Nuclear Hotseat

Cold War Horse, sculpture by Jeff Gipe - the only acknowledgement
of the radiological history of Rocky Flats nuclear factory present at the site. 

• The Half-Life of Memory: America’s Forgotten Atomic Bomb Factory by director/producer/videographer Jeff Gipe, is a gripping recounting of the history of Rocky Flats, which produced plutonium pits - triggers - for U.S. nuclear bombs from 1952 to 1989. public protests against it, and how its legacy has been disguised.  Jeff is an accomplished visual artist and filmmaker, known for works on the far-reaching implications of the US Nuclear legacy.  His deep connection to the subject matter stems from his upbringing near the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, where his father was employed. zThe 55 minute film is about to have its world premiere on November 2 at the Denver Film Festival.
  
  I spoke with Jeff Gipe on October 18, 2024.

• Trailer for Half-Life of Memory
• Half-Life of Memory website
• Jeff Gipe website
• Jeff Gipe email
• Denver Film Festival

Nuclear Regulatory Commission "apologizes" for "misinformation" about - OOPS! - radioactive water from Monticello nuclear in the Mississippi river - but doesn't apologize for the radioactive tritium-contaminated water ACTUALLY BEING in the Mississippi River.  I don't think Emily Post would consider that as an appropriate apology.

Piketon, Ohio anti-nuclear Halloween yard display.  You want a scary Halloween?  Nuclear is the scariest!  Vina Colley of PRESS on the left.

• Back from the Brink - Talking points and suggestions to contact local newspapers in support of Nihon Hidankyo/s Nobel. Peace Prize and other nuclear issues. 
• Nuclear Weapons Have The Potential To Frighten My Nervous Dogs

• The Nuclear Waste Administration Act (H.R.9786): Don't be fooled by its apparent purpose! 
• Democrats Embrace Nuclear Power In Heated Senate Races
• Costly Replacement of ICBMs With Sentinel Missiles Increases Risk of Nuclear War - Many of our unmet needs as US citizens are due in part to the cost of the US nuclear arsenal.
• Nihon Hidankyo’s Bittersweet Receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize
• Indian nuclear weapons, 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIFwk1VIsLQ&t=2s

Kenyans trying to block the building of its first nuclear reactor.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo. This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.  (Audio commentary on this award from the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) will be on next week's program.)

The rarely-seen carnage left behind in the wake of the atomic bomb drop by the United States on Hiroshima, August 6, 1945.  Because of actions taken by Gen. Douglas MacArthur to suppress information and images about how devastating the attack was on the people, most photos you see were taken after clean-up of the bodies.  This is from a Japanese newsreel company's footage the day after the bomb dropped.  The film was confiscated and suppressed as "Top Secret" until the 1980's.

Physicist and author M. V. Ramana

• The conclusion of our two-part interview with award-winning physicist M. V. Ramana (above), author of the book NUCLEAR IS NOT THE SOLUTION: The Folly of Atomic Power int he Age of Climate Change.  This week, he covers the myths about Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMNR or SMR) and reveals their direct connection to nuclear weapons.

A new monthly feature.  Jack Cohen-Joppa, who along with his wife, Felice Cohen-Joppa, publish The Nuclear Resister newsletter and have since 1980.  Here, Jack shares stories from their archive, bringing our shared activists history to life.  

Cameras meant to guide the removal of radioactive debris from Fukushima Daiichi have again failed. At least this time Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) admits that they fried from too much radioactivity. So what is TEPCO’s plan to “fix” these errant cameras? Can you say, “reboot?”

• For tech geeks, more information on the robot TEPCO is using to try to retrieve samples of radioactive rubble from the rubbled remains of the Fukushima nuclear reactors. 
• Nuclear Future: The Price  By W.J. Hennigan - NYT Op-Ed.
• Harvey Wasserman:  Nuke Power’s “Renaissance 4.0” Has Already Melted
• The radioactive legacy of the Hanford nuclear reservation will live on, even as plans for cleanup evolve
• Nuclear weapons and children

Mary Olson of Gender and Radiation Impact Project (genderandradiation.org) is alive and well!  She lives in Asheville, North Carolina, and we hadn't heard from her since before Hurricane Helene ripped through that town on September 27.  As of October 9, Cindy Folkers of Beyond Nuclear reports that Mary is FINE!  She has water, food, cell phone, but no internet c"onnection.  She has been hosting folks from the community at her house for showers and laundry services.  She is very lucky considering the circumstances of others - and we are VERY relieved for her safety.  Information was received just as Nuclear Hotseat #694 was posting.  


Mary Olson (l) and Nuclear Hotseat's Libbe HaLevy at the Nuclear Waste Summit in 2019.

• U.S. district court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis ruled last week that the US Department of Energy. - DOE - and its semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration - NNSA - violated the National Environmental Policy act by failing to properly consider alternatives before proceeding with their plans to produce plutonium pits - the core components of all nuclear weapons - at both Los Alamos National Lab in Santa Fe, NM, and Savannah River Site in South Carolina. This ruling comes as a result of a coalition of plaintiffs consisting of Savannah. River Site Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, and Tri-Valley CARES near the Lawrence Livermore Labs in northern California.
  
  Jay Coughlin is Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, which has since 1999 successfully addressed nuclear weapons issues across the spectrum of disarmament, nonproliferation, open government, and environmental concerns. Here, explains what brought this lawsuit regarding plutonium pits about, what the ruling means, and what's next.
  
  I spoke with Jay Coughlin on October 7, 2024.

