Nuclear Hotseat

NH #769: Three Mile Island Nuclear Meltdown at 47: Restart? Radwaste? Bill Gates/Microsoft AI? TMI Alert’s Eric Epstein Explains the Bad Ideas

This Week's Featured Interview:

TMI Alert's Eric Epstein and Nuclear Hotseat's Libbe HaLevy at the 40th anniversary of the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown.

Eric Epstein is the Chairman of Three Mile Island Alert, Inc., a safe-energy organization based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and founded in 1977. TMIA monitors the Peach Bottom, Susquehanna, and Three Mile Island nuclear generating stations. He is also coordinator of  the EFMR Monitoring, Inc., a nonpartisan community based organization established  in 1992. EFMR monitors radiation levels at Peach Bottom  and Three Mile Island nuclear generating stations, invests in community development, and sponsors remote robotics research. 

For more than 45 years, Mr. Epstein has specialized in research, litigation and providing expert testimony on the decommissioning, decontamination, environmental safety, rate recovery and waste isolation at nuclear reactors. No one knows the ins and outs of legalities surrounding Three Mile Island better than him. We spoke on Saturday, March 21, 2026.

Second Feature: Audio History of Meltdown As It Happened PLUS: Mary Stamos-Osborn and the Three Mile Island Mutated Plants

Mary Stamos-Osborn

Mary Stamos-Osborn (r) and helper showing gigantic mutated dandelion leaves
found growing shortly after the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown. 

• Mary Stamos, also known as Mary Osborn, was a long time Middletown resident, TMI survivor, and Three Mile Island Alert member. Mary, who had no previous history as an activist, became involved in issues immediately after the accident when she noticed gigantic plant mutations - known as fasciation - that can be traced to radiation exposure. Her collection of mutated plants and flowers was accepted by the Smithsonian Institution in 2019 to be preserved, digitized, and made available to the public. 
  
  Mary Stamos-Osborn passed away on February 19, 2024. This interview is from the 40th anniversary of the TMI accident as first reported on Nuclear Hotseat #405, March 25, 2019.

Our thanks to filmmaker Robert (Robbie) Leppzer, producer of the two-hour audio documentary Voices from Three Mile Island, for permission to use excerpts from that work in this program. 


Links:

• Three Mile Island Alert
• TMIA Newsletter
• Nuclear Hotseat #405 - 40th Anniversary of Three Mile Island Meltdown It includes information from:
  
  • Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer for Fairewinds Energy Education.  Watch a video of Arnie Gundersen speaking about the accident at the 40th Anniversary of the founding of Three Mile Island Alert.
  • Peter Bradford, who was a Commissioner at the Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner  during the TMI accident.
  • Eric Epstein, Chair of Three Mile Island Alert at TMIA.org.Three Mile Island Alert’s Radiation monitoring at EFMR.org
  • Mary Stamos (Osborn), long time Middletown resident, TMI survivor, and TMIA member, whose collection of mutated plants and flowers has just been accepted by the Smithsonian Institution.
  • Walter Cronkite, anchor for the CBS Evening News at the time of TMI and known as “the most trusted newsman in America. 

Libbe's Book:  YES, I GLOW IN THE DARK! 
One Mile from Three Mile Island
to Fukushima and Nuclear Hotseat

A Nuclear Memoir and an Activist Chronicle

Available through your local independent book dealer or through Amazon

A leaking, out-of-control nuclear reactor only one mile away
No available transportation
Even the phones have stopped working.
What would you do?
What would it do TO you?

That's what Libbe HaLevy faced during the 1979 Three Mile Island radiation-spewing meltdown near Harrisburg, PA.  Now, the full atomic story is told, from 1950's Duck-and-Cover nuclear bomb exercises and Disney's "Our Friend the Atom" through the harrowing nuclear accident and decades of denial before Fukushima snapped her into action>

YES, I GLOW IN THE DARK! tells the story of the making of an activist -- how one victim of TMI learned to fight back against nuclear perpetrators with facts, sarcasm... and a podcast. HaLevy's colorful life gets its due, with side trips through Broadway, Hollywood, network TV and "Bozo's Circus;" recovery from childhood sexual abuse; and her successful media work in three national movements.

