Beyond Nuclear joins call for repeal of House Bill 6, Ohio's scandalous nuclear/coal bailout law

Beyond Nuclear's radioactive waste specialist, Kevin Kamps, testified at the Repeal HB6 Now! coalition People's Hearing on October 29th.

RepealHB6.com allows Ohioans to take action, by emailing their state legislators. It also features educational videos about the $60+ million bribery scandal, and the $1.5 billion nuclear/coal bailout that resulted. Links to articles are also provided. So too links to the recordings of the Oct. 21, Oct. 27, and Oct. 29th Public Hearings.

See Kevin's written testimony, here.

Kevin also submitted backgrounders, for the record: "Radioactive Russian Roulette on the Great Lakes Shore: 20 MORE Years at Davis-Besse?!" (Nov. 2010); and "What Humpty Dumpty Doesn't Want You to Know: Davis-Besse's Cracked Containment Snow Job" (August 8, 2012).

New video debunks nuclear power myths

Members of New England’s Citizens Awareness Network (CAN) are pleased to present a self-produced video, explaining why atomic power is completely unsuitable as a “bridge” energy source to a sustainable future. Entitled “Nuclear Power to Save the Climate? You Gotta be Kidding!”, the video features CAN organizers addressing five misconceptions about nuclear power that the industry has promoted:

1)     Atomic power is free of CO2 emissions, and therefore a good "bridge" fuel: from gas, coal, and oil — to wind, solar, and other renewables.

2)    Closing existing nuclear plants will increase carbon emissions.

3)    Nuclear power production is the least expensive form of electric generation. 

4)    We can ‘recycle’ nuclear waste, and generate more power with it. 

5)    Switching from uranium to thorium reactors will make nuclear power safe and waste-free. 

Produced in a “point / counterpoint” format, the video features no-nukes activist and actor Court Dorsey in his venerable role as Will Newcomb, representative of NUCORPAC (Nuclear Corporations Political Action Committee).  During the course of the program, Mr. Newcomb grows increasingly agitated, as CAN presenters refute his spin-doctored assertions about atomic power’s merits as a cheap, clean energy source.

Many of the CAN members seen in the video have been activists in the no-nukes and sustainable energy movements for decades, and are presenting from their own expertise, in their own words.

Michael Schreiber, program director for the Shantigar Foundation, heads up the production team—with students from LaGuardia Community College providing the editing. Among the featured presenters is Deb Katz, Executive Director and founder of CAN. According to Ms. Katz, CAN has prioritized outreach to climate activists, as the acceptance of human-caused climate change reaches a critical stage. “Because the nuclear industry is trying to position itself as an answer to climate change, it’s essential that people understand that nuclear power undermines our ability to create a sustainable future. What’s needed is for people to word together to create the best solutions to ensure a sustainable planet.” Read more.

Warning from scholar on far right/white supremacist extremism about threats to attack nuclear facilities in order to cause mass casualty events

University of Chicago Professor Kathleen Belew, on C-SPAN's "Q&A," warns that far right, white supremacist extremists have threatened in the past to attack nuclear power plants in order to unleash catastrophic mass casualty events.

See the C-SPAN "Q&A" interview, here.

(Belew is referring to the domestic terrorist group, Atomwaffen Division. Atomwaffen means nuclear weapons in German. See the PBS Frontline special "Documenting Hate: New American Nazis," that aired on Nov. 20, 2018. It documents an apparently disrupted Atomwaffen Division plot to attack the Turkey Point nuclear power plant in southern Florida.)

To see how catastrophic such a domestic terrorist attack, causing an atomic reactor meltdown could be, in terms of casualties and property damage, see the CRAC-II chart, here.

It compiles the conclusions on casualties (peak early fatalities, or acute radiation poisoning deaths; peak radiation injuries; peak cancer deaths, or latent cancer fatalities), as well as property damage, as reported in CRAC-II.

CRAC-II is a 1982 report commissioned by NRC, and conducted by Sandia National Laboratory. CRAC-II is short for Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences. It is also known as the Sandia Siting Study, or as NUREG/CR-2239.

As horrific as the CRAC-II figures are, Associated Press investigative journalist Jeff Donn warned in his 2011 series "Aging Nukes" after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in Japan had begun, that populations have soared around nuclear power plants lsince 1982, so casualties would be significantly higher today.

And adjusting for inflation alone, but not even accounting for the significant economic development in the downwind areas since 1982, property damage would now be significantly worse, when expressed as current year dollar figures.

And, as Fukushima has shown, domino effect meltdowns are possible at multi-reactor sites. That is, a successful domestic terrorist attack on a single reactor could lead to multiple meltdowns at the same site.

