Nguyen Khac Nhan: "the Vietnamese person who is most well-informed about nuclear energy and most vehemently opposed to it"

As reported by Michiko Yoshii in the Asahim Shimbun's Forum, a Vietnam-born, France-based engineer, Nguyen Khac Nhan, describes himself as "the Vietnamese person who is most well-informed about nuclear energy and most vehemently opposed to it."

The article quotes Nguyen's response to a question about Vietnam's first proposed atomic reactors:

"The nuclear power projects will most certainly be stopped. Five reactors have melted down in the first 50 years of nuclear power's use in the world. Three Mile Island had one, Chernobyl had one, and Fukushima had three. That's one reactor every decade. Unfortunately there will be another accident at a reactor within the next decade. We don't know if it'll be in France, China, Japan, or some other country. And when it happens, I think they'll put a stop to the Vietnamese projects. I don't intend to die until I've seen those projects killed." (emphasis added)

Beyond Nuclear discusses Fukushima on RT International

Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps was interviewed by RT International regarding current developments at Fukushima Daiichi, Japan. The interview includes footage of the large mounds of radioactive waste being transferred to Okuma and Futaba, the two "host" towns in Fukushima Prefecture across which the six reactor nuclear complex sprawls. Both towns are now "Dead Zone," indefinitely uninhabitable. All surviving former residents are now living as nuclear evacuees, unable to go home.

The interview also includes footage of the snake-like robots Tokyo Electric is sending into the Unit 1 reactor's damaged radiological containment structure. The first, deployed on April 10th, broke down after a few hours of service, for yet unexplained reasons. The radiation levels it measured would be lethal to humans within 30 minutes or less.

"FERC Rejects Ginna Rates, Orders Settlement Proceeding"

The Ginna atomic reactor, on the Lake Ontario shoreline in upstate New YorkAs reported by William Opalka in RTO Insider, "The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Tuesday rejected the rate schedule proposed for a struggling nuclear power plant needed for reliability in western New York and ordered hearing and settlement proceedings (ER15-1047)."

The R.E. Ginna atomic reactor, owned and operated by Exelon Nuclear of Chicago, is one of the very oldest still-operating in the U.S. It fired up in 1969. It is located in Ontario, New York, on the Lake Ontario shoreline.

Exelon's scheme for keeping Ginna operating -- despite losing tens of millions of dollars per year, for the past three years -- is to gouge ratepayers in Rochester, NY.

Ginna is but one of four atomic reactors on the upstate NY shore of Lake Ontario. The three additional reactors are Nine Mile Point Unit 1, Nine Mile Point Unit 2, and FitzPatrick. There are also 10 operating reactors on the Canadian shore of Lake Ontario: six at Pickering, and four at Darlington. See Anna Tilman's map, and IICPH's website, for more info. 

"Aileen Mioko Smith: Anti-Nuclear Feminist"

Smith amidst the 2012 "Occupy METI" (Ministry for Economy, Trade, and Industry) anti-nuclear protests in Tokyo in 2012Heidi Hutner, Director of the Stony Brook University Sustainability Program, has honored Aileen Mioko Smith, Executive Director of Green Action in Kyodo, Japan as a "Wonder Woman Who Has Made History," in Ms. Blog's Women's History Month Series.

As the article describes, Smith has decades of anti-nuclear grassroots (and additional environmental and feminist) activism under her belt, including interviewing hundreds of survivors of the Three Mile Island meltdown, collecting four million signatures onto petitions against nuclear power in Japan in the late 1980s, fending off plutonium mixed oxide fuel use in Japanese reactors for decades, and helping lead the remarkably successful nationwide resistance to reactor restarts in Japan in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe.

Beyond Nuclear is privileged and honored to work closely with Smith, from hosting speaking tour exchanges in Japan and the U.S. (see various web posts in Sept. 2011), to featuring her TMI work (see article on page 4 of our TMI newsletter), to nominating her as a keynote speaker at the August 2011 Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) concert, as well as for a 2014 Nuclear-Free Future Award.

In late 2013, Smith published "The Potential of Japan's Anti-Nuclear Citizens' Movement to End Nuclear Power and Implement Change in Japan's Energy Policy: What Needs to Be Undertaken to Meet this Challenge." For the fourth anniversary of the ongoing Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, Smith published a Power Point presentation entitled "Nuclear Phase Out in Japan."

Nuclear Licensing Board Examines Brittle Vessel Risks at Entergy’s Palisades Atomic Reactor; Critics Call for Permanent Shutdown

NRC file photo of Entergy Nuclear's Palisades atomic reactor on the Lake Michigan shore in Covert, MIAs reported by a press release, a coalition of environmental groups, including Beyond Nuclear, today testified before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB), at the agency's HQ in Rockville, Maryland, just outside D.C.

The coalition, represented by Toledo attorney Terry Lodge, defended its intervention against an Entergy License Amendment Request (LAR) to further weaken reactor pressure vessel (RPV) embrittlement/pressurized thermal shock (PTS) safety regulations.

Palisades has the worst-embrittled RPV in the U.S., at risk of a PTS fracture, Loss-of-Coolant-Accident, core meltdown, and catastrophic release of hazardous radioactivity. A bad precedent at Palisades will then be applied by NRC to approve operations at other dangerously brittle pressurized water reactor (PWR) RPVs across the U.S.

The coalition intervened on Dec. 1, 2014. Entergy Nuclear and NRC staff counter-attacked on Jan. 12, 2015. The coalition rebutted the attacks on Jan. 20.

Today's "oral argument pre-hearing" was essentially an ASLB exercise to determine whether the coalition's intervenion is worthy of an evidentiary hearing on the merits of the contention. The ASLB is scheduled to rule on the admissibility of the intervenors' contention within 45 days.

On March 9, the coalition filed a parallel intervention regarding loss of Charpy V-Notch Upper-Shelf Energy in Palisades RPV, another form of age-related degradation.

From 2005 to 2007, a broad environmental coalition sought to block Palisades' 20-year license extension. The coalition's main safety objection was PTS risks. NRC rubber-stamped the extension anyway.

This is an international issue. Palisades threatens the drinking water supply of 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations.