site of the former Conoco gas terminal in Theddlethorpe. This would be the railhead receiving regular shipments of nuclear waste. This waste would be transported below ground and out through tunnels beneath the North Sea. As nuclear waste is transported by rail, and there is no current infrastructure in place, there would be a necessity to construct a new rail line to serve the location.

The process of selecting a site for this facility could take between 15 and 20 years after which the construction and operation of such a facility would last more than 100 years.

In his letter, Councillor Blackburn contends that the project is ‘of such an immense size and in (such) a wholly inappropriate location’ that it would be ‘massively disruptive and harmful’ to the flora and fauna of the local environment, including that of the Royal Reserve, and to local people, as well as ‘massively ruinous’ to the local tourist and agrarian economy. Councillor Blackburn ends by appealing to the King on behalf of ‘His Majesty’s many loyal and anxious subjects in the affected area to intercede with relevant Ministers of the Crown to end this folly ‘.

Commenting Cllr Blackburn said: “The creation of this Royal Reserve is a wonderful idea and wholly in keeping with His Majesty the King’s known love for the natural environment. I can only hope that by drawing the Sovereign’s attention to the government’s lunatic plan to locate a nuclear waste dump next to the reserve that the King might be able to intervene to end the threat of it.”

May 13, 2023 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

Protest against investment in Sizewell C nuclear power station.

Campaigners unfurled banners reading ‘Aviva, back renewables not Sizewell
C’ outside Norwich City’s Carrow Road football ground on Thursday.
Protestors from Stop Sizewell C gathered outside an insurer’s Annual
General Meeting (AGM) to vent concerns the firm was planning to invest in
the new Sizewell C nuclear power station.

East Anglian Daily Times 5th May 2023

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/23501909.suffolk-sizewell-c-protestors-gather-norwich-city-fc/

May 9, 2023 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

Abolish Nukes, Kishida, G7! — limitless life

Secretariat for the G7 Hiroshima Summit Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan 2-2-1 Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 100-8919

Dear Members of the Secretariat:

Ever since the summer of 1955, the Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Gensuikyo) has actively campaigned to prevent nuclear war and abolish nuclear weapons. All of humanity is indebted to them for making significant contributions to world peace, such as when they organized the largest anti-nuclear protest ever, i.e., the antinuclear petition initiated by women and eventually signed by 32 million people, that came in the aftermath of March 1954 when U.S. nuclear testing irradiated people of the Bikini Atoll and the crew of a Japanese fishing boat called the “Lucky Dragon.” That international nuclear crime was only one in a long list of such crimes that began with President Harry Truman’s decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ultimately killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese as well as tens of thousands of Koreans, not to mention the

people of other countries or the U.S. who were in those cities at the time.

Sadly, despite Gensuikyo’s foresight and decades-long, diligent efforts, we, all the members of our species, have been living under the threat of nuclear war for three quarters of a century. And during the last year that threat has been greatly elevated by the war in Ukraine, a war in which two nuclear powers, Russia and NATO, could possibly come into direct conflict in the near future.

Daniel Ellsberg, the famous whistleblower who sadly will not be with us much longer due to terminal cancer, paraphrased on the first of May the words of Greta Thunberg: “The adults are not taking care of this, and our future absolutely depends on this changing somehow fast, now.” Thunberg spoke of global warming while Ellsberg was warning about the threat of nuclear war.

With the high stakes of the war in Ukraine in mind, we must now, for the sake of young people, be “the adults in the room” during the G7 Summit in Hiroshima (19-21 May 2023). And we must voice our demands to the elected leaders of the G7 countries (essentially, the NATO side of the conflict). 

World BEYOND War agrees with Gensuikyo that one “cannot build peace through nuclear weapons”. And we do endorse Gensuikyo’s main demands, which we understand as the following:

  1. Japan must pressure the other G7 nations to abolish nuclear weapons once and for all.
  2. Japan and the other G7 countries must sign and ratify the TPNW (Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons).
  3. In order to do so, the Japanese government must take the lead and promote the TPNW.- (Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons)
  4. Japan must not engage in military buildup under pressure from the United States.

