Nuclear Hotseat

Actual site of Kings Bay Plowshares 7 Anti-Nuclear Action - does this look like damage that justifies 3 years in prison?

The Kings Bay Plowshares are a group of seven Catholic peace activists who broke into the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia on April 4th, 2018, and carried out a symbolic act of protest against nuclear weapons. The name of the action and the wider anti-nuclear Plowshares movement comes from the prophet Isaiah's command to "beat swords into plowshares.” As a result of their non-violent actions, the group were arrested, tried, and a federal grand jury found the seven guilty on three felony counts and a misdemeanor charge. Members served up to three years in prison for their action.

Now, prison sentences and home confinements have ended for those who carried out the Trident Disarmament Action Against Nuclear Weapons and we spoke with two of them for this week’s show.

Patrick O'Neill

Patrick O’Neill is 61 years old, the father of six daughters and two sons. With his wife, Mary Rider, he co-founded the Fr. Charlie Mulholland Catholic Worker House in Garner, N.C. in 1991, an intentional, pacifist, Christian community that works to uphold the Consistent Ethic of Life.  In addition to Catholic Worker responsibilities, he is a journalist.  His peacemaking and anti-nuclear efforts include extensive work opposing nuclear weapons, working for abolition of the death penalty, supporting immigrants, participating in the N.C.-based Moral Monday Movement, the new Poor People’s Campaign, Black Lives Matter and other anti-oppression and anti-racism efforts.  Patrick has spent more than two years in jail and prison for his peace work.

Martha Hennessey

Martha Hennessy, seventh child of Dorothy Day’s only child Tamar, divides her time between the family farm in Vermont and volunteer work at Maryhouse Catholic Worker in New York City.  She has been arrested and imprisoned protesting nuclear power, war, the use of drones, the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo and other prisons, and the use of starvation as a weapon of war in Yemen.  She has traveled to Russia, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Jordan, and Palestine to understand the effects of war on other peoples.  Martha travels and speaks on the topics of life and work in community, Catholic Social Teaching, anti-nuclear actions, and peacemaking efforts in the tradition of the Catholic Worker movement.

We spoke on August 25, 2022.

For more information on the action, its aftermath, and the other activists, go to KingsBayPlowshares7.org.

King Charles III and Nukes: can we expect anything good? 

• Why Is There More Media Talk About Using Nuclear Weapons Than About Banning Them? - Karl Grossman

Diablo Canyon's proximity to earthquake faults: what the CA legislature and Gov. Newsom ignored.

When the California legislature voted on August 31, 2022 to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear facility open for a minimum of another 5 years - which will  probably end up being 20 - this setback wasn’t for lack of evidence as to why this was a bad idea.  Activists from around the state, with national support, put forth compelling talking points, created petitions, made thousands of calls and emails to legislators to vote against bill 846 .  But they were  up against the nuclear industry’s millions of dollars, poured into a multi-year campaign to turn around the 2016 decision to shut it down, and who knows what incentives dangled in front of legislators eager for re-election funds,

But for whatever their reasons, legislators ignored crucial information, all of it verifiable, footnoted, and presented to them about Diablo's dangers, weaknesses, history.  The San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace  held an online press conference in one final concerted effort to wake up the legislators and the media, and get out the talking points as to why Diablo needed to close on schedule, as planned since 2016.  Here, we feature five of the speakers:

• Cathy Iwane is co-founder of the Coalition for Nuclear Safety . In 2011, she and her family fled Japan to escape the effects of the Fukushima nuclear disaster and moved to southern California, not knowing how close she was to the San Onofre nuclear reactors.  She became active fighting for the closure of SanO and continued to work on the problems that came up during decommissioning and especially with the spent fuel canisters. Cathy and still lives in southern California.
  
