Peace camp protestors hand in letter to US airbase commanders at Lakenheath
14th April 2025, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/peace-camp-protestors-hand-in-letter-to-us-airbase-commanders-at-lakenheath/
On this the first day of a two-week Peace Camp hosted by the Lakenheath Alliance for Peace, a delegation from LAP will hand in a letter to commanders of the US airbase at Lakenheath.
The Peace Camp will comprise various themed days, including Democracy Day on 22 April, for which the NFLA Secretary has produced a bespoke briefing paper for peace activists wishing to engage with Councillors on the issue of nuclear disarmament. As a partner in LAP, the UK/Ireland NFLAs have endorsed the letter.
The letter reads:
14th April 2025
Peace camp protestors hand in letter to US airbase commanders at Lakenheath
On this the first day of a two-week Peace Camp hosted by the Lakenheath Alliance for Peace, a delegation from LAP will hand in a letter to commanders of the US airbase at Lakenheath.
The Peace Camp will comprise various themed days, including Democracy Day on 22 April, for which the NFLA Secretary has produced a bespoke briefing paper for peace activists wishing to engage with Councillors on the issue of nuclear disarmament. As a partner in LAP, the UK/Ireland NFLAs have endorsed the letter.
The letter reads:
Dear Base Commanders and all personnel of ‘RAF’/USAF Lakenheath,
Lakenheath Alliance for Peace (now consisting of around 60 Alliance Organisations) are writing to you once more. This is our 5th letter[1] to you and we politely ask that you please reply to us.
As you will know from our previous communications and protests over the last year, we are concerned at the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law by the preparation to use US guided nuclear bombs. Just one could kill hundreds of thousands of people and cause lasting devastation to our environment. We are also horrified and ashamed that you have been training Israeli pilots who are engaged in a genocide in Gaza and have also, along with USAF Mildenhall, been aiding and abetting that genocide.
We are engaged in a 2-week nonviolent presence at your base in order to show that your war mongering is not being done in our name.
Many people living close to US military bases in Europe, Japan and South Korea (to mention just a few) are extremely concerned that you operate outside the rule of law and in the interests of controlling scarce resources for yourselves, not for purely self-defensive reasons and certainly not in the interests of the general public in our countries.
The informed public understand that the existential threats facing us are escalating climate change, biodiversity loss and nuclear annihilation. Your activities at Lakenheath are exacerbating all these threats and putting us all in danger. They are a breach of our peace and are in breach of national and international laws.
Yours in peace,
Lakenheath Alliance for Peace, info@lakenheathallianceforpeace.org.uk
CND Cymru condemns billions for nuclear industry
Morning Star 15th April 2025
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/cnd-cymru-condemns-billions-nuclear-industry
CAMPAIGNERS have condemned the billions being poured into nuclear energy while the Westminster government “preaches austerity” for everybody else.
CND Cymru attacked Sir Keir Starmer today, claiming he was poised to announce more public subsidy for the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in Somerset, not due to open until 2031.
A CND Cymru spokesperson said: “The willingness of the government to fund the nuclear industry to the tune of billions while preaching austerity to everyone else is absolutely farcical.
The anti-nuclear campaigners said Hinkley Point is likely to cost over £40 billion, £14bn over the initial estimate, with CND pointing out the project was managed by French company EDF.
“We must not accept the subsidy of a failing industry in order to preserve our nuclear attack capabilities while working people are facing impossible choices,” the CND spokesperson said.
“A different, greener, fairer, future is possible which doesn’t leave future generations with nuclear waste.”
Nuclear waste returns to Germany amid protests.
Matt Ford with dpa, NDR, 04/01/2025April 1, 2025, Edited by: Sean Sinico
https://www.dw.com/en/nuclear-waste-returns-to-germany-amid-protests/a-72108958
Seven containers filled with nuclear waste were transferred from ship to train in northern Germany for transport to Bavaria. But Germany still has no permanent storage solution for its radioactive material.
A ship carrying castor seven containers filled with highly radioactive nuclear waste docked in the northern German port of Nordenham, Lower Saxony, on Tuesday morning, amid protests and a heightened police presence.
The nuclear waste is being transported from Sellafield in northwest England to a temporary storage unit in Niederaichbach in the southern German state of Bavaria. The waste left the northwestern English port of Barrow-in-Furness last Wednesday and is being transferred from ship to train in Nordenham before continuing southwards. The nuclear waste was what remained after the reprocessing of fuel elements from decommissioned German nuclear power plants.
The first of the containers, which are four meters (13 feet) long and weigh over 100 tons, was lifted off the special “Pacific Grebe” transport ship by a large crane on Tuesday morning and underwent inspection to measure radiation levels and ensure they matched those taken in Sellafield.
The port in Nordenham remains sealed off and guarded by heavily armed police, who have thus far reported no incidents, despite a number of protests by anti-atomic energy groups.
Nuclear waste: Why are people protesting?
“Every castor container carries enormous risk,” said Helge Bauer from the protest group Ausgestrahlt, which means “radiated.” “Nuclear waste should, therefore, only be transported once — to a permanent storage site.”
Further protests are planned along the presumed route of the train carrying the waste over the coming days, including in the cities of Bremen and Göttingen.
“Every castor transport is one too many because it only postpones the problem and does not solve it,” Kerstin Rudek, a spokesperson for the group Castor-Stoppen, said in a statement, adding that nuclear waste should not be moved until a safe, final storage location is determined.
Where is the waste from if Germany phased out nuclear energy?
Germany began phasing out the use of nuclear power in 2003, a process which was accelerated following the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011. Germany’s final remaining nuclear power plants were shut down in 2023.
But Germany is still obligated to take back nuclear waste produced by used elements from its plants which, up until 2005, were regularly transported to reprocessing plants in Sellafield and La Hague, France. The transport of processed German nuclear waste back to the country has often been subject to protests.