…………………………………………………… more https://limitlesslife.wordpress.com/2023/05/07/abolish-nukes-kishida-g7/

May 8, 2023 Posted by | Japan, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

“We won’t be scapegoats!” — French opposition to nuclear waste dumping

“This land is our land.” French goats bleat against nuclear fuel pool threat

“We won’t be scapegoats!” — Beyond Nuclear International

Contrary to popular propaganda, nuclear reprocessing is not recycling. This has never been more evident than in the current crisis at La Hague, where the irradiated fuel pools are now full to capacity. Part of the reason is the country’s insistence on producing mixed-oxide reactor fuel from the plutonium and uranium separated at La Hague. So much of it has proven defective, that is has been returned to La Hague, filling up the fuel pools.

opposing French plans to extend the licenses of current reactors and to build new ones with, as they point out, absolutely no consideration of what will happen to the radioactive waste.

A new tongue-in-cheek rebellion has risen in France, but the cause is deadly serious

By Linda Pentz Gunter,   https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/04/30/we-wont-be-scapegoats/

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.

Contrary to popular propaganda, nuclear reprocessing is not recycling. This has never been more evident than in the current crisis at La Hague, where the irradiated fuel pools are now full to capacity. Part of the reason is the country’s insistence on producing mixed-oxide reactor fuel from the plutonium and uranium separated at La Hague. So much of it has proven defective, that is has been returned to La Hague, filling up the fuel pools.

A slowdown in reprocessing due to technical failures has also hastened the overcrowding of La Hague’s four spent fuel pools with excess irradiated fuel rods. These pools risk saturation by 2030 and the French safety authority has criticized La Hague owner, Orano’s suggestion that it could pack the pools more densely as this raises safety risks.

The owner of the French nuclear fleet, EDF, is responsible for managing the waste fuel their reactors produce. Its solution to the overcrowding at La Hague is to build a new fuel pool at the site, at a cost of $1.37 billion.

And that has locals up in arms — and hooves.

Normandy, the province in which La Hague is located, is strongly agricultural. Cows — and dairy products — abound. As do goats. While those still domesticated produce cheese, there is also a significant and famous wild goat population, known as les chèvres des fossés, that ranges freely on the coastal cliffs.

Accordingly, a new La Hague opposition group, Piscine Nucléaire Stop (Stop the Nuclear Fuel Pool), found a way to communicate the threat a new fuel would pose to agriculture and the environment by recruiting some goats to their cause.

In an amusing action that was posted on Facebook and was covered in the press, the activists placed an array of artistic — and realistic — cut-out goats at an intersection in the town of Jobourg, one of the communities that would be affected by the health and environmental risks of a new nuclear fuel pool. The town gives its name to the famous wild Jobourg goats and has erected a statue in their honor.

Then the goats put out their own statement. It read:

“We nanny and billy goats of Jobourg, claim our right to decide the fate of our land, and affirm today our opposition to the EDF spent fuel storage pool project. 

Continue reading →

May 2, 2023 Posted by | France, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Citizen opposition blocks discharge of radioactive water from Indian Point nuke into Hudson River, for now

Radioactive waste water won’t go into Hudson River…yet

Tritium dump paused — Beyond Nuclear International

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, 2pm-3:30pm 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, 30 Apr 23

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.

Riverkeeper and Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) are among the groups that have raised concerns about the presence in the wastewater of the isotope tritium, which can be carcinogenic and is harmful to pregnant women and developing fetuses. Advocates have called on Holtec to store the water in tanks on the Indian Point site until a safe alternative disposal method can be found.

“There has been no prior disclosure of what pollutants or radioactive contaminants are in the wastewater or any public education on the environmental safety and public health risks associated with any potential discharges from the site,” said local public health experts in a statement in January as PSR held the first of several public forums about the risks associated with Holtec’s discharge plan. 

“My constituents are already overburdened with the negative environmental externalities left behind by industrial infrastructure, and we should not be treated like pawns in this process,” said Levenberg earlier this month. “What we need is a partner who will work with us to facilitate a safe and just decommissioning of this plant, in a way that respects the surrounding communities. The people of my district have made it clear that this conversation should not be one-sided; Holtec should not be the only participant driving the schedule. What is efficient for Holtec may not be what is in the best interest of our communities and our natural resources.”

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who joined Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in writing to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about Holtec’s plan on April 6, said he was “relieved that Holtec has heeded our call and will put a stop to its hastily hatched plan to dump radioactive wastewater into the Hudson.”……  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/04/30/tritium-dump-paused/—

April 30, 2023 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries