CELEBRATING THE TREATY ON THE PROHIBITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON THIS HISTORIC DAY

OCTOBER 24, 2020  

CELEBRATING THE TREATY ON THE PROHIBITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON THIS HISTORIC DAY

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) today celebrates the 50th ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Under the terms of the treaty, it will enter into force, and become part of international law in 90 days, following today’s deposit of its instrument of ratification at the United Nations by the nation of Honduras.   

The TPNW puts legal force behind the aspiration of the nations of the world to be free from the threat of destruction by nuclear weapons. Adopted at the United Nations in 2017 by an overwhelming majority of the world’s countries, formally signed by 84 to date, and now officially ratified, the TPNW bans the development, testing, production, manufacture, acquisition, possession or stockpiling, transfer, control or receipt, use or threat of use, stationing or deployment of nuclear weapons by any state party to the Treaty.

No state currently in possession of nuclear weapons has signed the TPNW. Nevertheless, the entry into force of this Treaty is an historic milestone on the journey to a world free of nuclear weapons. Nations that possess or stage nuclear weapons, including the United States, will now find themselves standing outside the bounds of international law. Today, the international “norm” changes and nuclear weapons are illegal.

As precursor, in 1970, the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) obligated the United States and other states parties to the NPT to pursue in good faith negotiations leading to complete disarmament at an early date. In 1996, the World Court underscored that legal obligation in a unanimous ruling that the NPT required the nuclear weapons states to not only pursue but to achieve disarmament. Today, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons adds moral and legal weight to the disarmament aspirations embraced—and the obligations incurred—in the Nonproliferation Treaty.

ANA, a network of thirty-one organizations whose members live downwind and downstream from the U.S. Department of Energy weapons complex sites, calls on the U.S. government to hear the compelling call of the TPNW, and to take immediate steps toward compliance with the Treaty.

ANA President Marylia Kelley noted, “The U.S. should sign and ratify the TPNW. In the meantime, the United States should take immediate steps toward the overarching goal of the TPNW, a world free of the existential threat of nuclear annihilation.” ANA recommendations include constraining the development of new nuclear bombs and warheads and focusing instead on environmental justice and cleanup for communities suffering from the radioactive and toxic pollution that accompanies nuclear development.

ANA is a national network of organizations working to address issues of nuclear weapons productions and waste cleanup. Beyond Nuclear has been an ANA member organization since 2007.

SMR webinar presentations and video

More than 300 people were in the audience for Beyond Nuclear’s October 21 webinar on small modular reactors, hosted jointly with the Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick and the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA). CELA Lawyer, Kerrie Blaise and physicists Dr. Edwin Lyman, Union of Concerned Scientists; and Prof. M.V. Ramana, University of British Columbia were the featured speakers. The three showed why SMRS are not needed and are not economical, safe or proliferation proof. During the Q&A period we also heard from Canadian nuclear expert Dr. Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibiity. The webinar was recorded and is available on YouTube. We will update this entry with a link once the video is live. You may also download the speakers power point slides:

Kerrie Blaise slides

Edwin Lyman slides

M.V. Ramana slides 

Additional information on SMRs can be found in the Publications section of this website under “Pamphlets” and “Fact Sheets.” There are also several articles about SMRs on the Beyond Nuclear International website (put “small modular reactor” into the search window).

Watch the video:

NRC should fix potentially fatal US reactor flaw: Press Release

Nuclear regulator puts public in danger by not fixing potentially fatal reactor flaw

Group files enforcement petition urging agency to address key safety problem in 19 US “Fukushima” reactors

Takoma Park, MD, October 20, 2020 – The 19 US nuclear reactors of the same boiling water design as those that melted down in Fukushima, Japan, should immediately cease operation until a potentially fatal flaw is fixed, Beyond Nuclear and its technical advisor warned today.

In a federal enforcement petition submitted on October 16 to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Beyond Nuclear and co-petitioner, Mark Leyse, requested that the agency immediately suspend the operating licenses of the country’s 19 operational General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) units until their currently deficient hardened containment vents are replaced.

The 19 reactors are sited in 10 US states: Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

The hardened vents are an added safety feature intended to prevent the rupture of the containment structure and an uncontrolled release of radioactive material in the event of a severe accident.

But the science presented in the petition demonstrates unequivocally that the hardened containment vents in the 19 BWR Mark I units are far from adequate to cope with the vast amounts of thermal energy, steam, and explosive hydrogen gas produced during a partial or complete meltdown accident.