According to the Society for Nuclear Service (GNS), over 100 castor containers were transported from La Hague to Gorleben, Lower Saxony, between 1995 and 2011. The final four were transported to Philippsburg, Baden-Württemberg, in 2024. Six containers were reportedly transported from Sellafield to Biblis, Hesse, in 2020, with seven more still to come.
Where does Germany store nuclear waste?
Germany’s Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal (BGE) is still in the process of identifying a suitable location for the permanent underground storage of 27,000 cubic meters of nuclear waste produced over the course of 60 years of German nuclear energy production.
Nuclear waste, which can remain radioactive and, therefore, highly dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years, is currently stored in 16 temporary locations above ground, but it can’t stay there forever.
“We are using an empiric process to identify a location which offers the best possible security,” the BGE’s Lisa Seidel told public broadcaster NDR in November 2024.
Germany’s New federal government wants nuclear fusion instead of nuclear power plants – no word on nuclear energy in the coalition agreement.
Achim Melde, April 10, 2025, https://www.iwr.de/news/neue-bundesregierung-will-kernfusion-statt-atomkraftwerke-kein-wort-zur-atomenergie-im-koalitionsvertrag-news39104 Translation: Dieter Kaufmann, Working Group Against Nuclear Power Plants, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Berlin – In the last election campaign, the CDU/CSU heavily criticized the “traffic light” coalition for shutting down the last three nuclear power plants in Germany and announced a return to nuclear energy. Following the election, however, the coalition agreement no longer mentions a single word about nuclear energy. Instead, the focus shifts to the use of nuclear fusion, which lies far in the future.
According to the current coalition agreement, the CDU/CSU-SPD coalition does not plan a return to nuclear power in Germany. The previously announced review and inventory of the recently shut-down nuclear power plants is also apparently off the table. Instead, the expansion of renewable energies will be further accelerated, and nuclear fusion is intended to solve the energy problem of the future.
Nuclear power plants: Union and SPD do not want to return to nuclear energy in Germany
Of the 17 nuclear power plants that were still in operation in Germany in 2010, a total of 14 nuclear power plants were shut down by the end of 2021 with the involvement of the CDU/CSU federal government. However, the shutdown of the last three nuclear power plants by the traffic light coalition, in particular, regularly caused criticism in Germany.
The coalition parties have not yet provided a justification for not considering nuclear energy. The reasons are likely varied, but all were known long before the elections. The advanced age and high costs of reactivating the old nuclear power plants would be just one of the numerous challenges. The most recently shut down nuclear power plants, Emsland (1985), Isar II (1988), and Neckarwestheim 2 (1989), are already 35 years old and have already exceeded their designed operating life. Furthermore, the dismantling of the old nuclear power plants is already underway; the Atomic Energy Act would have to be reopened, and the resulting additional nuclear waste would have to be re-regulated.
Energy industry is not available for new nuclear power plants – no price reduction effect from nuclear energy
Furthermore, the energy industry, as the operator of the old nuclear power plants that are to be reactivated, is unavailable. RWE CEO Markus Krebber has repeatedly rejected a return to nuclear power. The energy supplier EnBW has also ruled out restarting its decommissioned nuclear power plants, deeming the construction of new reactors unrealistic. E.ON CEO Leonhard Birnbaum, for his part, stated in an interview with Handelsblatt that there is no private company in Germany that would invest money in new nuclear power plants.
A price-reducing effect is also not expected from the expansion of nuclear power. The public often misunderstands that a higher electricity supply alone will lead to lower electricity prices. In fact, the formation of electricity prices on the exchange works differently, based on the marginal cost model (merit order).
All power plants used are ranked in the hourly auction according to their costs, from lowest to highest. The highest price of the last power plant to enter the auction determines the price for all other power plants. This “clearance price” is currently determined primarily by the gas price and thus by the gas-fired power plants. Cheaper power plants then play no role and do not lower the electricity price. The extremely high gas prices—and not a problem with the quantity of electricity—were a key driver of the subsequent exploding electricity prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting rapid rise in inflation.
Fusion reactor: political timetables completely unrealistic
According to the coalition agreement, the coalition is committed to the use of nuclear fusion. The first fusion reactor in Germany is to be built afterward, and regulation will be outside of nuclear law. Bavarian Science Minister Markus Blume (CSU) predicted a period of 10 to 15 years for the realization of this technology, as of early 2025. Experts such as Dr. Reinhard Grünwald of the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) consider this timeframe unrealistic.
After that, it will take at least another 20 years before the first demonstration reactor with a closed tritium cycle is available. Following that, a power plant that also generates electricity would have to be built. According to Grünwald, this would take another 20 years.
The ITER fusion device (Tokamak principle) currently under construction is a pure research facility, not designed as a demonstration reactor. The completion of the ITER research facility for test operation was postponed again last year, from 2024 to 2034 (instead of 2025).
In nuclear fusion, hydrogen atom nuclei are fused to form helium. Enormous amounts of energy are released in the process. This process takes place on the sun. The challenges are diverse and, due to the enormous ignition and combustion temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius, range from material issues for the reactor walls to the production and handling of radioactive tritium.
Australian Community groups furious Coalition nuclear plan would go ahead even if locals oppose it
Critics of policy say residents should be ‘very angry’ they will not be able to veto generators in their towns despite promise to consult them.
Tory Shepherd, 13 Apr 25, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/13/community-groups-furious-coalition-nuclear-plan-would-go-ahead-even-if-locals-oppose-it
There is a “growing backlash” to the Coalition’s nuclear plan, with community groups furious at the lack of consultation and angered that the policy would not give local communities the power of veto and that nuclear plants would be built regardless of local opposition.
Opponents say the pro-nuclear lobby group Nuclear for Australia has been hosting information sessions but that it makes it overly difficult for people to attend and ask questions, and is not able to answer those questions that are posed.
