Nuclear Power

a problem, not a solution

a 93 million mile evacuation zone is needed for all nuclear power

requires coal power to process the fuel, uranium is finite, nukes and civil liberties are incompatible (since all reactors create nuclear weapons materials), and radioactive waste kills life

Nuclear power reactors cause significant climate change impacts.

They concentrate enormous amounts of heat in a local area (carbon emissions are not the only issue with climate destablization).

They require massive amounts of fossil energy for the fuel cycle (uranium mining, milling, enrichment, transport, waste storage for millennia). Uranium enrichment facilities in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee had giant coal power stations for the needed electricity.

All reactors emit radioisotopes that are incompatible with life.

Uranium mining is one of the worst abuses on the planet (leave uranium in the ground, where it cannot poison the planet).

Irradiated nuclear fuel rods (misleadingly named "spent fuel") are the most toxic things created in the 20th century.

The law of entropy ensures there is no way to isolate radioisotopes synthesized in reactors from the biosphere.

The only safe reactor has a 93 million mile evacuation zone, it is best harvested with solar panels and wind mills and trees.


www.noradiation.org

www.nirs.org Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a Washington, DC based clearinghouse for safe energy/anti-nuclear power organizing

www.beyondnuclear.org

www.tmia.com Three Mile Island Alert

 

Personal protection (inadequate but recommended)

www.medcom.com cheap geiger counters

www.ki4u.com potassium iodide (something that we will hopefully never need) if you live downwind of a nuclear facility you should consider this, especially if you have small children - another reason to support safe, clean, renewable energy

 

from the OilEmpire blog - October 17, 2006

north Korea goes nuclear

North Korea, perhaps the world's most repressive regime, has now tested a nuclear bomb. This is an obvious consequence of the US invasion of Iraq - countries on the "to invade next" list of the neo-cons are now pressured to "go nuclear" to prevent an attack. While this website is against all uses of uranium for any purpose, it is logical and not a surprise that North Korea, Iran and probably other countries are going nuclear.

In all of the noise surrounding this test, the fact that US War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sat on the board of a company that provided nuclear technology to the Communist monarchy was rarely mentioned:

www.swissinfo.org/eng/swissinfo.html?siteSect=105&sid=1648385

February 24, 2003 - 8:51 AM
Rumsfeld was on ABB board during deal with North Korea
Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence, was on the board of technology giant ABB when it won a deal to supply North Korea with two nuclear power plants.
Weapons experts say waste material from the two reactors could be used for so-called “dirty bombs”.
The Swiss-based ABB on Friday told swissinfo that Rumsfeld was involved with the company in early 2000, when it netted a $200 million (SFr270million) contract with Pyongyang.

Democracy Now! reports the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (which regulates and promotes nuclear energy) is warning that 30 countries could easily develop nuclear weapons. It is probable that some of these potential nuclear states already have developed weapons or have at least developed the technology to manufacture an arsenal (perfecting the non-nuclear parts of an atomic bomb is within the range of any modern, technologically advanced country).

www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/17/1439224
ElBaradei: 30 More Nations Could Develop Nukes
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency is warning that as many as 30 nations could soon develop nuclear weapons. Mohamed ElBaradei said more countries than ever are starting uranium enrichment programs or have the technology to do so.

Mohamed ElBaradei: "We need to develop a new system of international approach or multinational approach to this (nuclear safeguards) so not to end up a capacity to develop nuclear weapons in a very short span of time."

The bottom line is anyone with a sizeable nuclear reactor can make a nuclear bomb, whether for alleged peaceful purposes or explicity for weapons material production. India started its weapons program with allegedly peaceful reactors from Canada. The Bush regime recently conducted a nuclear technology trade with India despite that country's refusal to conform to the Non Proliferation Treaty. But the NPT is not sufficient to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, since the inspections are weak and any signatory country can withdraw from the treaty with a few months notice. The only safe, peaceful nuclear power is solar energy (the reactor has a 93 million mile evacuation zone).

It will be interesting to see if neighboring countries (south Korea, Japan, etc) go nuclear now that north Korea is an admitted nuclear state. Japan has a very sophisticated nuclear program complete with plutonium reprocessing at Tokai Mura The Japanese "self defense forces" could easily have a nuclear arsenal in a short time, since a reprocesing facility such as this one extracts weapons grade plutonium that can be used for weapons. If starving, resource poor north Korea has nuclear weapons, Japan could easily go nuclear on a much larger scale. The ghosts and survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki warn the world that this is a disaster ...

There doesn't seem to be any easy way out of this mess, but some observers have suggested that formally declaring the Korean War over (which was never done) would cost nothing and might ease tensions slightly. Perhaps the successors to Bush-Cheney will be less crazy and won't threaten invasions of country after country, which is a prerequisite for stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. The Non-Proliferation Treaty requires the nuclear states to abandon their weapons of mass destruction in exchange for the non-nuclear countries staying nuclear-free, a requirement that has been blatantly ignored for four decades. The NPT also needs to be changed to eliminate the provisions that non-nuclear weapons countries can acquire allegedly peaceful nuclear power, since that is an oxymoron. A global renewable energy initiative could meet basic energy needs for rich and poor countries and avoid the nightmare scenario of dozens of countries having nuclear weapons.

Jimmy Carter has some advice for the Korean situation - it's not perfect, but it would be better than what we have now.

www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101106J.shtml
Solving the Korean Stalemate, One Step at a Time
By Jimmy Carter
The New York Times
Wednesday 11 October 2006

Nuclear weapons are evil and no one should have them. It's sick that the only country in the world that has dropped a nuclear bomb on a city can lecture other countries that they should not have them. May all the arsenals of the world Rust In Peace.

It is also probably not a coincidence that this nuclear test happened as south Korea's Foreign Minister became Secretary General of United Nations. Wayne Madsen Reports claims that the new Secretary General has ties to the empire of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, a shadowy international cult with intelligence ties.

www.consortiumnews.com/2006/101006a.html
Moon, North Korea & the Bushes
By Robert Parry
Consortium News
Originally published on 11 October 2000
Given the nuclear crisis involving North Korea, we are republishing, with minor revisions, this six-year-old article about millions of dollars allegedly funneled from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon - The Washington Times founder and a Bush family financial backer - to leaders of North Korea's communist dictatorship in the 1990s.

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon's business empire, which includes the right-wing Washington Times, paid millions of dollars to North Korea's communist leaders in the early 1990s when the hard-line government needed foreign currency to finance its weapons programs, according to U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency documents.