Are We on the Brink of Burying Nuke Power Forever?

By Harvey Wasserman (about the author) 

This may be the moment history has turned definitively against atomic energy.

 

To be sure:    we are still required to fight hard to bury reactor loan guarantees in the United States.    There are parallel struggles in China, Indian, England, France and South Korea.  

 

The great fear is that until every single reactor on this planet is shut, none of us is really safe from another radioactive horror show.  

 

Thus the moment is clearly marked at Fukushima by three reactors and a radioactive fuel pool still untamed after three months, with the horrific potential to do far more apocalyptic damage than we've seen even to date.

 

That image includes Japanese school children being issued Geiger counters to carry with them 24/7 (http://nukefree.org/japanese-government-give-kids-radiation-monitors-carry-them ).

 

And Fukushima's radiation raining down on the United States, with links to reports of a heightened infant death rate in Seattle http://nukefree.org/janette-sherman-joe-mangano-rise-infant-deaths-pacific-northwest-due-fukushima .  

 

And by countless other on-going disasters and near-misses at reactors everywhere on the planet.    Included is Cooper, in Nebraska, which got zero corporate media coverage as it was nearly flooded and did lose power to its radioactive fuel pool http://nukefree.org/electrical-fire-knocks-out-fuel-pool-nebraska-nuke .  

 

From well-reasoned fear, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Israel and other critical players have announced they will build no more reactors.    Some will start shutting the ones they have.  

 

Japan and Germany are the third and fourth largest economies on Earth.   Japan has long been at the core of the reactor industry.    Germany's economy is the largest in Europe.    Some European nations are rumbling about an alliance to shut the reactors among their nuclear neighbors.

 

All this could be happening merely in reaction to yet another Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.    The corporate media has attempted to induce a coma over Fukushima by simply refusing the cover the on-going disaster.  

 

But the worsening realities are as utterly relentless as they are terrifying.   In the age of the internet, there is simply no way to totally suppress the horror of what is happening to our Earth, especially at its lethal, festering wound at Fukushima.

 

But what truly sets this moment apart is not just the radioactive nightmare.   There have been others.    There will certainly be more.  

 

What's unique about now is the Solartopian flip side.    It is the irrepressible fact that we have finally reached the green-powered tipping point.  

 

For the first time in history, the financial, industrial and trade journals are filled with pithy, number-laden reports declaring the moment has come---and this can not be overemphasized---that solar power is definitively cheaper than nuclear.  

 

It is an epic moment that future economic and technological historians will note as a true turning point.

 

In real terms, Solartopian technology----wind, solar, geothermal, ocean thermal, bio-fuels, wave, current, tidal, efficiency, conservation---has always been cheaper than nukes.

 

The "Peaceful Atom" has always been a creature of subsidies, a happy face painted on the Bomb.    Its true health, safety and environmental costs can never be reliably calculated.  

 

What, after all, will be the true price tag on Fukushima?    How do we begin to calculate the costs in human agony and ecological destruction?

 

Already Japan is being torn apart by who will pay:    the utility (it doesn't have enough assets)http://nukefree.org/tepco-may-go-insolvent , the government (it could go bankrupt) or the victims (who else?).   The only thing certain is this once-powerful industrial nation will never recover.  

 

It's no accident the reactor industry cannot get private capital for new reactor construction, or private liability insurance of real consequence, and cannot solve its waste problems without the federal government taking responsibility---which, in truth, even it cannot do.  

 

The true installment cost of the US reactor fleet can't even be calculated, as much of the liability was dishonestly wiped off the books in the deregulation scam of 1999-2002.

 

What we're left with worldwide is 440 uninsured ticking time bombs, potential Chernobyls and Fukushimas, every one of them.    There are 104 in the US.   The only real question is when the next one will go off and how long it will take to actually hear about it.  