Wendy Farmer, who has formed an alliance of the seven regions affected by the Coalition’s pledge to build nuclear reactors on the site of coal-fired power stations, says Australians should be “very angry” that they will not be able to veto any planned nuclear generators in their towns despite the Coalition’s promise to carry out a two-and-a-half-year consultation.
She refuses to call the policy a “plan” because of that lack of consultation. “They haven’t even looked at these sites,” she said.
Dave Sweeney, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s nuclear free campaigner, says it is “more con than consultation”. And he says in his many years in nuclear-free campaigns he has never seen so many sectors – including unions, state leaders, energy producers, businesses and protest groups – aligned against nuclear.
The Coalition has pinpointed Tarong and Callide in Queensland, Liddell and Mount Piper in New South Wales, Loy Yang in Victoria, and small modular reactors (SMRs) in Port Augusta in South Australia and Muja, near Collie in Western Australia.
It says the $331bn nuclear plan will make electricity cheaper, while critics have called its costings a “fantasy”.
The Liberal party did not respond to questions about the lack of consultation and lack of veto power.
The alliance said there “has been no consultation or free prior and informed consent from traditional custodians”.
“You never asked locals if they want nuclear reactors in their back yards, instead you threaten compulsory acquisition and federal overrides with no right to veto,” it said in a petition to the Coalition.
It said the plan was a “distraction” designed to “create false debate” when communities are already transitioning away from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
Jayla Parkin, a Collie resident and community organiser for Climate Justice Union, said pro-nuclear information sessions had not provided any answers and had tried to stop First Nations people from entering.
Nuclear for Australia has held two information sessions with “expert speakers” in the town.
One elder was “devastated” after initially being refused entrance to a meeting last year, Parkin said. “She wanted to get the information,” Parkin said. “Not everyone is simply for nuclear or against. We are for being informed on what’s going to happen.”
At a January meeting, elders were told they couldn’t go in because of something wrong with their registrations, which Parkin then sorted out. Once inside, she said questions had to be submitted via an app.
Not a single question could be answered … like ‘Where is the water coming from?’, ‘How will this benefit Collie?’, and ‘Where are you going to store the radioactive waste?’” she said.
Since then, the community had heard nothing, she said.
Nuclear for Australia, founded by Will Shackel and boasting the entrepreneur Dick Smith as a patron, describes itself as a grassroots organisation with no political affiliation.
Information sessions have featured Grace Stanke, a nuclear fuels engineer and former Miss America who says being called “Barbenheimer” is one of her favourite compliments.
Shackel told SBS that Nuclear for Australia Google people when they try to register for the sessions.
“If we believe that someone is a known protester … someone who could cause a physical threat to people in there, we will not allow them in,” he said.
Farmer, also the president of Voices of the Valley, said Nuclear for Australia was “silencing people” by only allowing questions through an app and filtering them.
Nuclear for Australia has also taken out ads in local newspapers claiming 77% of coal jobs are transferable to nuclear plants and that nuclear workers are paid 50% more than other power generation-related jobs.
The fine print shows those claims come from a US nuclear industry lobby organisation and refer to the situation in the US.
Farmer said that, “adding insult to injury”, the advertisements misspell Latrobe Valley as La Trobe Valley and, in one case, an ad aimed at Latrobe was put in an SA newspaper.
“Regional communities are desperate for jobs now,” Farmer said. “Nuclear is not the answer.”
Protesters heckled the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, for not meeting with the community when he visited Collie in October last year.
“Collie doesn’t like it when people like that come to our town and hide,” Parkin said. “People have questions … at least openly answer them.”
In Perth last week Dutton was asked about criticism from Collie residents that he hadn’t heard their concerns about nuclear power and whether he would commit to visiting the town during the election campaign.
“I’ve been to Collie before,” he said. “There are seven locations around the country, and I won’t be able to get to all of them.”
Those communities knew the Coalition was offering them “the ability to transform”, he said.
Greg Bannon is from the Flinders Local Action Group, which was formed to oppose plans to build a nuclear waste dump in SA.
He said the community had not heard much apart from a February information session held by Nuclear for Australia. He said there were concerns about the safety of any power plant and the impact on the local environment. “Port Augusta … is probably the most stupid place to put a nuclear power station in the world,” he said, pointing to the unique nature of Spencer Gulf and its flat “dodge” tides.
“Any leakage … the water would end up in the top end of the gulf, with only one place to go, through Port Lincoln, the fish nurseries, the mangroves … only 50km further south is Point Lowly near Whyalla, where the annual migration of the southern giant cuttlefish occurs, which is a unique event in the world,” he said.
The other point, Bannon said, was that the region had already transitioned away from baseload power to renewables.
Guardian Australia has approached the Coalition and Nuclear for Australia for a response.
Tom Venning was preselected to replace retiring MP Rowan Ramsey in Grey, the federal electorate that Port Augusta sits within. He said he supported the policy as part of a “credible path to net zero” and that if the Coalition formed government there would be a two-and-a-half-year community consultation and an independent feasibility study.
“I’m committed to keeping my community fully informed and involved,” he said, adding that he would take any concerns seriously and would work with local leaders and the energy minister to address them.
Sweeney said the Coalition already appeared to be backing away from its commitment to nuclear and appeared reluctant to bring it up.
On Friday Dutton said people would flock to nuclear if they subsidised it but that they could “subsidise all sorts of energies”.
“I don’t carry a candle for nuclear or any other technology,” he said.
Farmer said: “There is a growing backlash.
“We are keeping it as a hot topic – because the Coalition doesn’t want to talk about nuclear, we will.”
Attacked, demonized and forced into hiding
by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/04/13/attacked-demonized-and-forced-into-hiding/
S.P. Udayakumar and thousands of other Indian activists challenged a Russian nuclear plant
S.P. Udayakumar was awarded the 2025 Nuclear-Free Future Award for resistance. Owing to visa constraints he was not able to be present in New York City, where the Awards ceremony was held, to accept his prize in person. He delivered these remarks via a video recording, which was met with prolonged applause. We reproduce his speech here. (A report and photos of the 2025 Nuclear-Free Future Awards ceremony, was published last week.)
