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Antiwar Coalitions in Action

Antiwar Groups Protest Defense Industry Profiteering in Ukraine, Tyler Walicek, Truthout, 3 May 22,

”……………………………………………….. In the meantime, large-scale real-world protests against the war have erupted on numerous fronts — both within Russia and Ukraine and across the globe. Progressive, pacifist and anti-imperialist groups in the U.S. are no exception, having mobilized their considerable institutional resources to voice their own opposition. Given the unlikelihood of influencing the actions of the Russian government, they’ve targeted the realm in which they are mostly likely to have an impact — namely, U.S. policy. Because of its deep entanglements in the war, the U.S. response could easily be a critical determining factor on the outcome: either negotiation, drawdown and eventual peace, or escalation and sustained bloodshed.

Though the U.S. antiwar movement has never reattained the scale of its Vietnam-era heyday, plenty of groups with antiwar missions are active in the modern day. Many date to the resistance against the U.S.’s imperial expeditions in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s — for example, CODEPINK, the sizeable progressive and feminist antiwar organization, was founded in 2002. The group has been one of the more visible in mounting a response to the Ukraine issue, voicing dissent with the provision of weapons and directing public attention to the geopolitical context of NATO’s aggressive posture in the preceding years.

Truthout reached CODEPINK cofounder and activist Medea Benjamin, a Green Party member and former California Senate candidate, to learn more about the group’s agitational efforts and how antiwar elements in the U.S. might conceivably affect policy. As Benjamin sees it, the effort begins with education and informing the public: counteracting a media apparatus that insistently seeks to justify opening the floodgates of advanced weaponry — sometimes very directly.

“[The idea that weapons and sanctions are necessary] is being pushed by people in the White House and most members of Congress. It’s certainly being pushed by the corporate media,” Benjamin said. (Take The New York Times, for instance, which conceded sanctions may be “harsh,” but deemed they were ultimately “appropriate.” We are left to wonder why the Times didn’t insist the U.S. be so “harshly” sanctioned in the wake of the invasion of Iraq.)

Benjamin underscored the structural incentives: “The weapons companies [are] concerned about the drawing down of U.S. wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq. [The state] sees this as an opportunity to really debilitate Russia.… The ability to bleed the Russian economy and to curtail its reach also means that the U.S. is strengthening its position globally.”

CODEPINK and its allies, galvanized by the war, have busied themselves in a flurry of activity. CODEPINK had in fact already rallied a number of times in protest of rising tensions, before the crisis’s late-February outbreak. Immediately after Russian troops made their first incursion into Ukraine, the organization, along with U.K.-based groups like the Stop the War Coalition, the No to NATO Network and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, held an emergency online panel and rally, bringing together figures like Jeremy Corbyn and historian and writer Vijay Prashad to denounce the war (Corbyn called it “abominable, appalling and unnecessary”), and to call for peace.

CODEPINK’s series of webinars drew thousands — including, as Benjamin described, “representatives from members of parliaments from many governments, including the British, Irish, German, French and Spanish, [and] well-known academics and activists.” In April, Benjamin also hosted another “Stop the War in Ukraine” online rally featuring Noam Chomsky, another appearance from Vijay Prashad, Greek leftist politician Yanis Varoufakis, New Left Review editor Tariq Ali, and other notable voices.

These online events occurred in tandem with real-world rallies — “days of action,” which, Benjamin said, brought together “about 125 different groups around the world.” CODEPINK has long worked beside organizations like the ANSWER Coalition (another large antiwar group in the United States, which has also hosted online conversations). Together with the Black Alliance for Peace, Peace Action, and others, the coalition put together a rally in Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square as tensions rose. Further CODEPINK protests took place across various U.S. locales, where volunteers demonstrated, put up flyers and gathered signatures on petitions.

As Benjamin framed it, the core message in conducting this public outreach amounted to posing the questions, “Do you want the war in Ukraine to end? Do you want to save the lives of Ukrainian people? Well, then let’s call for a ceasefire and for serious negotiations.” She feels that this approach is a convincing one: “Once we have a chance to talk to people about it, we do get them to our side.”