Irradiated nuclear fuel, whether stored in indoor wet storage pools, or even in dry cask arranged like bowling pins out in the open air/plain view, could also unleash radiological catastrohe, if successfully attacked.

Update on April 8, 2021 by admin

Re: Atomwaffen Division, the Washington Post reports "Neo-Nazi group leader who threatened journalists and activists plead guilty to hate crimes."

UN Nuclear Weapons Ban gets 50th ratification. Law in 90 days!

Honduras today became the 50th country to ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The treaty will enter into force 90 days from today, on 22 January 2021.

The TPNW was adopted on July 7, 2017 and currently has 84 signatories. Although none of the nine nuclear weapons states has signed or ratified the treaty, as an international law, the TPNW will stigmatize those countries who continue to cling to nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

“The ratification of the TPNW is an important step because it acknowledges that the humanitarian impacts not only of the use of nuclear weapons, but also of their development and possession, is immoral and illegal,” said Linda Pentz Gunter, international specialist at Beyond Nuclear.

Once the treaty enters into force, any party that has ratified or acceded to it will be prohibited from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, possessing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, or allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed on their territory. 

The Treaty also prohibits them from assisting, encouraging or inducing anyone to engage in any of these activities.

While the nuclear weapons states have not joined the treaty, their status as outlaws will build pressure for their eventual accession. The United States, for example, has never signed the treaties banning landmines or cluster munitions, but it has ceased to use them.

The success in bringing the TPNW into force is the result of much hard work, led internationally by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), an international network of organizations which collectively won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for their efforts in securing the treaty. (Beyond Nuclear is a member of ICAN.)

According to ICAN, the TPNW “ is a powerful normative tool to demonstrate that nuclear weapons are morally unacceptable. It strengthens the legal framework and legal stigma against nuclear weapons. The TPNW can put external pressure on nuclear-armed states to make further efforts on disarmament.”

In addition to the stigmatization of nuclear weapons states, ICAN points out that the TPNW could also put pressure on financial institutions within those countries. 

“Financial institutions often choose not to invest in ‘controversial weapons,’ which are typically weapons prohibited by international law,” said an ICAN statement. “The entry into force of the TPNW clearly puts nuclear weapons in this category and will likely trigger additional divestment.”

CELEBRATING THE TREATY ON THE PROHIBITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON THIS HISTORIC DAY

OCTOBER 24, 2020  

CELEBRATING THE TREATY ON THE PROHIBITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON THIS HISTORIC DAY

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) today celebrates the 50th ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Under the terms of the treaty, it will enter into force, and become part of international law in 90 days, following today’s deposit of its instrument of ratification at the United Nations by the nation of Honduras.   

The TPNW puts legal force behind the aspiration of the nations of the world to be free from the threat of destruction by nuclear weapons. Adopted at the United Nations in 2017 by an overwhelming majority of the world’s countries, formally signed by 84 to date, and now officially ratified, the TPNW bans the development, testing, production, manufacture, acquisition, possession or stockpiling, transfer, control or receipt, use or threat of use, stationing or deployment of nuclear weapons by any state party to the Treaty.

No state currently in possession of nuclear weapons has signed the TPNW. Nevertheless, the entry into force of this Treaty is an historic milestone on the journey to a world free of nuclear weapons. Nations that possess or stage nuclear weapons, including the United States, will now find themselves standing outside the bounds of international law. Today, the international “norm” changes and nuclear weapons are illegal.

As precursor, in 1970, the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) obligated the United States and other states parties to the NPT to pursue in good faith negotiations leading to complete disarmament at an early date. In 1996, the World Court underscored that legal obligation in a unanimous ruling that the NPT required the nuclear weapons states to not only pursue but to achieve disarmament. Today, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons adds moral and legal weight to the disarmament aspirations embraced—and the obligations incurred—in the Nonproliferation Treaty.

ANA, a network of thirty-one organizations whose members live downwind and downstream from the U.S. Department of Energy weapons complex sites, calls on the U.S. government to hear the compelling call of the TPNW, and to take immediate steps toward compliance with the Treaty.

ANA President Marylia Kelley noted, “The U.S. should sign and ratify the TPNW. In the meantime, the United States should take immediate steps toward the overarching goal of the TPNW, a world free of the existential threat of nuclear annihilation.” ANA recommendations include constraining the development of new nuclear bombs and warheads and focusing instead on environmental justice and cleanup for communities suffering from the radioactive and toxic pollution that accompanies nuclear development.

ANA is a national network of organizations working to address issues of nuclear weapons productions and waste cleanup. Beyond Nuclear has been an ANA member organization since 2007.