 

Atomic energy also feeds global warming.    Who will account for the enormous heat still rising from Fukushima?    How much did Chernobyl spew?    Carbon emissions come with the mining, milling, enrichment and ultimate disposal of radioactive fuel, not to mention the building and dismantling of the reactors themselves.

 

For yet another summer, nukes in France, Alabama and elsewhere must close because the infernal machines that "fight global warming" must shut shy of heating the rivers they use for cooling to 90 degrees Farenheit.    

 

What's peaked now, as Fukushima melts and burns and dumps its radioactive poisons into the air and the oceans and the people of this planet, is one financial reality:    even with all its subsidies, nuclear power can no longer stand in the market place.

 

The first option, of course, has become natural gas, whose price has plummeted.    But the gas boom is based in large part on fracking, an unsustainable environmental disaster.   Its momentum is huge, but so is its threat to the waters we need to survive.  

 

In the long term, the future is with renewables.    They are often subsidized as well.    But the scale is not comparable, and does not fully compensate for the hidden realities of atomic power's uninsurability and its inability to solve its basic waste, health and eco-impacts.  

 

Were the nuclear industry forced to fully insure itself, or were it charged the true cost of its invested capital, or what it does to the planet and the humans who live on it, not a single reactor owner could afford to keep a reactor running for a single day.  

 

Small wonder Wall Street has long been more anti-nuclear than Main Street.

 

The numbers are now easy to find.   WorldWatch has just issued the definitive END OF NUCLEAR by Mycle Schneider, laden with charts, graphs, tables and all the financial data anyone needs to confirm the case http://nukefree.org/worldwatch-institute-mycle-schneider-end-nuclear .    The Rocky Mountain Institute (www.rmi.org) has long had similar material on file and at the tip of Amory Lovins's tongue.

 

Now we see Forbes http://www.ncwarn.org/2007/07/nuclear-power-worst-managerial-disaster/ , the Wall Street Journal http://www.wallstreetdaily.com/2011/05/25/hypersolar-renewable-energy/ and the core corporate press conceding the obvious.  

 

In short, the bottom line has now become the bottom line. Reactor costs have doubled and tripled in the past few years even before Fukushima.   Green energy costs continue to plummet.

 

The last barrier is that to understand how a Solartopian economy works, you have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

 

Base-load power is readily available from geo-thermal, bio-fuels and a broad mix.    One does need to balance the various intermittent sources---wind, solar, tidal---to keep the glass full.  

 

But Fukushima has shown that nukes are also intermittent in the worst imaginable way.

 

Any sane for-profit player with the bucks enough to build a new reactor will now put them into renewables.   Witness Google, now investing    $280 million in a fund for installing solar panels on home rooftops, and millions more for undersea links to offshore wind farms.  

 

The dream of a Solartopian future has become the capitalist present.   Germany and Japan would not be committing to a green-powered future if its large corporations---Siemans, Enercon, Mitsubishi, Sharp---whose CEOs have run the numbers and decided nukes are a loser.    And that the real profit center for the long-term energy biz is in green power.

 

What remains for us is to get the government out of the game.    The $36 billion in loan guarantees Obama wants in the 2012    budget must come out.   We need to call the White House and Congress CONSTANTLY until this happens.

 

Then we need to find a way to get the Chinese, Indians, Koreans, Brits and French to join Germany, Japan and the rest of us in a post-nuclear world.  

 

How soon this gets done is up to us.   Our fervent hope---and greatest incentive---is knowing this MUST be done before    the next Fukushima strikes.  

 

Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! GREEN POWER HOUR runs Wednesdays at 8pm EST onwww.talktainmentradio.com (877)932-9766, starting tonight.    He is senior editor of   www.FreePress.org and www.solartopia.org.  

Italians say "no" to nuclear during soccer championship

Greenpeace unfurled a banner during the championship soccer game last Sunday, reading: "From Milan to Palermo, let's shut down nuclear." The tag line at the end reads, "the crazy ones are you if you don't vote to close nuclear in the referendum. The national referendum will be held June 12 and 13. In the last one in 1987, Italians voted to shut down their nuclear power program which has never since reopened.