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr. Helen Caldicott says of YES, I GLOW IN THE DARK!: "Absolutely fascinating. This book must be read by all people who care about the future of the planet and their children."

NH #768: Records of Veteran’s Depleted Uranium Exposure Disappear – DOD Incompetence or Cover-Up? Iraqi War Vet Nate Teach

This Week's Featured Interview:

Nate Teach

Nate Teach is a retired U.S. Army Sergeant First Class and an advocate for veterans affected by toxic exposures, including depleted uranium (DU). A combat veteran of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, Teach reports how he was exposed to radioactive DU contamination in 2003 while participating in cleanup operations near Tikrit, Iraq.

That exposure led to an ongoing history of physical problems associated with radiation exposure, including severe gastrointestinal distress, skin irritation, and chronic fatigue. These were complicated by the response - or lack thereof - from the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

For nearly two decades, Teach has sought recognition and medical accountability from the DOD and VA regarding the long-term health impacts of his DU exposure. His experiences, including documented radiation testing and reported gaps in follow-up care, has informed his advocacy on behalf of other exposed service members.

I spoke with Nate Teach on March 13, 2026.

Links:

• Nate Teach article: ANOTHER DOD COVER-UP? THE LONG SHADOW OF DEPLETED URANIUM EXPOSURE ON U.S. SERVICE MEMBERS
• PETITION demanding that our leaders in Congress change the DoD’s unjust administrative investigatory system
•  Walk the Talk Foundation
• Nuclear Hotseat #654:  Dr. Chris Busby, Damacio Lopez on Depleted Uranium Plume from Ukraine Hits UK

NH #767: Fukushima at 15 – Danger from Nuclear Triple Meltdown is Far From Over – Nancy Foust of Simply Info

Fukushima Daiichi, Explosion in Reactor 1 on March 12, 2011

This Week's Featured Interview:  Nancy Foust

• March 11 marks the 15th anniversary of the start of the Fukushima Daiichi triple nuclear reactor meltdown disaster. To find out how Japan and TEPCO’s attempt to stabilize and clean up the radiologically contaminated site is progressing, we talk with Nancy Foust of SimplyInfo.org, which publishes an annual report: 15th Anniversary Report Fukushima Daiichi. You don't have to be a science nerd to understand the content.  It’s a clearly written, scientific, fact-based, footnoted, fully vetted analysis on the current situation with the clean-up and its ongoing problems . We also discuss the Japanese “nuclear amnesia,” the attempts to downplay Fukushima as the country pushes nuclear expansionism and aims to build new reactors without having cleaned up its existing nuclear reactor mess.

Simply Info 15th Anniverary Report Fukushima Daiichi:

Simply Info Fukushima 15th Aniversary Report
(CLICK on image to download PDF)

LINKS to other Fukushima Anniversary Materials:

• Fukushima at 15 - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.   Comprehensive article by Thomas Bass.
• The nuclear nightmare at the heart of the Trump-Anthropic fight
• How Fukushima’s radioactive fallout in Tokyo was concealed from the public
• Trailer for HBO Documentary on Fukushima: 

https://youtu.be/aKTmUdQQoZI?si=Ybe56psZaHOA_vYL

Beverly Findlay-Kaneko - Voices from Japan

Beverly Findlay-Kaneko at The Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum in Futuba, standing next to her "buddy," the "mascot" of Fukusihima Daiichi.  Propaganda at its most blatant.  From Nuclear Hotseat #611

• Excerpt from 2023 Voices from Japan with Writer/Co-Producer Beverly Findlay Kaneko. She priovides an “on-the-ground in Japan” report on the then-current situation faced by people living with the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Beverly lived in Yokohama, Japan, for 20 years until March 2011, leaving for the United States after the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake in 2011 and the start of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. She relocated back to Japan in 2025.