• Donna Gilmore used to live in southern California within five miles of the San Onofre nuclear reactors and founded San Onofre Safety. After Fukushima, when she realized her proximity and the dangers from that nuclear reactor, she became involved in shutting down San Onofre and working on other national battles. Donna is a wiz at doing research and crunching numbers, and here she provides insights into the myth that Diablo Canyon could be a long term reliable source of energy for California.
  
• Daniel Hirsch. He is the retired director of the Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and president of Committee to Bridge the Gap, a non-profit nuclear policy organization focusing on issues of nuclear safety, waste disposal, proliferation, and disarmament. In the press conference, which was on zoom, he shared slides showing earthquake faults and their proximity to the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors.
  
• Arnie Gundersen is a licensed nuclear reactor operator with more than 50-years of nuclear power engineering experience. Now, as Chief Engineer for Fairewinds Associates, he testifies on behalf of states, municipalities, NGOs, and environmental organizations regarding the hazards and violations at nuclear reactors and atomic waste sites. Here, he builds on Dan Hirsch's points about earthquake faults and speaks to another vulnerability at Diablo Canyon.
  
• Harvey Wasserman is is a journalist, author, democracy activist, and advocate for renewable energy.  He has been a strategist and organizer in the anti-nuclear movement in the United States for over 30 years, and he has insights to share about Diablo Canyon that the legislators completely missed. 

You can watch the full press conference " class="text-nh underline hover:text-nh-dark" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">HERE.

Food, glorious foooooood... but what about when it's from Fukushima?

Ukraine - who's doing the shelling?  At this point, does it really matter? 

IAEA on site in Ukraine at Zaporizhzhia, examining  the damage caused by the bombing on the roof of the special building which houses, among others, the new nuclear fuel and the solid radioactive waste storage. (Photo credit : IAEA)

• Ukraine:  “People come back from the hospital with bullet-pierced palms”. ZNPP employees talk of murders, torture and abductions
• A Ukrainian expert assesses the possible impact of a military attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
• Linda Pentz Gunter article: Zaporizhzhia is the poster child for abandoning the use of nuclear power
• Fukushima Plants Showing ‘Unusual Growing Patterns’ as Residents Return

Here are those youth climate change activists in Wales, on the march across their country to spread the word: “Climate Justice cannot be achieved by nuclear energy.”

Nuclear Russian Roulette in Ukraine - once again Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds.org
leads us through what has happened, what it means, where it can go as Ukranian Russian Roulette continues. 

• Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education joins us again to explain the latest rounds of nuclear Russian roulette - what dangers got ramped up at Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine over the past week.  Last week, for Episode #583, he predicted much of what could go wrong at the six-reactor site... and then it did.  Here, he explains both the science and the human factors of what's being risked by the Russians who hold the facility. 
  
  Arnie is a licensed nuclear reactor operator with more than 50-years of nuclear power engineering experience. Now, as Chief Engineer for Fairewinds Associates, he testifies on behalf of states, municipalities, NGOs, and environmental organizations regarding the hazards and violations at nuclear reactors and atomic waste sites.  We spoke on Monday, August 29, 2022.
• Dr. Bethan Sian Jones is National Secretary and Sam Bannon is Campaign Coordinator for The Committee for Nuclear Disarmament - Wales, or CND CYMRU.  They are part of the team that has put together a seven-day march between two decommissioned nuclear reactors that Wales wants to use as sites for new small modular nuclear reactors.  They are joining with other youth climate change action groups across the country September 4-10 under the slogan, "Climate justice cannot be achieved by nuclear energy."  We spoke on Sunday, August 27, 2022. 

Russian state television propagandist Vladimir Solovyov proudly tells Ukraine and America that if Zaporizhzhia's nuclear reactors blow up, "We have the protective suits!"  Lead-lined Kevlar? 

