Nuclear Hotseat

• Kumar Sundaram is a true firebrand in India's ongoing fight against nuclear technology. He is a Research Consultant with the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, known as CNDP and had done extensive work in Japan. We caught up with him in the middle of a three month fellowship in Japan, where he has been speaking to groups about the India/Japan nuclear agreement and gathering support for protests during next month's visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
  Sign the petition against the India/Japan nuclear deal: click here. 

Terminal imprecision as as the Director of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports that some bad stuff of a cyber nature happened at some nuclear reactor, some time in the last two or three years... but he's not saying where, when, how, why, what happened, or who did it.  (That's some reporting, Reuters!)  BUT - if nuclear reactors are such a terrorist cyber threat, why do we keep building them?

• Bruce Gagnon, secretary/coordinator of Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, is one of the hearts and minds behind the Keep Space for Peace! week activities, being held right now, October 1 through 8, around the world.  In this extended interview, Bruce talks about the nuclearization of space, the use of nuclear reactors instead of rockets, the satellite network already in place that could manipulate nuclear war by the United States against Russia and China, and at the end, he shares a vision for how all the major social and environmental justice movements need to come together to achieve one action all of us need.

• Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space: www.Space4Peace.org
• Bruce Gagnon's blog, Organizing Notes
• "Arsenal of Hypocrisy: The Space Program and the Military"
  
• New Army Corps of Engineers Report Reveals that the Problems with MOX Run Deep - article by Ed Lyman, senior scientist of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

French nuclear regulator ASN just issued a scathing report about defects, quality control issues for a specific model nuclear reactor, and independent consultant Large & Associates issued a 49-page scathing analysis of the defects and quality problems related to this nuclear power station type.  So of course, the UK not only wants this model built for Hinkley Pt. - they signed the contract a week AFTER these damning reports are released!  Duck and cover, indeed!

• Byron DeLear lives near the West Lake Landfill and has been passionately involved in its clean-up, as well as being active in clean energy issues as chairman and CEO of Energy Equity Funding. He is a columnist with Examiner.com and is currently running for state representative from the 40th District, which includes West Lake Landfill.

At West Lake Landfill: (l-r) Mali Martha Lightfoot, Libbe HaLevy,
Byron DeLear, Kay Drey, Dr. Helen Caldicott

• Don Hancock is Executive Director of the Southwest Information and Research Center, a nuclear watchdog group headquartered in Albuquerque, NM.
• AND - September 26, 2016 was the United Nations' International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.  Major demonstrations took place around the world.  Anybody hear about it in America?  Anybody...?

In Japan, the mud at the bottom of the dam may contain enough radioactive cesium to be designated waste, but according to the Ministry of the Environment, if you get nuked by being too close to the dam, according to the Ministry of the Environment, it's your own dam fault! 

• We Need To Ban Nuclear Weapons  (In Spite Of Canada) by Cesar Jaramillo, Executive Director, Project Plowshares, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
• Support for a Conference in 2017 to Negotiate a Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons - International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN.org)
• Depleted Uranium Discovered Scattered at Livermore Lab Site 300 - Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs
• How Nuclear Power Causes Global Warming - Harvey Wasserman, Solartopia.

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station Warning Siren - Powered by a Solar Panel:

• Prof. Celine-Marie Pascale of American University in Washington, D.C. is a sociologist who did a study of mainstream media coverage in the first two years after Fukushima – and not only are her observations stunning, she's got the data to back them up.  Originally presented on Nuclear Hotseat #203, May 2, 2015.
• Nuclear Hotseat European correspondent Shaun McGee reports on growing response to the BBC Panorama documentary on nuclear safety problems at the UK's Sellafield facility.  Watch the Sellafield BBC Panorama documentary here:

Thinking about why Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn) thinks that nuclear energy is "pollution free" (?!?!?????) is enough to give a girl the (radioactive) vapors!  Has he never heard of plutonium?  Or does he think that's just one of Walt Disney's characters?

TWEET THIS IN SUPPORT OF CAPE DOWNWINDERS AND THE CAMPAIGN TO SHUT DOWN PILGRIM NUCLEAR:

Pilgrim nuclear dangers last 2 wks - emergency shutdown, gas & water leaks, malfunctions, no evacuation possible. #ShutPilgrimNow!

• Study finds Rising Infant Death Rates Attributable to the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. 
• Informed Consent: What Communities Need to Know about "Interim" Nuclear Waste Storage
• Threats from Plan to Ship High-Level Radioactive Waste to Texas/ New Mexico
• WIPP nuclear waste accident will cost US taxpayers $2 billion
• Radioactive Food And Water The New Normal In Japan

• BREAKING:  After last week's latest SCRAM emergency shutdown at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Massachusetts, Diane Turco of Cape Downwinders and two others were arrested after delivering a letter demanding permanent shutdown to Mass. Governor Baker.  Nuclear Hotseat spoke with Diane immediately after her arraignment hearing.  Also in the news:  Today's Boston Globe Editorial, "Too Risky to Wait for Pilgrim Plant's Shutdown."
  
• Alicyn Gitlin, Conservation Coordinator for Restore & Protect the Greater Grand Canyon Campaign of the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter, on uranium mining issues threatening our great national monument.  Show your support here.
  
• Matt Pacenza, Executive Director of the environmental group HEAL Utah, brings us up to speed on that state's downwinder, radioactive waste and new nuclear build issues... as well as an unusual activist decision regarding two proposed new nuclear reactors on the Green River.

Plutonium-contaminated Rocky Flats in Colorado - winner of a White House "Keeping it Clean" award?  The only thing sustainable there is the radiation!

Featured image is of Cold War Horse, created by Jeff Gipe to acknowledge the history of Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, its workers, and the surrounding community.