Activist Shoutout:

• NUCLEAR POETRY CONTEST - Hanford "Get It While It's Hot" poetry contest
  Deadline March 31
  
  • You must be a student enrolled in a school in the United States to participate. 
  • Poetry must be on the topic of nuclear weapons waste
  • More information here and here.
    
• Libbe HaLevy's play ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE is now in conversation with theatre people in Hawaii and Oregon.  If you have any theatrical contacts - producers, directors, actors, musicians, school theatre departments - who  might be interested in deeply emotional play that takes on how we got tricked into supporting nuclear by media manipulation, have them contact Libbe at: [email protected]

The Nuclear Resister with Jack Cohen-Joppa

Two generations ago, tens of thousands of people from coast to coast organized to resist the "Atom State” by putting their liberty on the line. Here with another story from our shared history of resisting nukes is Jack Cohen-Joppa, co-coordinator of the Nuclear Resister. 


NH #766: Iran War – Is the Nuclear Threat Real? Col. Ann Wright (Retired), 29 Year Military Vet & Diplomat, Now a Peace Activist, Parses the Issues

Retired Colonel Ann Wright

This Week's Featured Interview: 

The United States, in conjunction with its ally Israel, has launched a war against Iran. There is no stated justification for it, no approval from the US Congress as required by the constitution before starting a war, not even an attempt by our current president to gain Congressional approval - the president just went ahead and did it. One of the issues he has cited is Iran’s alleged nearly-achieved enrichment of uranium to the weapons-grade level of 80% or 90% - but is that what they have done? What is the likelihood that they have created uranium enriched to weapons grade? And what are the military implications of this drastic, rapid escalation of attacks on world tension?

To learn more, I spoke with Ann Wright. She is a retired U.S. Army Colonel and former diplomat with 29 years of service. Ann resigned in 2003 in protest when George W. Bush announced the start of the Iraq War -- something she could not support.  Now an outspoken peace activist for more than two decades, Wright advocates against nuclear weapons, U.S. militarism, and drone warfare, notably working with groups like Veterans For Peace and CODEPINK. She has been arrested for protests at nuclear test sites. 


I spoke with retired Colonel Ann Wright about our current situation in Iran on March 1, 2026.

LINK:

• Dr. Gordon Edwards, head of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, spoke to us about uranium enrichment levels and why the oft-touted 80%-90% enrichment is not necessary to make a nuclear bomb.   NH #731, July 1, 2025

NH #765: Nuclear Humor?! Foreign Policy Expert Bill Hartung Relieves Ugly Nuke Facts w/Stand-Up Comedy + Reactor Radiation Mutations

This Week's Featured Interview:

William L. Hartung

• William G. Hartung is a Foreign Policy Advisor with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and his work focuses on the arms industry and US military budget. He was previously the director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy and the co-director of the Center’s Sustainable Defense Task Force. Bill is the co-author, with Ben Freeman, of the recently released book: The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home.
  
  But as Bill Hartung, he performs stand-up comedy on foreign affairs and nuclear issues at comedy clubs and for special events.
  
  Contradiction in terms?  We think not...

https://youtu.be/bpawpo8uT6s?si=ouprfSmjjE8obq1b

Bill Hartung at West Side Comedy Club, February, 2025

Numnutz of the Week (for Outstanding Nuclear Boneheadedness):

• A different kind of Numnutz this week, on mutations in proximity to the nuclear reactor disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima.  Kids, worms, and pigs -- can people be far behind? 

3D render of a medical background with DNA strands

Links:

• Karl Grossman's Enviro Close-Up: Saving Nuclear Power Plants to Cost $33 Billion
• Harvard Study:  Proximity to nuclear power plants associated with increased cancer mortality
• Global spending on nuclear weapons topped $100 billion in 2024
• Forever Chemicals and Nukes:  PFAS were originally used to contain nuclear chemicals, new book finds
• M.V. Ramana  article: The Innate and Inseparable Ties Between Nuclear Weapons and Energy