Pandora's False Promises - the latest pro-nuclear propaganda movie

"Pandora's Promise", a pro-nuclear documentary by Robert Stone (pictured) that studiously avoids any "inconvenient truths" that might derail his arguments, has screened at Sundance and is making the festival rounds before a theatrical release this summer. Heavily funded, and with backing from The Breakthrough Institute, whose Michael Schellenberger also appears in the film, Stone joins the ranks of other well-funded nuclear deniers. Stone, whose avowed impetus for the film turns out to be a myth (that ALL France's radioactive waste is stored under one floor at La Hague) even asserts that nuclear energy "is probably the most environmentally benign energy source we have." Central to the film is the Integral Fast Reactor, which Stone claims was the erroneously canceled cure-all reactor design that could save us from climate change. It's not clear whether Stone was well and truly hoodwinked or whether he just "took the money." At any rate, Beyond Nuclear is engaged in efforts to set the record straight and to help our fellow environmentalists refute this film.

Beyond Nuclear has prepared a two-page handout and a more detailed fact sheet with citations setting the record straight on the plutonium-breeding, sodium-cooled IFR. Please download and use the pieces as talking points. Coming soon is a longer rebuttal piece in which we bust the many myths in this film. Finally, we will have a Pandora's People piece, revealing that, while the filmmakers tout their protagonists (or "cast" as they are tellingly referred to) as "leading former anti-nuclear activists," none of them qualifies as such and arguably, are far from even well-versed in the subject. Watch this space for more. And please consider screening The Atomic States of America which tells a very different, fact-based story about the real health impacts of nuclear power operation. Use the BEYONDNUCLEAR code for a 20% screening fee discount.

Kendra Ulrich, FOE nuclear campaigner, joins Beyond Nuclear board of directors

We are excited to announce that Kendra Ulrich, nuclear campaigner at Friends of the Earth (FOE), has agreed to serve on our board of directors. She joins Kay Drey, Lou Friedman, Karl Grossman, Dr. Judith Johnsrud, and Judith Kaufman on the Beyond Nuclear board. Kendra's close collaboration with Beyond Nuclear is nothing new, however. During her graduate studies, she served an internship at Beyond Nuclear, as Outreach Coordinator for our Freeze Our Fukushimas campaign, implementing a pilot project. On the first day of Vermont Yankee's controversial license extension, she and Beyond Nuclear's Paul Gunter helped form the "New England Natural Guard" affinity group, which carried out a non-violent civil disobedience action at Entergy Nuclear's national HQ in New Orleans. And in December, she presented at the "Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High: Ending the Nuclear Age" conference, co-sponsored by Beyond Nuclear, FOE, and NEIS in Chicago. Kendra is currently helping lead FOE's campaign focusing on the problem-plagued San Onofre Unit 2 & 3 reactors, part of FOE's Climate and Energy Project. More. 

The nuclear relapse has derailed -- literally!

Photo by Tom Clements, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA)Tom Clements of Alliance for Nuclear Accountability in South Carolina has documented, in photo and blog, a most remarkable development: the AP1000 nuclear reactor vessel targeted at Vogtle, Georgia has been discovered unprotected, stranded in Savannah Port since a December 15 shipment failure. Tom's remarkable blog is posted at the Aiken Leader. Connect Savannah has also reported on the "Nuclear Train Wreck."

As Tom has described it: the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) for the chronically delayed Vogtle AP1000 reactor construction project near Waynesboro, Georgia sits stranded and seemingly unprotected in the port of Savannah. The special railroad car carrying the 300-ton vessel had unknown mechanical problems on December 15 on exiting the port.  The NRC has said that the vessel only got one-quarter mile before a sound was heard and the car stopped.  Plans by Westinghouse and Southern Company to move the vessel are unknown. It is also unknown if the railroad car can be repaired and used or if the railroad company which owns the line is concerned that the rail car might break down again on its line in an in accessible place.  Meanwhile, the apparently unguarded reactor might be subject to sabotage and sits in apparent violation of NRC quality assurance and "administrative control" regulations. (See Jan. 22nd update by Tom Clements of ANA, including about problems with the pouring of the "nuclear concrete" base mat at not only Vogtle, GA, but also Summer, SC).

"Bad math" dating back 40 years adds to long list of problems at idled Fort Calhoun, NE atomic reactor

As reported by the Associated Press, a design flaw dating back to the early 1970s raises concerns about heavy equipment support structures at the Omaha Public Power District-owned/Exelon-operated Fort Calhoun atomic reactor in Nebraska. Both the utility, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), missed the flaw, both during initial licensing four decades ago, as well as during the rubberstamp of a 20-year license extension in 2003.

The article lists the many woes which have kept the reactor shutdown since before historic floods on the Missouri River in summer 2011, which inundated the Fort Calhoun site, doing untold damage to underground structures, systems, and components, including safety-significant electrical cables, as well as pipes which carry radioactive materials (see photo, left):

"...Among the violations cited by regulators was the failure of a key electrical part during a 2010 test, a small electrical fire in June 2011, several security issues and deficiencies in flood planning that were discovered a year before the river spilled its banks.

Still to be addressed: the repair of flood damage at the facility; the replacement of fire-damaged equipment; strengthening the management of the plant; improving the safety culture among workers; the removal of the Teflon insulation; and the strengthening of heavy equipment supports...".

As Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds is quoted, "If Fort Calhoun were being run by a business, it would have been shut down a year ago."

GSN: "Industry, Activists at Odds Over Security Risks of Interim Waste Storage"

In a Global Security Newswire article entitled "Industry, Activists at Odds Over Security Risks of Interim Waste Storage," Douglas P. Guarino quotes Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps about the risks of high-level radioactive waste, including during both on-site storage, as well as during transportation. Kevin referred to a 1998 test conducted at Aberdeen Army Proving Ground in Maryland, which showed that even the so-called "Cadillac of dry casks," the German CASTOR, could not withstand an anti-tank TOW missile attack (TOW is an acronym which stands for "Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire command data link, guided missile"). Most U.S. dry cask systems have much thinner metallic walls than the CASTOR. Kevin reiterated the call by over 150 environmental groups, for Hardened On-Site Storage of irradiated nuclear fuel, rather than a risky, rushed radioactive waste shell game on the roads, rails, and waterways.