Benjamin and CODEPINK plan to sustain their current rates of activity. In June, the group is joining the Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington, D.C. — an effort spearheaded by the Poor People’s Campaign to speak out against militarism and the bloated defense budget, among other systemic issues. Benjamin also highlighted future plans to send activists to protest an upcoming NATO strategic summit in Madrid, along with an international antiwar coalition of considerable size. Their hope is to apply pressure at a critical time: “With the upcoming election in November, I think that we can be part of talking about why this is happening, not allowing Biden to get away with blaming everything on Russia, but instead putting the blame on militarism and the inability to really seriously push for a negotiated solution,” Benjamin told Truthout.

Resolute Nonviolence

Joining CODEPINK at the Madrid NATO summit and elsewhere will be World Beyond War (WBW), a U.S.-based pacifist organization that maintains international chapters, including in Ukraine. David Swanson is WBW’s executive director. In a conversation with Truthout, he described the group’s assiduous organizing efforts. Like CODEPINK, WBW’s current strategy is to inform the public, presenting pacifist arguments for abolishing war, nuclear weaponry and arms dealing. WBW’s output has included innumerable articles, books, interviews, op-eds, videos, podcasts, and other media. In addition, said Swanson, “We’ve done tons of webinars, online and offline educational events. We have lots of speakers, we go and talk to classrooms, go and talk to peace groups that organize events and do tons of the same online.”

To augment the media push, WBW has also directed substantial real-world actions. “The past week, we’ve been doing protests all over the world,” said Swanson. The immediate future will see WBW participate in widespread protests on a global day of action, planned for May 7.“We’ve done these days before, usually in coalition with other groups, sometimes globally, sometimes nationally, trying to do days of events where we have at least small and sometimes large demonstrations or rallies or protests everywhere.”

WBW is also engaging in some more pointed confrontations. In one instance, a WBW advisory board member disrupted an event in Canada by confronting the deputy prime minister with an antiwar, anti-NATO diatribe. Another arm of WBW’s strategy, ongoing for years, is to protest at the physical offices of weapons manufacturers — major beneficiaries of wars that are incentivized to ensure they remain as drawn-out and destructive as possible. WBW will be demonstrating at the next annual meeting of aviation and defense corporation Northrop Grumman. Members aim to draw attention to the key role that the corporation and other arms manufacturers like Lockheed Martin play in “the war on Ukraine from which [they are] proudly profiting,” Swanson said. “There are Congress members proudly profiting from stock ownership in Lockheed Martin.”

Swanson sees the attention that the war on Ukraine has received as an opportunity to buttress opposition to militarism in general — and to flag certain contradictory narratives from U.S. empire and its mouthpieces. “After decades of demanding that war victims be treated with some sympathy and respect,” he said, “to have that finally happen in one place is an opportunity to say ‘Yes! Right on! What about all the other war victims?’ To have the U.S. government want war treated as a crime and prosecuted in a court — wonderful! Now how about all the other wars?”

That sort of hypocrisy around foreign policy is one of the state’s (and dominant media’s) most reliable features. Again, the tragedy of Ukraine has been especially amplified because it serves a convenient ideological function in contesting Russia’s geopolitical position. (And, as many have pointed, or blurted, out: Sympathy towards this conflict has also had particular purchase because Ukraine is considered a “civilized” European country with a large white population. A number of media figures have told on themselves on this front.)

Key to WBW’s ideology is an unswerving commitment to pacifism. As Swanson described it, “We are opposed to all war, all militarism, all war thinking, all support for military funding, always, without exception.… We think that’s actually the moral thing to do.” Nonviolence, for WBW, is non-negotiable — as evidenced by a recent article of his, which criticized the Poor People’s Campaign for an email that seemed to condone arming Ukraine. As Swanson continued: “To drag this on, to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian as we have their backs with the money rolling in — I don’t think this is a moral position. This is the point we struggle to educate people on: that the United States and Ukraine, as well as Russia, should be trying to end the war. It’s almost considered treasonous. The ‘proper’ position is to want to continue the war to weaken Russia.”