The Beyond Nuclear petition asks for the inadequate vents to be replaced with vents that could mitigate a serious accident, an upgrade that could prevent catastrophic explosions of the kind that occurred at the three Fukushima-Daiichi reactors that were operating at full power at the time of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

“It’s clear that the NRC does not intend to plan for a severe accident,” said Paul Gunter, Director of the Reactor Oversight Project at Beyond Nuclear. “Instead, the regulator and the operators downplay the likelihood of a catastrophe to justify their decision not to install a hardened vent that would be effective during such an eventuality.

“This is unacceptable, given the NRC has known for decades that the Mark I containment is volumetrically too small to contain the dynamic force of a severe accident, not to mention the evidence the world witnessed when the Fukushima reactors exploded,” Gunter added.

“Under the current NRC stipulations, if an accident happened at a US Mark I, it would be like attempting to depressurize a pressure cooker through a soda straw,” Gunter said.

Read the full press release.

Sign the appeal! Protect People and the Planet: Appeal for a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World

Beyond Nuclear is a signatory to this global appeal. You can endorse it too.

The nuclear weapons possessed by nine countries threaten us all. Any use of these weapons by accident, miscalculation or malicious intent, would have catastrophic human, economic and environmental consequences. The use of just a small fraction of the 14,000 nuclear weapons in the world’s stockpiles could end civilization as we know it.

In addition, the $100 billion spent annually on nuclear weapons is sorely needed for environmental, economic and human needs, including addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, protecting the climate and implementing the Sustainable Development Goals.

We, the undersigned, call on our cities, parliaments and governments to:

1. Affirm that nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, and therefore the nuclear armed States should stand down their nuclear forces and affirm policies never to initiate a nuclear war (no-first-use policies);
2. Commit to the elimination of nuclear weapons by 2045, the 100th anniversary of the United Nations;
3. Cut nuclear weapons budgets (if they are a nuclear-weapon State), end investments in the nuclear weapons industry (all governments), and redirect these investments and budgets to support the United Nations, COVID-19 management and recovery, drastic reductions in carbon emissions to protect the climate, and financing the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

ENDORSE

Kings Bay Protester gets 33 months

Update: Judge L. G. Wood today sentenced Patrick O'Neill to 14 months in prison, with credit for a couple of months he has already served. Patrick will stay out of jail for 90 days until a decision is made on where he will serve time.

From Kings Bay Plowshares:

Fifteen supporters in a carefully Covid masked and distanced Brunswick, Georgia courtroom, witnessed Father Steve Kelly (pictured above, second from left) receive a sentence of 33 months on October 15.

Kelly and six others entered the Kings Bay Trident submarine base in the early hours of April 4/5 2018 and symbolically disarmed weapons by hammering on "monuments to war", writing slogans and spilling human blood. All seven were convicted in October 2019, but sentencing has been delayed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Fr. Steve's sentence falls in the middle of the proposed guidelines and will likely allow his release from the Glynn County Detention Center where he is presently being detained 30 months after the action. He has accumulated sufficient good time during his incarceration to cover the remaining three months. 

Judge Wood held up a 7 inch thick sheath of hundreds of letters she had received in support of Steve and said she had read and considered all of them. However, she then proceeded to rule against all the arguments he had submitted disputing the probation department's assessment of his record and their recommendations for a substantial sentence. She ruled that the activists had shown disregard for human life by entering a deadly force zone and failed to show acceptance of responsibility. Fr. Steve had earlier submitted a presentencing statement where he told the court he would not agree to any conditions of probation or restitution.   

Fr. Steve's character witness, Dennis Apel from Santa Maria, CA, who has known him for many years and participated in numerous protests together strongly condemned the US court system for maintaining idolatry to the Pentagon. By using in limine motions to so broadly limit what Plowshares activists can say in court the "whole truth" which the witness' oath demands is impossible to express. (Full text follows below)

The prosecutor, Gil Gillully, expressed horror at property destruction by the defendants while remaining deeply oblivious to the threat of total global destruction by Trident’s nuclear weapons. 

The other four defendants, Mark Colville,(green shirt, center) Clare Grady (second from right), Martha Hennessy,(third from right) and Carmen Trotta, (third from left (are now scheduled for sentencing on Nov. 12 and 13, with Covid conditions possibly causing further postponements. Liz McAlister (far left) was sentenced to time served via video from her home in Connecticut in June. She had served 17 months in the Camden and Glynn County jails. She also received similar probation and restitution requirements.