I am extremely happy and immensely grateful that the Nuclear-Free Future Awards family that includes Beyond Nuclear, IPPNW and the international jury have chosen me and our struggle for the 2025 “Nuclear-Free Future” Award in the resistance category.
Tens of thousands of people including children, youth, women and men are struggling against the Russian-supplied Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project near the southernmost tip of India. Several people have sacrificed their lives, scores of people have gone to prison, so many of us have braved police harassment, State surveillance, court cases, property losses, income deprivation, and umpteen number of various difficulties.
Lots and lots of religious leaders, community leaders, political leaders, lawyers, film personalities, intellectuals, writers, publishers, poets, artists, media persons, international human rights activists, even some conscientious government officials, police officers and the general public from all over Tamil Nadu and the larger India have contributed significantly to this 2011-2014 phase of a much longer struggle.
I know that you cannot honor all the people who have taken part in our struggle and that I have been chosen as a representative of all of them. On behalf of all those thousands and thousands of fellow protesters, I humbly accept this great award. Thank you!
Although I am disappointed that I could not be with you all this evening and accept this award in the hall where the ‘Great Emancipator’ President Abraham Lincoln’s voice had once reverberated, I am glad that my sons, who had to undergo so much suffering, are receiving this award from you and celebrating this timely and important recognition of our people and the struggle.
The struggle against the Koodankulam nuclear power project began back in 1988 right after the Chernobyl accident in April 1986. The government of India has adopted the 4-I strategy of Ignore, Insult, Intimidate and Incinerate. We were totally ignored when we asked for the basic information about the project, such as the detailed project report, environmental impact assessment, site evaluation study, safety analysis report etc. When we persisted with our campaign, we were called all kinds of names, that we were anti-Indian, anti-national, foreign-funded, American stooges, left-wing radicals and so forth.
When we still pressed ahead with our campaign, the State came down upon us heavily with 349 cases with very serious charges, including sedition, waging war on the state, attempt to murder and so on. We are attending court hearings even now. Our passports have been impounded, bank accounts frozen, ‘Look Out Circular’ issued, our properties vandalized, and we are still being treated as dangerous criminals.
We were physically attacked when we went for a dialogue with government officials, several of us were imprisoned for months together, and a few of us were shot to death by police, and killed by low-flying coastguard planes, and prison negligence etc.
Because of all this highhanded behavior of the State, the concerted campaign was ended in 2014 but we have been propagating our anti-nuclear messages to the people of India through peaceful and democratic means.
Our messages are simple and straightforward:
Nuclear power is NOT cheap, or safe, or clean, or climate-friendly.
Nuclear power and nuclear bomb are both sides of the same coin. Nuclear reactors are stationary bombs and nuclear bombs are moving reactors.
Nuclear power is not suitable for a country like India that is highly and densely-populated. As you all know, the world’s worst industrial disaster took place in the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal in December 1984. The debilitating chemical waste of the Bhopal gas disaster has just been removed after 40 long years.
Both nationally and internationally, the nuclear hawks and hawkers promote nuclear power as THE answer for climate destruction. But consider the amount of carbon-emitting power that is used for uranium mining, milling, reactor construction (with thousands of tons of steel and cement over 20-30 years of construction), reactor operation for 40-60 years, decommissioning, waste management and so forth! Can anyone honestly claim that nuclear power is the answer for climate destruction? Even if it was, can poisoned earth be the answer for polluted air? How are we going to deal with the dangerous nuclear wastes for the next 48,000 years?
Nuclearism is part and parcel of profiteering globalism. The India-US nuclear deal is not about India’s energy security, or national security or safeguarding India’s growth and development. This deal is a naked corporate business deal which will bring humongous profits to a few American corporate houses. Similarly, the nuclear deals that India has signed with Russia, France, Kazakhstan, Namibia, Argentina, and others will bring profits and prosperity to these countries’ corporate houses but will result in disaster and destruction for the poor in India. Yes, desire for profit, power, and prominence drives the nuclear industry.
On the other hand, it is hate, fear and recklessness that fuel this very industry. Some countries’ revision of nuclear doctrines, refusal to extend nuclear arms treaties, rising weapons count, continuing Uranium enrichment, constant testing, actual threat to use nuclear bombs, and several wars around the world poised to reach a “nuclear threshold” foretell the precarious situation of our global society today. Yes, Nuclearism and Fascism are inter-related. Fascism is the ideology behind Nuclearism and Nuclearism is the penultimate expression of Fascism.
When all is said and done, this beautiful planet of ours, the Earth, can be likened to a humongous commercial airplane with clear class divisions, limited supply of resources, lopsided opportunity structures, and unbalanced entitlement arrangements, etc. And this plane of ours has been hijacked by the P-5 and the other nuclear States such as Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea and who knows who else?
The great poet, Robert Frost had predicted back in 1920:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
The delegates of the Third Meeting of States Parties (3MSP) to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) who are meeting in New York City right now have a tough task ahead. We wish them all the best!
And let us continue to strive for a nuclear-free future that will have No Deals, No Mines, No Reactors, No Dumps, and No Bombs! Nowhere in the world!!
To quote my favorite Robert Frost again:
Woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But we have promises to keep!
And miles to go before we sleep,
And miles to go before we sleep!
The 2025 Nuclear-Free Future Awards
Rainbow serpent magic filled the air at the Great Hall at Cooper Union, writes Linda Pentz Gunter
The Rainbow Serpent has been the symbol of the Nuclear-Free Future Awards (NFFA) since the event first began in 1998. In Indigenous cultures, the serpent offers an ominous warning to be left undisturbed in the ground rather than unleash its vengeful powers. This has been taken to mean, in particular, uranium. But the NFFA’s friendlier serpent also seems to release a certain magic into the air, enveloping those who breathe it in joy and optimism when they attend an NFFA ceremony as it travels to different cities around the world.