People Can Still Stop Wars

Countless organizers are just as aghast as Swanson at the grotesqueries of this war as well at its ideological utility for other powerful warmongering interests, their rank hypocrisy on display. Despite its distance from the conflict and a lack of leverage over Russia’s actions, the U.S. antiwar movement does, conceivably, have the potential to impact its own government. A U.S. pivot to pursuing a diplomatic resolution might help avoid a prolonged and grueling war of attrition. Yet if present conditions continue to accelerate — continued Russian aggression (as well as their significant battlefield setbacks) as the West increasingly arms Ukraine — the war may develop into the latter.

There are challenging moral questions to be weighed by the war’s opponents: questions of pacifism and self-defense, of how best to show solidarity with a beleaguered Ukraine, of how a war of aggression might be mitigated without worsening violence. Even understanding the conflict requires triangulating between the relentless propaganda of two powerful and deceptive nations. It would be easy for antiwar activists to give into the long odds and a sense of impotence or apathy, in a struggle that can seem quixotic. Yet the U.S. military and government, while an imposing edifice of power and profit, is not invulnerable, and mass protest and dissent have swayed the course of its history in the past. Despite their differences, antiwar organizers are collectively buoyed by a faith in what history has demonstrated: that people, when organized, can still stop wars.  https://truthout.org/articles/antiwar-groups-protest-defense-industry-profiteering-in-ukraine/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=77e07376-4f26-4746-9b6e-12d42fb0f129

May 7, 2022 Posted by | ACTION, opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

Militarism in the USA on the rise, with the Ukraine war

The U.S. public largely endorses these policies, with a majority approving of or wishing to increase weaponry shipments. (Further, a remarkable 35 percent favor direct military action — “even if it risks nuclear conflict with Russia,”

Antiwar Groups Protest Defense Industry Profiteering in Ukraine, Tyler Walicek, Truthout, 3 May 22, The war of aggression that Russia has perpetrated in Ukraine has rightly generated widespread condemnation, both among Russia’s Western critics and the world at large. On the war’s obvious heinousness, almost all of the U.S. political spectrum is in agreement. However, opinions as to the appropriate Western response proceed from vastly different premises.

The predominant left position is, on the whole, resolutely antiwar. U.S. activists of all stripes have been rolling out ambitious organizing efforts in the hopes of nudging the conflict towards diplomacy and an eventual ceasefire. Given the considerable death toll and the millions of refugees the war has produced — to say nothing of the threat of conventional or nuclear escalation — the matter is an urgent one.

In the process of organizing opposition, there has, of course, been much in the way of internal debate among various left factions. More contentious dimensions include the question of arming Ukrainians, the comparative moral weighting of nonviolence and self-defense, and the degree of culpability that should be attributed to NATO for its demonstrable role in decades of ratcheting tensions.

Whatever their perspective on the circumstances, organizers from left-liberals to communists are calling upon the means of protest at their disposal, from media initiatives to global rallies to demonstrations at the thresholds of the military-industrial complex. To mount an effective confrontation with the U.S. empire and defense industry and influence a far-flung conflict is a daunting prospect. Yet despite the historic scale of the challenge, coalitions of antiwar activists are striving to realize their vision of the end of imperial aggression — perpetrated by Russia and the U.S. alike.

Defaulting to Militarism

Antiwar organizers generally share a conviction that diplomacy should take precedence in resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The vast majority are vehemently opposed to any form of active U.S. military intervention — a prudent stance for those who wish to avoid a hot war with a nuclear power. Unsurprisingly, the same cannot be said for the U.S. political establishment, which has seized upon the opportunity to vilify Russia, seemingly eager to court a clash between the two deteriorating superpowers. Right-wing war fervor, always simmering below the surface, has boiled over; Republican jingoists (and a number of foolhardy op-eds in major media) espoused everything from a no-fly zone to refusing to rule out the deployment of U.S. ground troops.

These lawmakers’ martial fantasies are more than a little cavalier about the potential for Great Power conflict. Comparatively less reckless centrists, for their part, mostly favor a two-pronged approach: the imposition of devastating punitive sanctions on Russia and the delivery of vast amounts of weaponry to Ukrainian forces — stopping short of outright U.S. military intervention.

