Nuclear Hotseat

Exelon’s Nuclear Bailout in Illinois – This cartoon from 2020 shows the exact same scheme, only the dollar amount for Exelon is waaaaaay higher! 

• Exelon's nuclear bailout in Illinois is yet another in a series of scams to trick the public out of billions of taxpayer dollars with no guarantee of increased nuclear safety.  We talk with Dave Kraft,  Director of the Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS), headquartered in Chicago  He is a veteran of the battle to rein in nuclear industry excessive greed. He is a safe-energy/anti-nuclear advocate, and co-founder of NEIS who has served as its director since its inception in 1981. Prior to becoming a full-time energy activist, Dave's academic background and training was in astronomy and psychology at Northwestern University and Northeastern University in Chicago. Kraft’s interest in the environment moved him to found NEIS with seven other people, to provide the public with credible information about the hazards and effects of nuclear power and waste, and the viable means to replace them.  We spoke on Monday, June 7, 2021. 

LINK to Article where Ex-Exelon Exec brags about the profitability of money spent lobbying on behalf of the company's nuclear reactors: 

• Tell your State Senator and Representative that the final legislation MUST include these:1.) No bailouts for Exelon’s unprofitable nuclear plants: You can’t build an energy future by bailout out the past. These reactors are solely the assets of a profitable private corporation – Exelon. It is their responsibility, and that of their Board, to find ways to run their assets profitably. Illinois ratepayers should not be viewed as an ATM machine for their corporate choices and failures. Nuclear bailouts have been shown to actually impede implementation of renewable energy. It’s the communities and workers affected by plant closures who will need the bailout, not profitable Exelon.
  
  2.) Significant equity clauses and “just-transitions” packages for nuclear, coal, and other fossil fuel generator and mining communities faced with severe economic disruption as a result of their inevitable closures. Ideally, these programs should be initiated prior to facility closure when possible, and the funds escrowed to be available to the communities and workers to protect their tax base and create replacement economic opportunities when the facilities finally cease operations.
  
  3.) Maximal financial support for an aggressive build-out of renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy storage, and improved electric transmission. If you want a 100% renewable energy future, then build one. Get to the State’s goal of 100% renewables by 2050 directly. Don’t waste more of OUR time and OUR money on soon to be extinct fossil fuels and nuclear power plants. To insure energy equity, make sure these buildouts are given priority to communities already economically disadvantaged or damaged from dirty fossil fuels and nuclear power.WHAT YOU MUST DO:Contact your State Senator and Representative, and the Governor and tell him/her that you want these three demands included in the final energy legislation, due to be completed by Friday, May 14.  Even if you are from another state or country, you can write to the Governor of Illinois:  https://www2.illinois.gov/sites/gov/contactus/Pages/VoiceAnOpinion.aspx

Dave Kraft (l) and you-know-who, mid-Zoom call. 

Words, words, words... (as Shakespeare wrote for Hamlet).  How in one article, the nuclear industry's talking points word list plays itself out ad infinitum.

• 4 Lessons for Climate Organizers from the Anti-Nuclear Movement
• Support Diné Community Resisting "Unacceptable" Uranium Mine Clean-up
• Nuclear Subsidies May Be Slowing Transition to Clean Energy, Advocates Say

The late activist and beloved friend, Gene Stone.

Chernobyl Lies, Cover-up by World Health Organization
with Alison Katz of Geneva Switzerland-based Independent WHO -
A Nuclear Hotseat Classic
Above: Child born with multiple birth defects caused by Chernobyl radiation.

• Chernobyl Lies, Health Cover-Up by World Health Organization (WHO) Revealed – Interview with Alison Katz, a psychologist and sociologist who heads Independent WHO. This international watchdog group draws attention to the World Health Organization’s failure in its duty to protect those populations who are victims of radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and, later, Fukushima.  The group has held a vigil in front of WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, five days a week, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., since April 26, 2007 – the 21st anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.  Given the visibility and popularity of the HBO series on Chernobyl – it now ranks as the most seen television program in the world, ever – it seemed the right time to reintroduce this classic Nuclear Hotseat episode to an audience that either has not yet heard it, or wishes to have their understanding of the devastating impacts of the nuclear disaster reinforced. Originally recorded for Nuclear Hotseat #118, September 17, 2013, the material covered has in no way gone out of date and is just as ignored as always.
  

Scenes from Independent WHO’s ongoing Chernobyl vigil in front of 
the World Health Organization’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland

• Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future by Kate Brown. Superb accounting of the health devastation of Chernobyl, constructed from over three years of investigation into medical archives in eastern Europe. 
• Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higgenbotham.  NOTE: the author does a superb job reconstructing the horrors of this nuclear disaster, but then goes full-on pro-nuke during the final chapter, citing statistics from only the pro-nuclear WHO, IAEA, and UNSCEAR. I recommend that you skip that chapter and read the rest of the book for its narrative of nuclear lies, miscalculations, cover-ups, and destruction of people and the environment. In particular, the description of the physical devastation of high level radiation exposure is comparable to the visuals provided in the HBO series.

Uranium Film Festival continues with the German film (English Subtitles), Of the Sense of the Whole: The Network of Physicist Hans-Peter Dürr (r). 

The International Uranium Film Festival continues with 34 films on a wide range of nuclear issues around the world. 