In 2025, the Awards were held in the Great Hall at Cooper Union, in New York City, a historic and atmospheric venue where a certain candidate for US president, Abraham Lincoln, made what would remain not only his longest speech but arguably his most important and one that would send him on his way to winning the White House……………………………………………………………
Courage is the first word that comes to mind when describing the 2025 recipient in the category of Resistance. For standing up to the Indian authorities in opposition to the construction of the massive Russian nuclear power plant at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu, S.P. Udayakumar and thousands of other villagers, farmers and fisherfolk, the majority of them women, have been hounded, persecuted, arrested and prosecuted.
Udayakumar could not travel to the US to receive his award, but his sons Surya and Satya, both of whom live in Maryland, were able to come to New York to honor their father. The video recorded by Uday, as everyone knows him, moved the audience to prolonged applause and even tears, given all he and his family have endured, including two years in hiding when he could not see his sons at all.
The exuberant promoters of the International Uranium Film Festival, Márcia Gomes and Norbert Suchanek, based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, won the Award for Education. Born as a small idea that grew into a remarkable international film festival, the pair realized that dense reports and statistics were not going to galvanize people to oppose all things nuclear in quite in the same way that pictures could, and especially moving pictures, whether documentaries, dramas or animation.
The success of the festival, which began with enormous struggles to find funding and venues, is a testament to perseverance and canny marketing skills that have brought people together to collectively advance the festival around the world.
Solutions to the problems of nuclear power and nuclear weapons are not always obvious. Beyond technical fixes like renewable energy and energy efficiency, as well as campaigning for peace and nuclear disarmament, sometimes the answer lies in changing the conversation. To get away from the macho-dynamic of nuclear weapons especially, the voices of women — all too few — were clearly needed. Furthermore, the voices of women from the Global South were even more essential, in the view of Zimbabwean campaigner, Edwick Madzimure.
This “solution” became a key to the success of of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which tackled the issue from the perspective of human rights impacts, where women are invariably disproportionately impacted in a negative way……………………………………………
The evening ended with a tribute to living legend, Joanna Macy, a Buddhist teacher, author and peacemaker and a matriarch of the anti-nuclear cause. Macy, now in her nineties, could not make the trip from California but offered her thanks in a written statement read by her longtime friend, Kathleen Sullivan of the Nuclear Truth Project and Hibakusha Stories.
Macy has been a mentor to many, both within the anti-nuclear movement and well beyond it, and is best known for popularizing the concept, The Great Turning, in which humanity makes an essential shift from an industrial growth society to a life-sustaining civilization, emphasizing a transition to a more sustainable and just world. ………………… https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/04/07/the-2025-nuclear-free-future-awards/
NFLAs ‘shout up’ for National Parks to be spared from nuclear development
Despite our objections and those of many in the antinuclear community, Energy Ministers and departmental civil servants remain intent upon introducing a new National Planning Statement, called the EN-7, which gives considerable latitude to prospective developers to site new nuclear plants more widely, subject to meeting certain criterion (called the ‘criteria-based approach’) and lifts any time limits (called ‘the removal of a deployment deadline’).
10th April 2025, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/nflas-shout-up-for-national-parks-to-be-spared-from-nuclear-development/
NFLAs ‘shout up’ for National Parks to be spared from nuclear development
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities have made an emphatic plea to the government for National Parks to be definitively spared from development and for further ‘specific consideration’ to be given to the challenges attendant to siting so-called Small and Advanced Modular Reactors (SMRs and AMRs).
Despite our objections and those of many in the antinuclear community, Energy Ministers and departmental civil servants remain intent upon introducing a new National Planning Statement, called the EN-7, which gives considerable latitude to prospective developers to site new nuclear plants more widely, subject to meeting certain criterion (called the ‘criteria-based approach’) and lifts any time limits (called ‘the removal of a deployment deadline’).
Interestingly neither of these notions was popular amongst respondents in the initial consultation on the policy with only 47% supporting the first and 50% the second; which begs the NFLAs to ask the question: why change the existing policy which is based on a government led strategic assessment of sites to in effect a ‘free-for-all’?
As we did in response to the first stage consultation, so in the second the NFLAs ‘shout up…against new nuclear in any of our National Parks and on sites adjoining or threatening Sites of Outstanding Natural Beauty or Immense Heritage Value’. The Welsh NFLA affiliates are particularly passionate in seeking to defend Trawsfynydd, which lies at the heart of Eryri, the premier National Park of Wales, from new development. As we point out:
‘The principle that National Parks can be excluded from future nuclear development has already been established by Government diktat. Any part of the Lake District National Park in England has been specifically (and in our view rightly) excluded from any consideration as a prospective site of a future Geological Disposal Facility. Surely then Trawsfynydd being at the heart of the Eryri National Park should enjoy the same protection in law?
In our view, to do otherwise exposes UK Government policy as hypocritical and inconsistent, implying that the premier National Park of Wales is not worthy of the same protection as the premier National Park of England and unfortunately conveys the impression that Wales remains a rank colonial possession, rather than a nation in its own right, whose natural assets are open to exploitation by any major nuclear development of the most egregious kind’.
Only 59% of respondents in phase one backed the inclusion of ‘SMRS and AMRs alongside large-scale GW technologies’ within the policy, with the NGO community calling for a separate policy. Despite this, Ministers intend this policy to be one-size-fits-all. In this second phase consultation, the NFLAs have referenced the lack of ‘specific consideration’ of the ‘additional, and not entirely defined, challenges’ that accompany the inclusion of SMRs and AMRs.