Democrats have leaped to snipe at the right by demonstrating who can demand the larger flood of weaponry, while leveraging the conflict for all manner of political purposes. By any measure, it has been a field day for fawning, ham-fisted propagandists like noted stenographer Bret Stephens. (“The U.S. stands up to bullies!”) Both parties are unequivocal in their shared support for an overflowing bounty of war materiel and other assistance. As of this writing, the White House is requesting a stunning $33 billion for Ukraine. The number keeps climbing.

The U.S. public largely endorses these policies, with a majority approving of or wishing to increase weaponry shipments. (Further, a remarkable 35 percent favor direct military action — “even if it risks nuclear conflict with Russia,” speaking poorly of their aptitude in risk assessment.) NATO has held out against calls to impose a no-fly zone; at least the military alliance sees the wisdom in avoiding a shooting war with Russian forces.

The shooting will instead be done by Ukrainian hands with plentiful Western arms — very much to the benefit of the U.S. defense industry. It is no coincidence that we see such an eagerness to fortify Ukraine among the government and media. Not only is the state keen to see Russia battered and chastened, but conflict and arms deals, as ever, mean profit.

Antiwar activists perceive the inundation of Ukraine with armaments as yet another round of war profiteering — one that risks precluding diplomatic solutions. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy petitions the world to arm Ukraine and intervene militarily, antiwar groups, in contrast, have spoken out in strident opposition to the staggering influx of Western arms, as well as the Cold-War style bellicosity that U.S. power has again taken up with gusto.

Antiwar Coalitions in Action

In the meantime, large-scale real-world protests against the war have erupted on numerous fronts — both within Russia and Ukraine and across the globe. Progressive, pacifist and anti-imperialist groups in the U.S. are no exception, having mobilized their considerable institutional resources to voice their own opposition. Given the unlikelihood of influencing the actions of the Russian government, they’ve targeted the realm in which they are mostly likely to have an impact — namely, U.S. policy. Because of its deep entanglements in the war, the U.S. response could easily be a critical determining factor on the outcome: either negotiation, drawdown and eventual peace, or escalation and sustained bloodshed………………….. https://truthout.org/articles/antiwar-groups-protest-defense-industry-profiteering-in-ukraine/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=77e07376-4f26-4746-9b6e-12d42fb0f129

May 7, 2022 Posted by | culture and arts, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

California Governor ”open” to keeping Diablo Canyon Nuclear Station going, but that might not be feasible

Gov. Newsom open to extending Diablo Canyon nuclear plant’s life, but analysts differ on feasibility and need

Changing course on the planned retirement of the nuclear plant would be surprising given California’s efforts to procure new electricity resources to replace it, one expert said.

Utility Dive, Kavya Balaraman, Senior Reporter May 5, 2022   California Gov. Gavin Newsom, D, is open to the possibility of delaying the closure of the state’s last operational nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, according to media reports, but some industry players remain skeptical about the feasibility of such an effort.

Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that Newsom may try to delay the retirement of the plant, currently scheduled to occur in 2024 and 2025 when the federal licenses for its two units expire. Newsom told the newspaper’s editorial board that California could try to tap into the $6 billion in federal funding announced in February for nuclear reactors facing retirement, noting that the state “would be remiss not to put that on the table as an option.”

Some experts, however, are skeptical about whether the plant can – and should – be kept open, given the process that would be required to get its Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) license extended, as well as recent efforts in the state to build gigawatts of clean energy generation to replace it. ……..

PG&E spokesperson Carina Corral said in an emailed statement that the utility is proud of the role that the Diablo Canyon power plant plays in California…….

Other experts, however, don’t think that pursuing a license renewal process for Diablo Canyon is feasible at this point.

“If they were going to extend the life of the plants, they’d have to reapply to the NRC and that would mean preparing the applications again. And I think enough has changed since they originally submitted, that that would be a pretty heavy lift,” Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said.

If the decision to keep the plant open were made tomorrow, it is highly unlikely that Diablo Canyon’s Unit 1 would receive a renewal before its license expired, although that would still be possible for Unit 2, according to Lyman.