May 31, 2011

Who Will Take the Radioactive Rods from Fukushima?

By Yoichi Shimatsu

The inability of Tepco or the government to pay for nuclear waste disposal puts the financial liability squarely on its partner companies and suppliers, including GE, Toshiba, Hitachi, Kajima Construction and especially the sources of the uranium, CAMECO and Rio Tinto and the governments of Canada and Australia. A fundamental rule of both capitalism and civil law is that somebody has to pay.

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25064

The decommissioning of the Fukushima 1 nuclear plant is delayed by a single problem: Where to dispose of the uranium fuel rods? Many of those rods are extremely radioactive and partially melted, and some contain highly lethal plutonium.

Besides the fissile fuel inside the plant's six reactors, more than 7 tons of spent rods have to be removed to a permanent storage site before workers can bury the  Fukushima facility under concrete. The rods cannot be permanently stored in Japan because the country's new waste  storage centers on the northeast tip of Honshu are built on unsuitable land. The floors of the Rokkasho reprocessing facility and Mutsu storage unit are cracked from uneven sinking into the boggy soil.

Entombment of the rods inside the Fukushima 1 reactors carries enormous risks because the footing of landfill  cannot support the weight of the fuel rods in addition to the reactors and cooling water inside the planned concrete containment walls. The less reactive spent fuel would have to be kept inside air-cooled dry casks. The powerful earthquakes that frequently strike the Tohoku region will eventually undermine the foundations, causing radioactive wastewater to pour unstoppably into the Pacific Ocean. The rods must therefore go to another country.

American Bad Faith

Under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), signed by Japan in 1970, Washington's negotiators stipulated that used nuclear fuel from Japanese reactors must by law be shipped to the United States for storage or reprocessing to prevent the development of an atomic bomb. Washington has been unable to fulfill its treaty obligations to Tokyo due to the public outcry against the proposed Yucca Mountain storage facility near Las Vegas.

A panel convened by the Obama administration has just recommended the set up of a network of storage sites across the United States, a controversy certain to revive the anti-nuclear sentiments during the upcoming election campaign. The American nuclear industry has its own stockpile of more than 60,000 tons of spent fuel - not counting waste from reactors used for military and research purposes - leaving no space for Fukushima's rods inside the Nevada disposal site, if indeed it is ever opened.

To Continental Asia

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has allocated 1 trillion yen ($12 billion) in funds for nuclear waste disposal. Areva, the French nuclear monopoly, has teamed up with Tepco to find an overseas storage site. So far, the Tepco-Areva team have quietly contacted three Asian countries - Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia -- to set up a center for "reprocessing", a euphemism for nuclear dump site.

Among the threesome, China was the top choice for the Japanese nuclear establishment, which has confidence in Beijing's ability to safeguard nuclear secrets from its citizenry and even from the top leaders. Japan's space agency, which keeps 24-hour satellite observation over every nuclear-related facility in China, possesses the entire record of radiation leaks there. Since Beijing withholds this sort of data from the public, the Japanese side felt it had the necessary leverage in talks with Chinese nuclear officials.

Though the nuclear-sector bureaucrats were initially eager to receive bundles of yen, the proposal was blown away by the salt craze that swept over China. Within a couple of weeks of the Fukushima meltdowns, millions of shoppers emptied supermarket shelves on rumors that iodized salt could prevent radiation-caused thyroid cancer. The Chinese public is rightfully fearful of health-related scandals after discoveries of melamine in milk, growth hormones in pork, pesticides in vegetables, antibiotics in fish and now radioactive fallout over farmland.

A nuclear disposal deal would require trucks loaded with radioactive cargo to roll through a densely populated port, perhaps Tianjin or Ningbo, in the dead of night. There is no way that secret shipments wouldn't be spotted by locals with smart phones, triggering a mass exodus from every city, town and village along the route to the dumping grounds in China's far west. Thus, the skittishness of the ordinary Chinese citizen knocked out the easiest of nefarious plans.