There have been many recent reports of concerns amongst the nuclear industry and the academic community about the radioactive waste produced by smaller reactors and the security implications of a wider rollout of smaller reactors. The NFLAs have therefore requested that final version of EN-7 should require ‘SMR, AMR, Micro reactor developers to submit robust statements about their proposals to address radioactive waste management, safety, security and proliferation concerns’.
1
Raising Funds to Stop Lake District Coast Sub-Sea Nuclear Dump
Radiation Free Lakeland has launched a crowdfund appeal to raise enough
funds to send out a leaflet direct to all 250,000 households explaining the
importance of lobbying Cumberland Council to carry out a full debate and
vote before going any further down the road to delivery of a “geological
disposal facility” (nuclear dump) for hot nuclear wastes. The bare
minimum we would need is £1,800 and with your help we could just do this.
We could stop the nuclear juggernaut in its tracks and protect the Lake
District coast from becoming the world’s biggest, leakiest nuclear
sacrifice zone.
Radiation Free Lakeland 6th April 2025
https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2025/04/06/raising-funds-to-stop-lake-district-coast-sub-sea-nuclear-dump/
The great trek for justice
At the heart of the matter for Lee is the devastating and continued destruction of the ecosystems on which all of us — human and animals — depend. The Fukushima radioactive water dump is just one of the most recent examples.
, by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/03/30/the-great-trek-for-justice/
Won-Young Lee has walked from his homeland in South Korea to Tokyo. Now he’s on the march in the US, writes Linda Pentz Gunter
How far would you walk for a cause? In the case of South Korean anti-nuclear activist, Won-Young Lee, that distance has no limit.
Lee, 67, and the director of the Korea Land Future Research Institute and the Public Reporting Center for the Dangers of Nuclear Power Plants (PRCDN), will arrive in Washington, DC on April 8, having walked there from the United Nations in New York City, a journey he began on March 19. The distance is about 260 miles.
His cause this time is to draw attention to the continued dumping of highly radioactive waste water from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan into the Pacific Ocean. This is not Mr. Lee’s first walk, but he chose the dates deliberately to span the time between the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster that began on March 11 and the April 26, 1986 Chornobyl reactor explosion in Ukraine.
This latest walk falls under the umbrella of what Lee has titled the “New Silk Road for Life and No-Nukes. Walking Planet Earth With Joy.” Together, the walks constitute a marathon that have taken Lee and other walkers through vast areas of the Asian continent, including Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, India and Nepal and on through Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia and through numerous countries in Europe. Lee himself has traversed 6,125 miles on foot.
He has been inspired, he says, by Gandhi’s ‘Salt March’ “that led to India’s independence,” and was also started, Lee says, “by a small number of people,” that grew into ever greater numbers.
That will of the people manifested again in 2023, during a trek of almost 1,000 miles undertaken by South Korean and Japanese citizens from Seoul, South Korea to Tokyo, Japan with stops that included one in Hiroshima.
Currently, as Lee marches resolutely from Manhattan to DC, he has encountered others who are equally inspired, often from Japan. Yoko Akashi, who marched with him in New Jersey, wrote that “even though we’re only two walking highways and shopping streets, people waved, honked cars and wanted to know more because they’re concerned.”
All of this is done with unbounded optimism. The purpose of the current walk is not only to engage with populations along the route but to try, once it reaches its destination in the nation’s capital, to convince members of Congress and even the White House, that the water dumping at Fukushima needs to stop.
“By marching, we can gain the support of citizens, get citizens to join the march, and as the procession gets longer, citizens can pressure politicians,” asserts Lee.
We have published numerous articles on our news site — Beyond Nuclear International — arguing against the dumping of at least 1.3 million tons of radioactive water from Fukushima into the Pacific, a procedure that will go on for years, even decades.
One of the more recent ones, by Tilman Ruff, sums up many of the arguments. Another earlier one from GENSUIKIN, also lays out the specific risks.
Lee’s organization has turned to the cartoon format to produce a booklet telling the story. It’s entitled STOP! Fukushima Nuclear Wastewater Dumping and can be downloaded from the PRCDN website in English here.
I met with Lee and a group of Korean activists on Capitol Hill in February, during a press conference led by Congressman Brad Sherman (CA-32), a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to urge for the passage of his bipartisan legislation, the Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act.
The bill calls for swift and substantial diplomatic engagement in order to achieve a formal end to the Korean War – America’s longest war.
During the event, Lee expressed his hopes for a political change of policy over the dumping (I am afraid I did not share his optimism.) In a statement before his New York to Washington march began, Lee expressed the view that stopping the dumping was in the hands of the US president. “He is the only person to whom the Japanese prime minister bows his head,” Lee wrote. “If the US president asks the Japanese prime minister to stop, the dumping can be stopped.”
At the heart of the matter for Lee is the devastating and continued destruction of the ecosystems on which all of us — human and animals — depend. The Fukushima radioactive water dump is just one of the most recent examples.
“Humanity has a responsibility to respect the survival of all living things in the ecosystem as well as its own future generations,” said a declaration put out before the latest walk launched. And yet, “the Japanese government is intentionally dumping potentially fatal nuclear contaminants into the sea.”
Both the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations come in for deservedly harsh criticism as well. In the cartoon booklet, the IAEA is referred to as “Japan’s Brazen Enabler”. The UN, says the declaration, is “ignoring the spirit of the World Charter of Nature (1982), drawn up by themselves and the Earth Charter (2000), made by agreement at the Rio Environmental Conference, and are simply watching the destruction of our ecosystem.” Striking an uncharacteristically pessimistic note, it adds: “All of these things show that our international community is completely broken. At this rate, there is no hope for humanity.”
In conclusion, the march declaration offers the following:
- The Japanese government, which has intentionally put humanity and the Earth’s ecosystem at great risk, must immediately stop dumping nuclear contaminated water and apologize to all living things on Earth.
- The U.S. government and the IAEA, which support Japan’s ocean dumping of nuclear contaminated water, should immediately withdraw their support and seek safe measures for all living things on Earth.