And on the issue of whether another party could take over ownership of Diablo Canyon and move forward with the renewal process, “they would have to transfer the existing license to a new entity – and that in itself is a regulatory action that could be subject to challenge,” he said. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/analysts-differ-on-feasibility-need-to-extend-diablo-canyon-california-nuclear-plant/623214/

May 7, 2022 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Meltdown at Three Mile Island- USA’s closest nuclear close shave

Shortly after 4am on 28 March 1979, a pressure valve failed to close in
the Unit 2 reactor at Three Mile Island, a nuclear power plant on a strip
of land in central Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River. The technical
malfunction, compounded by human error – control room workers misread
confusing signals and halted the emergency water cooling system – heated
the nuclear core to dangerously high levels.

The film The China Syndrome
was still in theaters, starring Jane Fonda as a television reporter
investigating cover-ups at a nuclear power plant whose meltdown could
release radioactive material deep into the earth, “all the way to
China”. Three Mile Island – still the worst commercial nuclear accident
in US history – was no China Syndrome, but it got terrifyingly close to
catastrophic, Chernobyl-level damage.

As the Netflix docuseries Meltdown:
Three Mile Island recounts, Unit 2 came less than half an hour from fully
melting down – a disaster scenario that would have sickened hundreds of
thousands in the surrounding area. Two days after the accident, an
explosive bubble of hydrogen gas was found in the reactor. The plant’s
operator, Metropolitan Edison, tried to downplay the risk of radioactive
releases, but panic ensued; more than 100,000 people fled the surrounding
area. Plant technicians were eventually able to slowly bleed the gas from
the cooling reactor, avoiding a deadly explosion.

Though workers inside theplant were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, it remains unknown how
much contamination escaped the facility into the surrounding community. In
its second half, Meltdown, directed by Kief Davidson, homes in on the story
of Rick Parks, a cleanup supervisor turned whistleblower on the Bechtel
Corp, the company hired to conduct the billion-dollar cleanup by
Metropolitan Edison and supervised by the government’s Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC).

“While a lot of people know about the disaster, they
don’t know about what happened in the cleanup phase and how close we were
to another disaster,” Davidson told the Guardian. “We dodged a bullet a
second time, and it was entirely due to the fact that Rick Parks and
[fellow whistleblower] Larry King stood up. “We should know about these
stories,” he added. “We should be able to look at the people who risk
everything in order to save communities from a potential disaster.”

 Guardian 5th May 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/may/05/meltdown-three-mile-island-netflix-us-nuclear-accident

May 7, 2022 Posted by | incidents, media, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear War Threat Drives Greater Divide Between U.S., China

NewsWeek, BY JON JACKSON ON 5/6/22   THE ALREADY TENUOUS RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA RISKS FURTHER DETERIORATION FOLLOWING RECENT COMMENTS FROM EACH COUNTRY REGARDING THE THREAT OF NUCLEAR WAR THE OTHER PRESENTS.

Admiral Charles Richard spoke Wednesday during a hearing assembled by the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee about the escalated nuclear threat posed by China since its ally Russia began its invasion of Ukraine.

“We are facing a crisis deterrence dynamic right now that we have only seen a few times in our nation’s history,” Richard, who is head of the U.S. Strategic Command, said. “The war in Ukraine and China’s nuclear trajectory—their strategic breakout—demonstrates that we have a deterrence and assurance gap based on the threat of limited nuclear employment.”

During a Friday press conference, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian was asked about Richard’s remarks.

China follows a self-defensive nuclear strategy and keeps its nuclear forces at the minimum level required to safeguard national security. We stay committed to no first use of nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances, and undertake unequivocally and unconditionally not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones,” Zhao said. “This policy remains clear and consistent. China opposes any form of ‘China nuclear threat’ theory.”He further charged that U.S. officials were trying to shift “the blame to others.””Some individuals in the U.S. have been hyping up various versions of the so-called ‘China nuclear threat,'” Zhao said. “As is known to all, the U.S. is the biggest source of nuclear threat in the world”…………………………………….. . https://www.newsweek.com/nuclear-war-threat-drives-greater-divide-between-us-china-1704340

May 7, 2022 Posted by | China, politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ohio Democratic Party sues Governor over cover-up of records of the nuclear bailout scandal.