Jay Coughlin, Executive Director, Nuclear Watch New Mexico

• Court Rules U.S. Nuclear Weapons Production Plan Violates Federal Law
• PLUTONIUM PIT FACT SHEET

The International Uranium Film Festival is honored to have been named as one of the 2024 COOLEST FILM FESTIVALS by MovieMaker Magazine.  They had this to say about it:

• You’ve never seen two people get more done than the life and project-partner duo Márcia Gomes de Oliveira and Norbert G. Suchanek, who run the International Uranium Film Festival in deep collaboration with activists around the world. The festival has its grand event in Rio, but also does an extensive U.S. tour in regions impacted by uranium-related industry. Inevitably, folks wonder whether there are enough films on the subject to warrant a festival. The answer is yes. This, of course, is because the issue is expansive, impacting all 50 U.S. states and many more corners of the world than most folks realize. From the Navajo Nation to Las Vegas to Chicago and many places between, this spirited DIY art, advocacy, and activism project brings folks together in a space of support, education, shared outrage, and a good time. The International Uranium Film Festival is a refreshing example of what activism and advocacy can be: inclusive, expansive, and celebratory.

To learn more about the award and the other festivals (it's an amazing group!), go to:https://www.moviemaker.com/coolest-film-festivals-2024/" class="text-nh underline hover:text-nh-dark"> https://www.moviemaker.com/coolest-film-festivals-2024/

Cameras meant to guide the removal of radioactive debris from Fukushima Daiichi have again failed. At least this time Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) admits that they fried from too much radioactivity.  So what is TEPCO's plan to "fix" these errant cameras?  Can you say, "reboot?"

• Silkwood film streaming on Hulu
• United Nations Principles for Responsible Investing (UN PRI)
• Jane Fonda: Nuclear power at Three Mile Island is no climate solution
• Hurricane Helene sends a warning
• New NRC Report Highlights Dangerous Components at Palisades Nuclear Plant

Stop Japan Working Group 2023 - JNC-TV - LINKS to videos:

• October 5th Los Angeles Rally and March to stop the discharge of Fukushima wastewater
• October 7th Washington DC Rally and March to stop the discharge of Fukushima wastewater
  

M. V. Ramana w/book, Libbe HaLevy w/Podcast.

• A new book by reknowned physicist M. V. Ramana: Nuclear Is Not the Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change,. Ramana is professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the University of British Columbia. He previously worked at the Nuclear Futures Laboratory and the Program on Science and Global Security, both at Princeton University. Ramana is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, the Canadian Pugwash Group, the International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group, and the team that produces the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report. The first of a two-part interview base upon his recently published book.

TOTALLY FICTITIOUS WESTINGHOUSE ANIMATION
OF A 116 WEEK BUILD SCHEDULE
FOR THE AP 1000 NUCLEAR REACTOR. 
Taken from the Westinghouse website in 2014. Westinghouse has long since taken it down.
NO WONDER!  IThis is a LINK to the video.)

THIS ANIMATION IS A TOTAL LIE.

Let's applaud climate activists willing to risk their freedom to save us all.

The latest news direct from the Geneva, Switzerland headquarters of the Nobel Peace Prize winning Intrnational Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). 

Foooood, glorious Fukushima fooooood!  (NOT!)

• Karen Silkwood and Kerr-McGee: A Reinvestigation By Steven H. Wodka
• CNIC Statement: Concerns over Revival of the Nuclear Power Myth and Unrealistic Nuclear Policy

Three Mile Island

• Eric Epstein of Three Mile Island Alert explains what's wrong with the Bill Gates/Microsoft plan to restart TMI unit 1 (not the one that melted down), which has been shuttered for five years, to power the MIcrosoft AI data center. 

Eric Epstein of Three Mile Island Alert with Nuclear Hotseat's Libbe HaLevy
at the 40th anniversary of the nuclear meltdown - March 28, 2019

• Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Energy Education speaking at the Three Mile Island accident's 40th anniversary on how much radiation was released. 
• Aaron Datesman, co-author with Doug Brugge of the newly published book, Dirty Secrets of Nuclear Power in an Era of Climate Change, with new information about the radiation release at Three Mile Island.  Datesman is a researcher and inventor living in Washington, DC who has held technical roles at the US Department of Energy and at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.  This is an excerpt from a full-length interview with Datesman and Doug Brugge which will be coming in the next few weeks. 

Scene of the Crime:  Nuclear Hotseat's Libbe HaLevy
in front of the cooling towers at Three Mile Island

Lockheed Martin jets, nukes, and NATO.

It's the first ever Numnutz Twofer, courtesy Russia!  Putin talks with shamans!  And plans are floated to build a plywood White House and Big Ben in Siberia... and then nuke 'em! 

• Petition:  No deportation of anti-nuclear activist Dennis DuVall! The 82-year-old U.S. citizen and long-term resident of Germany is facing deportation following his two arrests for nonviolent nuclear protests at the Buchel air base. Sign Here.

Dennis DuVall, in red, enters Büchel air base July 2018.
Photo from Community for Human Rights in the Free State of Saxony

• The radioactive issue: Meet the 2 Native American women fighting to save nuclear exposure benefits (RECA)
• Excavation near radioactive creek in Pike County triggers calls for investigation
• An EMP Attack on the U.S. Power Grids and Critical National Infrastructure - Extensive, w/maps by Steven Starr
• World now has five times more PV than nuclear power-  World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2024
• World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2024
• More Nuclear Reactors?  The Nuclear Schizophrenia of IAEA's Director General Rafael Grossi
• Nuclear power: future energy solution or potential war target?