- The UN and the International Community must acknowledge and reflect on dereliction of their duty to stop Japan from dumping nuclear contaminated water into the ocean.
- Global citizens, keep in mind that if we turn a blind eye to these errors, we are committing a crime to our descendants, and let us actively punish any country or power that intentionally commits such crimes.
- Global citizens, let us be aware of our responsibility to protect the dignity of all life in the global village, and set the right guideposts.
Headline photo Won-Young Lee courtesy of the subject.
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International. Her forthcoming book, Hot Stories. Reflections from a Radioactive World, will be published later this year.
Resistance to nuke dump grows in South Copeland
NFLA 31st March 2025
Kirksanton and Bankhead residents in the South Copeland GDF Search Area will be heartened by the support of Millom Town Councillors who approved a motion at their 26 March meeting to ‘reject the area of focus as being beneficial to Bank Head’.
In January, Nuclear Waste Services announced that a site surrounding the prison West of Haverigg was its ‘Area of Focus’, the preferred inland site for a Geological Disposal Facility, a deep repository for Britain’s legacy and future high-level radioactive waste. This site borders the village of Kirksanton and the Bank Head housing estate.
The Council also agreed to a request that a public meeting be held to examine the ‘positives and negatives’ of bringing the GDF to the area. In September 2023, a Community Forum attended by the public and organised by the South Copeland GDF Community Partnership drew up an initial list. In response to this NWS promised to commission an ‘impacts report’ from an independent consultant, but this has never materialised.
Councillors also agreed to send a letter of complaint to NWS about the size of the Area of Focus and how the announcement has impacted house sales and affected residents of the area. At the meeting, the Chair conceded that, after speaking to estate agents, he believed the area to be ‘blighted’. Since the announcement, one house sale in nearby Silecroft has fallen through and a house owner in Bank Head has been forced to significantly reduce their asking price in make a sale.
Jan Bridget, who co-founded Millom and District against the GDF in 2022, was delighted at the level of attendance from the public and at the outcome:
“Well, what can I say, we have won a battle but not the war. And I am thrilled that around 40 people turned up at the Millom Town Council meeting, demonstrating that Bank Head and Kirksanton are not willing communities”.
Millom and District Against the Nuclear Dump organised a meeting of Bank Head residents to meet their local councillors from Cumberland and Millom Town Councils in February. Thirty-nine people attended the meeting, most from the Bank Head estate. Residents asked the councillors for their help after sharing their very moving concerns.
We reported on this meeting:…………………………………..
https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/resistance-to-nuke-dump-grows-in-south-copeland/
Leona Morgan – Rally and March to Abolish Nuclear Weapons in front of the UN
27 Mar,25, Leona Morgan
Indigenous activist from Diné (Navajo) in New Mexico, where their lands remain contaminated by uranium activities, radioactive waste, and radioactive fallout from the first atomic bomb test at “Rally and March to Abolish Nuclear Weapons in front of the UN” March 5, 2025
This is a recording of a rally and march to abolish nuclear weapons that was held on March 5, 2025, across the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. 2025 marks the 80th Anniversary of the first atomic bomb test and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At a time when the risk of nuclear use is the highest since the Cold War, a coalition of U.S. groups held a rally and march in the morning on March 5, 2025, across the United Nations to coincide with the Third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). [ Co-organized by ] Manhattan Project for a Nuclear-Free World NYC Metro Raging Grannies NYC War Resisters League Peace Action New York State Pax Christi New York State Brooklyn For Peace
[ List of Speakers ]…………………………………………………https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XB-TQWWIi4
Redirect Sizewell C funding to the Warm Homes Plan, say campaigners.
Alison Downes, https://stopsizewellc.org/sizewellcvswarmhomes/
Campaigners call on Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband to stop Sizewell C, redirect its funding to generate ‘Warm Homes’ jobs in every constituency by the next election.
Building Sizewell C would likely cost around £40bn over the next 15 years. Deducting money already spent, if Sizewell C is cancelled now, the public money saved by 2030 would be £7.1bn.
A paper from Stop Sizewell C and the Green New Deal Group calls for this saving to be added to the £6.6bn the government is committed to spend in the current Parliament on energy efficiency in the nation’s homes. Turbocharging this ‘Warm Homes Plan’ by more than doubling its budget will generate long term, secure jobs, particularly for young people across the UK. It will be quick to implement, so by the next election new jobs and cheaper, warmer, healthier homes will have appeared in every constituency.
Alison Downes of Stop Sizewell C said: “The taxpayers’ money being ploughed into risky, expensive Sizewell C – which will inevitably soar higher due to cost overruns and building delays – would be far better spent improving the lives of households nationwide, bringing down their bills, and helping the UK meet its net zero target”.
Colin Hines of The Green New Deal Group said: “At absolutely no extra cost to the nation’s finances Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband could stop funding the nuclear white elephant that is Sizewell C and not only improve the living conditions for homes in every constituency, but create jobs in every constituency, thereby improving their chances of winning the next election.”
Nuclear regulators hear concerns about plan to restart Three Mile Island reactor.
The Constellation energy plant will generate elctricity exclusively for a Microsoft artificial intelligence data center
Pennsyvania Capital Star, By: Peter Hall – March 20, 2025
Speakers at a virtual meeting Thursday about Three Mile Island raised concerns about restarting the nuclear plant’s Unit 1 reactor, nearly a half-century after its sister became a national symbol of the fraught promise of nuclear energy.
Members of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) heard support from nuclear energy advocates and Dauphin County residents for Constellation Energy’s plan to restart the power plant. The Baltimore-based company announced last year it has a contract to supply Microsoft with 835 megawatts of electricity for an artificial intelligence data center.
But skeptics, including longtime Three Mile Island opponent Eric Epstein of Harrisburg, told the commission they have questions about how the 50-year-old plant was mothballed when Constellation shut it down in 2019, how much traffic it would generate, and the storage of radioactive spent fuel.