Ohio Democratic Party suesDeWine over FirstEnergy, nuclear bailout law records,

The Statehouse News Bureau | By Karen Kasler May 6, 2022    The Ohio Democratic Party has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Mike DeWine’s administration, saying they’re breaking the state’s public records law in turning over documents with information blacked out.

The lawsuit demands those documents related to the House Bill 6 corruption scandal be turned over without the redactions.

Democrats are searching for connections between DeWine and two FirstEnergy executives who admitted bribing former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio Public Utilities Commission chair Sam Randazzo. The company agreed to a $230 million fine last summer.

Ohio Democratic Party Chair Liz Walters said public records requests for DeWine’s meetings calendar were ignored last year. The party filed requests again in January and threatened a lawsuit if the records weren’t turned over.

“Facing public pressure, DeWine released redacted documents that didn’t follow the law and refused to release the rest,” Walters said. “We’re not going to let DeWine stonewall his way out of responsibility for this scandal.”

While the $150 million nuclear bailout subsidies in the law have been repealed, Walters said taxpayer dollars are still going to two coal plants operated by the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (OVEC), and are still appearing on ratepayers’ electric bills. She said $287,000 is being paid each day in subsidies to one of those plants, the Clifty Creek facility located in Indiana.

As speaker, Householder championed the sweeping nuclear power plant bailout known as House Bill 6. He’s accused of controlling a 501(c)4 funded by FirstEnergy in exchange for passing that legislation to serve the utility’s interests. Householder has maintained his innocence, and is awaiting trial on corruption charges next January. He was expelled from the House last year.

In its deferred plea agreement, FirstEnergy said it paid a $4 million bribe to Randazzo before DeWine appointed him as chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. Randazzo resigned in November 2020 after an FBI raid of his Columbus home. Randazzo has not been charged with any crime.

Democratic candidates have made it clear that they intend to use the House Bill 6 corruption scandal in this year’s campaigns, including gubernatorial nominee Nan Whaley, who’s running against DeWine………………….  to see more, visit The Statehouse News Bureau.  https://news.wosu.org/politics-government/2022-05-06/ohio-democratic-party-sues-dewine-over-firstenergy-nuclear-bailout-law-records

May 7, 2022 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Pentagon deploys airborne, special operations troops for exercises “from Arctic to Balkans” — Anti-bellum

Stars and StripesMay 4, 2022 US Army airborne units, special ops troops launch large drills in Europe U.S. Army paratroopers in the days ahead will conduct airborne operations stretching from the Arctic to the Balkans while American special operators launch simultaneous large-scale drills, as allied forces maneuver across swaths of Europe. U.S. Army Europe and […]

Pentagon deploys airborne, special operations troops for exercises “from Arctic to Balkans” — Anti-bellum

May 6, 2022 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Meltdown: Three Mile Island – powerful new Netflix documentary series

The partial meltdown at the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island in
Pennsylvania in 1979 was a perfect coalescing of factors in two senses.
First, a series of cascading mechanical and human errors brought the plant
close to a catastrophe that would have potentially made much of the East
Coast uninhabitable, we’re told in the new documentary “Meltdown: Three
Mile Island.”

Second, coming as it did both within memory of the height
of Cold War paranoia and days after the release of the film “The China
Syndrome,” the disaster was perfectly primed to set off anxieties about
the danger of atomic energy. “Meltdown: Three Mile Island,” a new
four-part documentary on Netflix, does an elegant job of braiding those two
truths — that Three Mile Island was a narrowly averted nightmare scenario
and that it lives on in the public imagination as an argument against
nuclear energy. It can default, especially in its early going, to tools of
the trade that feel underbaked — reenactments of, say, a phone ringing in
a school where children wait for news about the disaster, the camera
somewhat schlockily pushing in to amp up what’s already dramatic enough.

But the power of the story “Meltdown” tells, as well as the insight of
those on whom director Kief Davidson trains his camera, ultimately carries
the day.

 Variety 3rd May 2022

https://variety.com/2022/tv/reviews/meltdown-three-mile-island-netflix-1235256986/

May 5, 2022 Posted by | incidents, media, USA | Leave a comment

$61 Million in refunds for customers in South Carolina’s V.C. Summer Nuclear Station debacle


$61 Million in Refunds for Customers in SC Nuclear Debacle  https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-05-04/61-million-in-refunds-for-customers-in-sc-nuclear-debacle

A South Carolina judge has approved a second round of refunds for customers of a utility that poured billions of dollars into two nuclear power plants that never produced a watt of power.