Principle of Industrial Recovery

A more logical choice for overseas storage is in the sparsely populated countries that supply uranium ore to Japan, particularly Australia and Canada. As exporters of uranium, Canberra and Ottawa are ultimately responsible for storage of the nuclear waste  under the legal principle of industrial recovery.

The practice of industrial recovery is already well-established in the consumer electronics and household appliances sectors where manufacturers are required by an increasing number of countries to take back and recycle used television sets, computers and refrigerators.

Under the principle, uranium mining giants like Rio Tinto and CAMECO would be required to take back depleted uranium. The cost of waste storage would then be factored into the export price for uranium ore. The added cost is passed along to utility companies and ultimately the consumer through a higher electricity rate. If the market refuses to bear the higher price for uranium as compared with other fuels, then nuclear power will go the way of the steam engine.

Australian and Canadian politicians are bound to opportunistically oppose the return of depleted uranium since any shipments from Fukushima would be met by a massive turnout of "not-in-my-backyard" protesters. The only way for Tokyo to convince  the local politicos to go along quietly is by threatening to publish an online list of the bribe-takers in parliament who had earlier backed uranium mining on behalf of the Japanese interests.

Nuclear's Cost-Efficiency

The question then arise whether nuclear power, when long-term storage fees are included, is competitive with investment in renewable energy such as wind, solar, hydro and tidal resources. Renewable energy probably has the edge since they don't create waste. Natural gas remains the undisputed price beater wherever it is available in abundance. In a free market without hidden subsidies, nuclear is probably doomed.

In a lapse of professionalism, the International Atomic Energy Commission (IAEA) has never seriously addressed nuclear-waste disposal as an industrywide issue. Based on the ration of spent rods to reactor fuel inside U.S. nuclear facilities, there are close to 200,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste at the 453 civilian nuclear-energy plants worldwide. Yet not a single permanent storage site has ever been opened anywhere.

The Fukushima 1 dilemma shows that the issues of cost-efficiency and technological viability can no longer be deferred or ignored. Ratings agencies report that Tepco's outstanding debt has soared beyond $90 billion, meaning that it cannot cover future costs of storing spent rods from its Kashiwazaki and Fukushima 2 nuclear plants. The Japanese government's debt has soared to 200 percent of GDP. Neither entity can afford the rising cost of nuclear power.

The inability of Tepco or the government to pay for nuclear waste disposal puts the financial liability squarely on its partner companies and suppliers, including GE, Toshiba, Hitachi, Kajima Construction and especially the sources of the uranium, CAMECO and Rio Tinto and the governments of Canada and Australia. A fundamental rule of both capitalism and civil law is that somebody has to pay.

Last Stop

Since Australia and Canada aren't in any hurry to take back the radioactive leftovers, that leaves Japan and treaty-partner United States with only one option for quick disposal- Mongolia.

Ulan Bator accepts open-pit mining for coal and copper, which are nothing but gigantic toxic sites, so why not take the melted-down nuclear rods? Its GDP, ranked 136 among the world's economies, is estimated to be $5.8 billion in 2010. Thus, $12 billion is an unimaginable sum for one more hole in the ground.

Not that Mongolia would get the entirety of the budget, since the nuclear cargo would have to transit through the Russian Far East. Unlike the health-conscious Chinese, the population of Nakhodka or Vladivostok are used to playing fast-and-loose with radioactive materials and vodka.

Even if the mafia that runs the Russian transport industry were to demand a disproportionate cut, Mongolia's 3 million inhabitants would be overjoyed at gaining about $2,000 each, more than the average annual income, that is if the money is divided evenly after the costs of building the dump.