They also said they’re concerned about how the facility will interact with the Susquehanna River in an age when climate change both makes water an increasingly scarce resource and flooding more violent and unpredictable.
Paul Gunter, director of the reactor oversight project for Beyond Nuclear, noted the Government Accountability Office has advised the NRC to address climate risks to nuclear power plants by using future climate projections to assess safety risks rather than historical data.
“The NRC environmental review process is not unlike driving your car through the rear view mirror,” Gunter said. “The GAO has called attention to the fact that you’re not doing an adequate environmental review, and in particular, that you need to look at the impacts of climate change on the Susquehanna River levels.”
The meeting was an opportunity for NRC members and the Constellation Energy team to discuss an environmental review required under federal law before the agency can approve the plan to restart Three Mile Island Unit 1.
Constellation said in September that it would invest $1.6 billion to overhaul the plant, which it acquired in 1999 and shut down six years ago, citing economic conditions.
Located in Londonderry Township, Dauphin County, the plant is adjacent to but independent from the Unit 2 Three Mile Island reactor, which suffered a partial meltdown in 1979. The incident shook public confidence in nuclear power. Both plants occupy an island in the Susquehanna River about 15 miles south of Harrisburg.
Constellation said it plans to rename the plant the Crane Clean Energy Center after the company’s former CEO Chris Crane. The change must also be approved by the NRC.
Company officials said they plan to submit an environmental report to the NRC in October and hope to obtain final environmental approval and renewed permits by the first quarter of 2027.
In a presentation to the NRC, Constellation said the plant would be restored to its previous operational condition and that no major demolition or construction is planned. The project would include modifications to the base of one of the two cooling towers, reactor building cooling equipment and an underground oil tank that had been used to store fuel for diesel generators……………………………………
Epstein, chairman of the nuclear watchdog group Three Mile Island Alert, said he has questions about the storage of the plant’s used nuclear fuel rods, which according to Constellation’s presentation were removed from the reactor and placed in dry storage casks in a facility adjacent to the plant on the island. Epstein said he has been unable to get answers from Constellation about the plan for storing the spent fuel, noting that the owner of the damaged Unit 2 reactor also operates a fuel storage facility.
He asked a rapid-fire stream of questions about the restart plan.
“Is there a list of things that need to be rebuilt or replaced? … Where are you going to get the parts? You can’t go to Pep Boys and pull it off the shelf,” Epstein said.
He noted the surrounding farmland in Dauphin and Lancaster counties is home to Amish and Mennonite communities, of which many members don’t drive or use modern communication devices.
“I hope you guys will take a look at that in terms of emergency planning,” Epstein said.
Three Mile Island is one of three nuclear power plants that draw water from the Susquehanna River, Epstein said, claiming the demand of just two is equivalent to half the river’s daily flow.
Earlier this month, Houston-based Talen Energy announced a $650 million deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) for a 1,200-acre property adjacent to the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station nuclear plant near Berwick. AWS expects to build out the site with data centers that would consume as much energy as 900,000 homes and require millions of gallons of cooling water each day.
While it’s unclear whether the Microsoft data centers would be located near Three Mile Island, Epstein said his organization would sue to prevent additional water withdrawals from the Susquehanna..
“Where are we going to use the water? We’re going to use it for farmers? We’re going to use it for cleansing, or use it for hygiene, or are we going to use it for artificial intelligence?” Epstein said. https://penncapital-star.com/uncategorized/nuclear-regulators-hear-concerns-about-plan-to-restart-three-mile-island-reactor/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJMYRdleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHQib_ldS-ISmA1D6gu47O93dieRbXJuNFU_qcOMN6vmRnGDEpQTFzeaJ_w_aem_Ms6VL_eSAqi2vSoLrWfBLg
Time to take urgent action to help Stop Sizewell C
NFLA 18th March 2025, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/time-to-take-urgent-action-to-help-stop-sizewell-c/
With an ongoing Spending Review which will determine whether Chancellor Rachel Reeves continues to squander yet more public money to feed the ravenous Suffolk ‘White Elephant’ known as the Sizewell C nuclear power plant project, whilst seeking private sector backers to help the unholy beast lumber across the line marked Final Investment Decision, now is the time for all those opposed to the plan to step up and take action to oppose it.
The NFLAs have been consistent in supporting and promoting any initiative by our friends in Stop Sizewell C and Together against Sizewell C that will help stop the beast in its tracks, and with estimated acquisition costs recently doubling to £40 billion at a time of tightening public finances ending the project at this early stage and redirecting the money to invest in energy efficiency measures and renewables would be the wisest move by HM Treasury.
Stop Sizewell C has recently identified four actions that you could take and we urge you to do so:
Write to the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, urging her to cancel Sizewell C:
Over 1,000 such messages have been sent to the Chancellor during the current Spending Review.
Please add your own via action.stopsizewellc.org/save-billions-cancel-sizewellc
You can either send the standard message (see below for the text) by pressing ‘Send Message Now’ after entering your details or edit/paste in your own text by clicking ‘Personalise this email’.
he standard message:
“As you carry out your multi-year spending review, I am reminded of your statement to Parliament during your mini-budget last year – “If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it”. I appreciate that you face many difficult choices, but with the Financial Times reporting that Sizewell C will cost at least £40 billion, I urge you not to throw more taxpayers’ money at this expensive, risky project that will raise energy bills during its lengthy and unpredictable construction. For alternative strategies that will help meet the UK’s 2030 target and create many thousands of jobs, I urge you to focus on renewables and energy efficiency.”
Sign the Stop Sizewell C petition to David Goldstone, Chair of the new Office of Value for Money:
Stop Sizewell C is seeking at least 5,000 signatories to back a petition to the new Office of Value for Money’s independent Chair David Goldstone to call in the Sizewell C project for urgent scrutiny. To sign the petition please go to action.stopsizewellc.org/valueformoney
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