By Associated Press, May 4, 2022,   COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina judge has approved a second round of refunds for customers of a utility that poured billions of dollars into two nuclear power plants that never produced a watt of power.

About $61 million is being set aside for Dominion Energy South Carolina after the utility sold a number of properties as part of the settlement of a class-action lawsuit by 1.1 million of its customers over the never completed plants at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station near Columbia

Wednesday’s agreement will split the $61 million based on power use by residential, business and industrial customers during a decade of planning and construction for the nuclear station, media outlets reported.

The checks will be similar in amount to a first round of refunds made in the lawsuit in 2019, which was based on $60 million from Dominion Energy.

The nuclear project was run by South Carolina Electric & Gas. It was bought by Virginia-based Dominion in 2019 after the local utility ran out of money to finish the reactors two years earlier.

Four executives of the utility or the company that was building the reactors have been indicted or have pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the failure.

One remaining question is how will the refunds be issued. The 2019 refunds were all checks, and more than 10% of the money went unclaimed as checks as small as 4 cents weren’t cashed or people who were supposed to get refunds couldn’t be found.

Lawyers suggested power bill credits for amounts under $50 and former South Carolina Chief Justice Jean Toal, who was put in charge of the settlement negotiations, said she would think about it.

May 5, 2022 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

USA’s nuclear lobby continues to infiltrate education

U.S. Department of Energy funds nuclear engineering scholarships at Missouri S&T by Nancy Bowles
On May 3, 2022

………. “The DOE’s support shows the importance of the work our students are doing to promote nuclear energy as a sustainable resource for decades to come,” says Dr. Ayodeji Alajo, interim chair of nuclear engineering and radiation science at Missouri S&T. “We are thankful for this recognition and hope to continue to build the relationship we enjoy with the DOE.”…………..
.…………..  The awards are provided through the Office of Nuclear Energy’s (NE) University Nuclear Leadership Program (UNLP) and include 61 undergraduate scholarships and 28 graduate fellowships for students at 32 colleges and universities in 23 states. Prior to 2021, UNLP was known as Integrated University Program. Missouri S&T students have received program scholarships several times in the past few years…………   https://news.mst.edu/2022/05/u-s-department-of-energy-funds-nuclear-engineering-scholarships-at-missouri-st/

May 5, 2022 Posted by | Education, USA | Leave a comment

US now preparing for a world with and without Iran nuclear deal

Arab News,  4 May, WASHINGTON: The United States is now preparing equally for both a scenario where there is a mutual return to compliance with Iran on a nuclear deal, as well as one in which there is not an agreement, the State Department said on Wednesday.
“Because a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA is very much an uncertain proposition, we are now preparing equally for either scenario,” Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a briefing…………  https://www.arabnews.com/node/2075746/middle-east

May 5, 2022 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

In 2021 USA’s renewable power generation exceeded it nuclear generation.

The US Energy Information Administration reports that power sector
generation from renewable sources totalled 795 million MWh in the USA
during 2021, overtaking nuclear generation, which totalled 778 million MWh.

The US electric power sector does not include some electricity generators
in the industrial, commercial, or residential sectors, such as small-scale
solar or wind or some combined-heat-and-power systems. Renewable generation
includes electricity generated from wind, hydropower, solar, biomass, and
geothermal sources.

Natural gas remained the most prevalent source of
energy for electricity generation, accounting for 1474 million MWh in 2021.
Although several US coal-fired power plants retired in 2021, coal-fired
generation increased for the first time since 2014 and was the source of
more electricity than either renewables or nuclear power. Total electricity
generation increased slightly in 2021, but it remained less than its
record-high year of 2018.

 Modern Power Systems 3rd May 2022

https://www.modernpowersystems.com/news/newsus-renewables-generation-has-overtaken-nuclear-9670031

May 5, 2022 Posted by | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear power is a HUGE water guzzler – so why are we guzzling the lie that nuclear is good for climate?