• Ontario’s energy strategy opposite of what we need - by Angela Bischoff, Ontario Clean Air Alliance
• A Ukrainian climate expert on the Zaporizhzhia situation and the winter energy outlook
• Keeping Diablo Canyon Lit Is Expensive and Unsafe
• Surfrider Tests Beach Water Radiation Levels at San Onofre
• More data needed before ocean release of Fukushima water
• The world stands on a nucl/ear precipice – we must avoid catastrophe by Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand

Jacinda Ardern
Prime Minister of New Zealand
A Sane Leader of a Nuclear-free Country

Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors - supposed to shut down in 2024 and 2025.
Will CA Gov. Gavin Newsom get away with his sudden shill game to give PG&E $1.4 BILLION bail out?

• Arnie Gundersen reveals all the different ways that the Ukraine Nuclear reactors in Zaporizhzhia can be compromised to release more radioactivity than 60 Chernobyls.  Gundersen is a licensed nuclear reactor operator with more than 50-years of nuclear power engineering experience.  Now, as Chief Engineer for Fairewinds Associates, he testifies on behalf of states, municipalities, NGOs, and environmental organizations regarding the hazards and violations at nuclear reactors and atomic waste sites. 
  
  I spoke with Arnie Gundersen on Monday, August 22, 2022.
• Jane Swanson and Linda Seeley of San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace.  Northern California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors have been on track to be decommissioned at their end of their operating licenses, in 2024 and 2025. But now, in a stunning display of political brinksmanship, California's Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to force the legislature to pass a $1.4 billion bailout to keep those nukes running.  Here with the details on what he’s trying to do - and how to stop it - are two veteran activists. 
  
  We spoke on Friday, August 19, 2022.

• ACTIONS TO TAKE NOW - from Mothers for Peace - Includes TALKING POINTS
• LA Times Op-Ed:  Reactors at Diablo Canyon are No Cure for Blackouts
• Amory Lovins’ Statement for California Diablo Canyon Workshop of August 12, 202

• Numnutz of the Week usually provides a glimpse of ongoing nuclear boneheadedness, tweaking an industry that has more dollars than sense.  But this week, something different:  A recognition of excellence in making the Russian military into a Numnutz. 
  
  Congratulations to Chernobyl Tour, its owner Yaroslav Yemelianenko, and his employees for creating a Chernobyl radiation exposure dis-information campaign to scare Russia out of the radioactive zone.  Whether that was a sole factor or a contributing factor, it worked.  And that makes this the first ever merit-based Numnutz of the Week Award! 
  

CHERNOBYL TOUR security video view of incoming Russian troops and vehicles.
Video for screen shot provided by Chernobyl-Tour.com/english

• One of the most misunderstood aspects of nuclear danger is the impact of radiation on our health. Today’s two interviewees not only are in the forefront of exposing the radiation lies that underpin the nuclear industry, they have an exciting new radiation training program for those who are willing to learn the larger truth.
  
  Mary Olson is founder of Gender + Radiation Impact Project, a group she started  after 25 years as Radioactive Waste Policy Analyst and Director of the Southeast Office of Nuclear Information and Resource Service.   Cindy Folkers has been Radiation and Health Hazard Specialist at Beyond Nuclear since 2007.   Together with Dr. Ian Fairlie, Vice President of UK Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and previously a member of the scientific Secretariat to the UK Government’s Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters, they have put together a new radiation training: Radiation Information For Everyone.  
  
  LINKS mentioned during Interview:
• CLICK HERE for Radiation for Everyone information and sign-up
• Summary of Cindy Folkers paper:  Disproportionate Impacts of Radiation Exposure on Women, Children, and Pregnancy: Taking Back our Narrative
• EPA annual dose calculator (interesting, but not perfect)

• Implications of the top secret nuclear weapons documents found at Mar-a-Lago.

Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance hung up all flags of the 66 states that have ratified the #tpnw outside the Y-12 nuclear weapons factory in the United States.

• Hering and Blanch: Misinformation About Nuclear Waste Does Not Protect the Public’s Safety
• Spies Who Spilled Atomic Bomb Secrets