Friday, June 21, 2024

A note from Ploughshares – "NYT article on nuclear testing shines light on devastating impacts" | Link to NYT Article

<<< That testing by the United States and other nuclear powers could once again resume chills me to the core. As a civilization, we’re going in the wrong direction – undoing decades of progress since the end of the Cold War. >>>


The impact of nuclear testing on communities has been ruinous: full scale destruction of communities, families displaced, generation-spanning illnesses and more. The enormity of this testing and its devastating legacy is skillfully depicted by W.J. Hennigan in his New York Times piece, “The Toll,” the latest in the Times’ exceptional series addressing nuclear threats, “At the Brink: Confronting the Risk of Nuclear War.”

Nuclear testing activated me as a teenager. I felt a sense of outrage as a high school student in Australia when France tested nuclear weapons in Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. I asked myself: how could France just do that, exposing human beings and the planet to radioactive fallout? Who gave France that right? Where was the justice?

Since those early days, I’ve spent my career working to eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons. And in November 2023, I joined a delegation of civil society representatives on a visit to the Nevada National Security Test Site at the invitation of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). While the purpose of the visit was to signal transparency around the US nuclear weapons testing moratorium (a welcome initiative), I saw first-hand the devastating impacts of nuclear explosions.

It was at the site of the Sedan test, known somewhat ironically as Operation Plowshare, that my blood ran cold. I silently took in the depth and breadth of the crater in front of me. While the test investigated civilian infrastructure uses for nuclear weapons (i.e., quickly excavating large amounts of soil for harbors or canals), the site chillingly demonstrated the destructive power and radioactive fallout created by nuclear weapons. As I dutifully posed for a group photo, it felt strange to smile. So, I did not.

That testing by the United States and other nuclear powers could once again resume chills me to the core. As a civilization, we’re going in the wrong direction – undoing decades of progress since the end of the Cold War.

We at Ploughshares have invested in work that addresses the impacts of past testing and the perils for the future, including providing grants to:

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which built an entire issue of their publication to the issue of testing from the enduring legacy of past nuclear tests to the new tensions over suspected testing activities.
Jeffrey Lewis, whose work was quoted in CNN (September 2023) showing that Russia, the US, and China are each updating their test sites.
Union of Concerned Scientists, which penned a thought provoking article about the future of nuclear testing in America.
Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security, which was heavily featured in a NY Times piece about the Trinity test. Its research shows how the test’s effects had been underestimated, and could help more downwinders press for federal compensation.
We’ve also dedicated several episodes of our own podcast, NukeTalk, to the issue of testing including interviews with:

Benetick Kabua Maddison (who is featured in the latest New York Times article,) talking about the Marshallese displacement due to nuclear testing.
Lilly Adams talking about the legacy of nuclear weapons and the Radiation Compensation Exposure Act (RECA).
Selina Leem discussing the Marshall Islands.
Mary Dickson talking about downwinders.
Tina Cordova exploring the legacy of the Trinity Test.

Our attention to the issue of testing has never been more critical. Hennigan’s most recent New York Times piece is a timely reminder of how catastrophic this testing has been on communities and the disaster that would result from renewed testing. We will continue to invest in work that unveils these dangers, shines a light on those most impacted, and connects it with the folly of the ominous arms race. With your help, we’ll ensure that light never dims.

To learn more about this issue, our own Director of Program, Dr. Sara Kutchesfahani, penned an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that unpacks the finer points and to help us combat this very real threat.

Emma Belcher, PhD

President, Ploughshares

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NYT ARTICLE "Opinion: THE TOLL – Nuclear Weapons Testing Has an Unending Legacy"

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/20/opinion/nuclear-weapons-testing.html

Wednesday, March 15, 2023

A Dozen Years after Fukushima, Nuclear Power is Still a Death Wish - CounterPunch.org

A dozen years after four atomic reactors exploded at Fukushima, the plant STILL daily irradiates 150 tons of water which must be treated and stored forever.

Thousands of tons more of such lethal liquid are still held in rotting tanks. The Japanese government wants to dump them in the Pacific, but local resistance is fierce. The build-up will continue for countless years to come, with gargantuan quantities of deadly liquid ever-readier to destroy our oceans….and perhaps, eventually, human life, whose irrational addiction to atomic power has yet to abate.

As of March 10, 2011, the official industry line was that no US-designed commercial reactor could explode. Chornobyl blew up on April 26, 1986, sending deadly radioactive clouds throughout the Earth.

But the commercial reactor producers hid behind Chornobyl’s Soviet design, saying no such thing could happen to reactors designed by GE or Westinghouse.

The next day a massive offshore quake shook the six GE-designed reactors at Fukushima, severely damaging four of them. Some experts believe Unit One was on its way to melting before the giant tsunami wreaked havoc…followed by four massive explosions.

Cores at Units 1-2-3 melted, creating massive quantities of hydrogen, which ignited. A mushroom-shaped cloud suggested possible fission from the high-intensity fuel in Unit 3.

Hydrogen from Unit 3 seeped into the then-shut Unit 4 and exploded, leading to an extremely dangerous loss of coolant in the spent fuel pool.

In concert, the four blown nukes spewed at least 100 times more radioactive cesium than was released by the Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan’s prime minister contemplated evacuating Tokyo’s 15 million people. Prevailing winds blew most of the radiation into the ocean—-towards California…

Monday, September 19, 2022

Opinion | Nuclear Power Still Doesn’t Make Much Sense - The New York Times


Opinion | Nuclear Power Still Doesn’t Make Much Sense - The New York Times

Thursday, September 8, 2022

The Insanity of Expanding Nuclear Energy - Emagazine.com

Former nuclear regulatory top dogs from the United States, France, Germany and Great Britain issued a joint statement in January strenuously opposing any expansion of nuclear power as a strategy to combat climate change. Why? There is not a single good reason to build new nuclear plants. Here are ten solid reasons not to…

Monday, August 15, 2022

NIRS Statement in Response to the Inflation Reduction Act: Climate Compromises and Sacrifices Are Not Justifiable

  On Friday, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) passed the House and is headed to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law. This bill could have been our best – and maybe our only – chance to make real progress on fighting climate change and creating a just environmental and economic future. It should've been a major success for climate policy. 

It is a deep disappointment that the IRA is not truly a climate bill and is certain to harm the very communities that most need action on climate. With the IRA, our elected leaders have chosen to side with dirty energy industries, their financiers and investors, corporate media, and political opportunists to prop up the dirty energy status quo with hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, financing, and devil’s bargains. 

NIRS joins the many frontline and BIPOC-led organizations that have pointed out they cannot support the bill. The compromise between climate action and climate destruction in the IRA is not one we can accept. NIRS urges Congress and the White House to go back and develop a policy that truly addresses climate change and environmental injustice – including restoration and repair of the harms caused by fossil fuels and nuclear energy. 

We refuse to accept that frontline communities must be sacrificed yet again for nuclear, fossil, and other dirty energy interests. We stand in solidarity with the frontline communities and we will not stop fighting for a just, equitable, and sustainable future.