The video above is 2 years old – but so what? Nothing seems to have changed – this particular facility is especially water-dependent. But they all are. The current article below – is, unfortunately, behind a paywall. But it’s a rare mention in the media of this hugely significan factor in nuclear power problems.

Take France, for example. Right now, nearly half of their nuclear reactors are shut down anyway. But – come the summer – they’ll be shutting down again – due to water stress.

Huge nuclear plant in Arizona desert seeking new sources of water – it uses 23 b gallons of water per year  The Arizona Republic  2 May 22, https://www.azcentral.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.azcentral.com%2Fstory%2Fmoney%2Fbusiness%2Fenergy%2F2022%2F05%2F01%2Farizonas-nuclear-palo-verde-generating-station-wants-new-water-source%2F7306649001%2F

May 3, 2022 Posted by | climate change, USA, water | Leave a comment

NASA Is Sending Artificial Female Bodies to the Moon to Study Radiation Risks.

Gizmodo, Passant Rabie, May 3, 22, Helga and Zohar are headed for a trip around the Moon on an important mission, measuring radiation risks for female astronauts for the first time.

The inanimate pair are manikins modelled after the body of an adult woman. For the Artemis 1 mission, in which an uncrewed Orion capsule will travel to the Moon and back, one of the manikins will be outfitted with a newly developed radiation protection vest. Helga and Zohar, as they’re called, won’t be alone, as they’ll be joined by a third manikin that will collect data about flight accelerations and vibrations. Artemis 1 is scheduled to blast off later this year.

The Artemis program aims to return humans to the Moon for the first time in over 50 years, but this time the space agency has vowed to land the first woman on the dusty lunar surface.

Women appear to be at a greater risk of suffering from the harmful effects of space radiation, so they have different radiation boundary levels than their male colleagues. Studies of radiation exposure for men and women indicate a higher chance of women developing cancer, while other research has found that space radiation is likely to affect female reproductive health…………………………………. https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2022/05/nasa-is-sending-artificial-female-bodies-to-the-moon-to-study-radiation-risks/

May 3, 2022 Posted by | space travel, USA, women | Leave a comment

Senate Approves Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Extension

https://nativenewsonline.net/health/senate-approves-radiation-exposure-compensation-act-extension, BY KELSEY TURNER  MAY 02, 2022, The U.S. Senate on Thursday unanimously approved a two-year extension of an act giving compensation to people who were exposed to radiation from atomic weapons testing and uranium mining. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), which is set to expire in July, provides one-time benefit payments to those who have been diagnosed with cancer or other diseases relating to radiation exposure. The extension now awaits approval by the House. 

Since its creation in 1990, RECA has given over $2.4 billion in benefits to more than 38,000 people in Nevada, Utah and other impacted areas. Compensation is available to several groups, including “onsite participants” involved in atmospheric test of an atomic weapon, “downwinders” who were present in certain areas near test sites, and uranium miners, millers and ore transporters who worked with uranium. If passed, the extension would give people more time to apply for compensation.  

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez applauded the Senate’s approval of the extension, saying it “demonstrates strong bi-partisan support for former uranium miners, downwinders, and many others who have to live with the devastating health effects to this day.” 

In March, Nez met with members of both political parties in Washington, D.C., where he voiced the concerns of Navajo people experiencing health impacts due to radioactive contamination and exposure from abandoned uranium mines. 

“This is a united effort on behalf of former uranium miners and their families, to secure just compensation and benefits for the health issues and detrimental impacts of uranium mining conducted by the federal government,” Nez said in a Navajo Nation press release. “The RECA bill is an opportunity for Congress to be a part of something historic for the Navajo people, the Navajo Uranium Radiation Victims Committee, and other impacted groups.”

Nez encouraged legislators to work toward a long-term solution that would extend RECA until 2040. A bill sponsored by Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo proposes to expand and extend RECA for another 19 years following the bill’s enactment. 

Navajo Nation is pushing for this expansion to include all downwinders, create additional categories of uranium workers and radiation-related illnesses, and increase the minimum compensation received by affected individuals.

May 3, 2022 Posted by | health, Legal, politics, USA | 2 Comments

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