Resistance girds against "new arms race" rhetoric, press to resume nuke weapons testing

"Castle Bravo," March 1, 1954, a 15 mega-ton hydrogen bomb "test" blast carried out by the U.S. on the Marshall Islands in the Pacific OceanWhat a week it's been. It began with Russian president Putin declaring on Dec. 22 that "We need to strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defense systems." Within hours, U.S. president-elect Trump Tweeted a response: "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes". Trump then doubled down the next day, telling a t.v. reporter "Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass...And outlast them all." Resistance to Putin and Trump's reckless "new Cold War" rhetoric was immediate. The very next day, groups such as PSR and ICAN applauded the passage of United Nations Resolution L. 41, "an historic victory for nuclear disarmament advocates, [in which] a large majority of nations voted today in the General Assembly to convene negotiations in 2017 for a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons, leading to their total elimination." Eric Schlosser, author of  Command and Control, warned in a major piece in the New Yorker against "World War Three, by Mistake." Even the destabilizing specter of renewed nuclear weapons blasts at the Nevada Test Site, on Western Shoshone Indian treaty land, has been raised, under Trump's Energy Secretary-appointee, former Texas governor Rick Perry ("Castle Bravo," the largest U.S. hydrogen bomb "test" blast, above left, was carried out on March 1, 1954, devastating the Marshall Islands, as well as a Japanese fishing fleet downwind; it was a thousand times bigger than the Hiroshima atomic bomb). Some hopeful and welcome relief from such fearful and fearsome prospects can be found in a Counterpunch article by John LaForge of Nukewatch Wisconsin, "In Sentencing Radical Pacifists, Judge Miles Lord Assailed 'Worship of the Bomb.'" Learn more at Beyond Nuclear's Nuclear Weapons website section.

Cost overruns, construction delays plunge Toshiba-Westinghouse into "nuclear nightmare"

Gene Case of Avenging Angels' graphic, "Burning Money," was featured on the cover of The Nation Magazine, accompanying an article by Christian Parenti in 2003 about the nuclear power relapseAs reported by Bloomberg, multi-billion dollar (and skyrocketing) cost overruns, and years-long (and worsening) schedule delays, at four new reactor construction sites in the U.S. Southeast have plunged Toshiba-Westinghouse stock values into a "nuclear nightmare" or financial meltdown. The company is facing a $4-5 billion write-down, after a major accounting error, when its acquisition of new reactor construction firm, Chicago Bridge & Iron, went sour.

Fairewinds Associates warned years ago that the Toshiba-Westinghouse AP-1000 reactor design has a potentially fatal flaw, that could result in catastrophic amounts of hazardous radioactivity being pumped into the environment in the event of a core meltdown.

A whopping one-fifth of South Carolina ratepayers' electric bills now go toward construction costs of the Summer 2 and 3 new reactors. At Georgia's Vogtle 3 and 4 new reactors, not only regional ratepayers, but also U.S. taxpayers, are on the hook, to the tune of $8.3 billion, in the form of a federal nuclear loan guarantee, compliments of the Obama administration. More.

Coalition presses case against Fermi atomic reactors in Michigan

Fermi 2, located on the Great Lakes shoreline in Monroe County, MIOn Dec. 15, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) finalized its rubber-stamp of Fermi Unit 2's 20-year license extension, despite years and decades of resistance by such grassroots groups as Citizens Resistance at Fermi Two (CRAFT) and Don't Waste MI. Most recently, CRAFT raised "Got KI?" contentions, building on work led by the Alliance to Halt Fermi 3. Fermi 2 is the largest Fukushima Daiichi General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactor twin design in the world; but if Detroit Edison (DTE) gets its way, an even bigger boiling water reactor would be built immediately adjacent, Fermi 3. However, Beyond Nuclear and a coalition of environmental allies, represented by legal counsel Terry Lodge of Toledo, OH, has resisted the Fermi 3 combined Construction and Operating License Application at every turn, since 2008. Most recently, on Dec. 23, this included a legal filing at the second highest court in the land, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The appeal against Fermi 3's license includes an unprecedented challenge to a scandalous, Orwellian 2007 NRC rule change that fundamentally violates the National Environmental Policy Act -- excluding Fermi 3's transmission line corridor from NRC's Environmental Impact Statement. It also challenges DTE's violation of NRC's Quality Assurance regulations, a contention for which Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, Inc. has served as Beyond Nuclear's expert witness.

Beyond Nuclear calls for NRC to name reactors with potentially defective parts

Beyond Nuclear is calling for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to name the U.S. reactors that might be operating with defective parts imported from France. While potentially affected French reactors have closed down as a safety precaution, the U.S. NRC has refused to even name the affected reactors let alone mandate precautionary closures until the parts are checked. Beyond Nuclear is filing an emergency enforcement 2.206 petition and a Freedom of Information Act Request to demand that the NRC release the full list of reactors with flawed parts; inform the affected reactor communities of the risks; and require the shutdown of reactors with potentially defective reactor components.

As Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps stated in our press release:“Every one of those potentially defective parts are safety-significant and could lead to meltdown if they fail.” 

A Greenpeace France report indentified 19 U.S. reactors at 11 sites that could be operating with defective safety-essential components from Areva's Le Creusot forge in France. They are:

Prairie Island in Minnesota; North Anna and Surry in Virginia; Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania; Arkansas One in Arkansas; Turkey Point and St Lucie in Florida; DC Cook in Michigan; Salem in New Jersey; Callaway in Missouri; and Millstone in Connecticut. The Crystal River reactor in Florida was also listed but is now permanently closed.

Read the full press release.

World War Three, by Mistake

Harsh political rhetoric, combined with the vulnerability of the nuclear command-and-control system, has made the risk of global catastrophe greater than ever. By Eric Scholosser, in the New Yorker.