• Of the Sense of the Whole: The Network of Physicist Hans-Peter Dürr (VOM SINN DES GANZEN) is a film by Claus Biegert.  As Biegert explains: Hans-Peter Dürr - as a physicist he followed the footsteps of the world re-nowned Werner Heisenberg. As a peace activist he was torn between his PhD supervisor Edward Teller and peace Nobel laureate Josef Rotblat, both  of them involved in the Manhattan Project during World War II. When it became obvious that Hitler would not built an atomic bomb (Wunderwaffe), Rotblat immediately resigned from Los Alamos, Teller stayed and became the "father of the hydrogen bomb". In the early 1950s, the young and naive Hans-Peter from Stuttgart, Germany, stepped into the bomb euphoria in Berkeley, California. It shaped his life. He became a role model for a scientist with responsibility.

The International Uranium Film Festival will make all 34 films on nuclear issues available online, for FREE, UNTIL MAY 30, 2021.  After that, some of these films may not be generally available, so go binge watch them now:  CLICK HERE

Filmmaker Claus Biegert

The easiest and best way to achieve anything is to set an intention and put energy behind it... BUT DON'T DO THIS WITH ENVISIONING A NUCLEAR WAR WITH CHINA! 

Uranium Film Festival - Frame from long-suppressed U.S. Government film
taken on-the-ground in Nagasaki after A-bomb blast on August 9, 1945.
This film footage focuses on the human aspect of nuclear holocaust and is used in films by both of today's Nuclear Hotseat guests.

With the International Uranium Film Festival running online May 20-30 - and free - we bring you interviews with two of the filmmakers.  A third interview will run on next week's show, #518. Register to watch at: www.UraniumFilmFestival.org.  Click on the Rio 2021 link.

• In My Lifetime: The Nuclear World Project - Director Robert E. Frye is an Emmy award-winning producer of network news programs and independent documentaries for over five decades. Starting in the '60s the Emmy and Peabody Award winner worked in New York City; Toronto; Washington, D.C.and London. His credits at ABC News include Executive Producer of "Good Morning America" and "ABC World News Tonight" with Peter Jennings; senior Producer at CBC's Weekend, and as an independent producer of several films for public television which include "In My Lifetime"  At the age of 81, Frye said, the obligation of his generation is to tell the story of nuclear weapons, to make clear the indescribable damage they have caused and their potential to end life on the planet entirely.  We spoke on Friday, May 14, 2021.
• LINK to The Nuclear World Project.

Albert Einstein (l) and Leo Szilard.  Screen shot from
IN MY LIFETIME: THE NUCLEAR WORLD PROJECT, a film by Robert E. Frye,
part of the International Uranium Film Festival

• ATOMIC COVER-UP - Director Greg Mitchell is the award-winning author of a dozen books including 2020’s “The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood–and America–Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” His previous books on the atomic bombings were “Hiroshima in America“ (with Robert Jay Lifton) and “Atomic Cover-up." He has served as chief adviser to several documentaries, including "Original Child Bomb," screened at Cannes and winner of the top prize at API/Silverdocs,  His current film, ATOMIC COVER-UP, was released in April, 2021. We spoke on Saturday, May 15.

On-the-ground footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some of it never before seen, along with narration from the men who shot that film.  All part of ATOMIC COVER-UP, a film by Greg Mitchell, part of the International Uranium Film Festival.

Sloppy reporting, sloppy editing, bogus story - the depths to which some "reporters" will go to get out an eye-catching story on TEPCO's release of radioactive water from Fukushima into the Pacific ocean!  

• Petition by the Lakota Nation to reverse government approval of uranium mining permints, water quality exemptions for new mining on Lakota lands. 

New Mexico Nuclear Nightmare SPECIAL:  DOE wants Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)
to get a new "ventilation" shaft - but activists point to long range plans by DOE
to expand the site to take 50+ TONS of plutonium - enough to make over 15,000 bombs
Hearings start May 17; details on how to join below.

New Mexico Nuclear Nightmares - this one dealing with hearings that hide the planned expansion of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant to hold more than 50 TONS of "excess" plutonium - the most deadly radioactive substance on earth.  And all that plutonium will have to be trucked and trained across the United States, meaning communities at distance from WIPP will still be at risk.

Two interviews with genuine experts on what we face - and what we can do about it.   

• Don Hancock is the director of the Nuclear Waste Safety program and administrator at Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque, where he has worked since 1975.  He is the #1 watchdog on WIPP.
• Joni Arends is co-founder and executive director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. She and her group have been monitoring and fighting against WIPP for more than 20 years. Here, she gives more of a citizen-activist perspective and provides concrete steps that any of us can take to help support the fight against WIPP's expansion.

• Tell the Hearing Officer through Hearing Clerk to deny the permit change! [email protected]  Talking points in this document:
• Ten Talking Points for Memes on NM WIPP May 17 Hearings - FINAL – from Libbe HaLevy  Actually nine talking points to copy and paste into social media posts.
  

• WRITTEN OR VIDEO PUBLIC COMMENTS - Email to: [email protected]
  Please enter “HWB21-02 WIPP SHAFT” in the email subject heading.

The virtual public hearing will begin Monday, May 17, 2021 at 12:00 PM MDT. The Hearing will run during the following hours, on this day and on subsequent days, until complete, unless otherwise ordered by the Hearing Officer: 12:00 – 4:00 PM and 6:00 – 9:00 PM MDT DAILY.

• Meeting ID: 917 2894 5523
• Passcode: 050223

According to DOE:  "The public hearing will provide interested persons a reasonable opportunity to present data, views, and arguments, as well as to examine witnesses. The hearing will also afford an opportunity for all persons to present comments. The public hearing will be conducted remotely using an internet video conferencing platform (Zoom) and telephone."

Let's get smarter about our time on Facebook to make our posts get picked up by Facebook Algorithms.  This is the first of a once-monthly training on how to use social media more effectively to get our message across. 

https://youtu.be/rtrfOXU3O_U