Realistically, the Mongolian people are unlikely to receive a penny, since the money will go into a trust fund for maintenance costs. That's because $12 billion spread over the half-life of uranium - 700 million years - is equivalent to $17 in annual rent. That doesn't even cover kibble bits for the watchdog on duty, much less the cooling system. Not that anyone will be counting since by the time uranium decays to a safe level, fossils will be the sole remnant of human life on Earth.

Illusory, shortsighted greed will surely triumph in Mongolia, and that leaves a question of moral accountability for the rest of us. Will the world community feel remorse for dumping its nuclear mess onto an ancient culture that invented boiled mutton, fermented mare's milk and Genghis Khan? For guilt-ridden diplomats from Tokyo and Washington wheedling the dirty deal in Ulan Bator, here's the rebuttal: Did the national hero, the Great Khan, ever shed any tears or feel pangs of guilt? There's no need for soul-searching. A solution is at hand.

Yoichi Shimatsu, former editor of the Japan Times Weekly, is a Hong Kong-based environmental writer and also Editor-at-large at the 4^th Media, China.

The World from Berlin: 'A Huge Victory for the Anti-Nuclear Movement'

'A Huge Victory for the Anti-Nuclear Movement'

DPA

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is taking a potentially expensive gamble on the future by abandoning nuclear energy -- but it could pay off in a big way.

The government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel now has concrete plans to abandon nuclear energy by 2022. The move could make Germany a clean energy model for the world, but newspaper editorialists are deeply divided on the issue.

Less than a day after an ethics commission appointed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel determined that Germany could phase-out nuclear power within a decade, the government in Berlin moved to implement plans to shut all the country's atomic reactors. Under the new plan, all German reactors would be forced to go offline by 2022.

It was yet another about-face in the recent history of government nuclear power policy. After the Fukushima disaster in Japan in March, Merkel swiftly reversed controversial legislation passed by her government in October that had extended the lifespan of the country's nuclear power plants by an average of 12 years. An earlier government led by then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and the Greens had previously passed legislation that would phase out atomic energy entirely in Germany.

 

Following the nuclear catastrophe, Merkel ordered that seven nuclear plants be taken offline for a moratorium period of at least three months until the government had the chance to reconsider its position. Those plants will now remain shut down, as well as an eighth plant which had already been temporarily closed prior to the moratorium. 

Although Merkel often described nuclear energy as a "bridging technology" until cleaner sources could be found, her shift was seen as nothing less than a 180-degree turn for her government. Many saw it as a cynical election ploy, coming as it did just days before pivotal state elections that her party ultimately lost, anyway. Weeks on, however, the majority believes the chancellor had no other choice given the broad consensus in the German populace that nuclear power has no place in the country. That sentiment is expected to be codified by the German parliament on July 8. 

But despite the massive popular support, there are still clouds on the horizon for Merkel. Already, Germany's major energy utility companies, for whom operating nuclear power plants has been the equivalent of being able to print money, are threatening to sue over lost revenues potentially reaching into the billions as a result of the atomic shutdown. 

German editorialists are split over Merkel's nuclear withdrawal plans. Many left-leaning publications fête the development, whereas conservative newspapers are asking if society can really afford the price tag that will come with green energy. 

The left-leaning Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"The reaction was predictable: The bosses of German industrial groups, particularly the energy utilities, are moaning about the decision to undergo an accelerated nuclear phase out like children who don't want to go on a day trip. They did this before the decision was made; they will probably do it for a while yet, until the heads of these firms comprehend what enormous opportunities are on offer in a world in which they have become the first mover on renewable energy and therefore are the market leader in the underlying technology."

"After the -- relatively -- clear decision, it is time to grasp the end of nuclear power in Germany as an opportunity, not just as a loss. The phase-out offers enormous opportunities if it is seen as a transition, or even as an entry into the potentially economically rewarding solar age. If it is dealt with properly, Germany will be at the vanguard of changes that, thanks to the planet's limitations, every nation on Earth will need to undergo at some point. It will be a turning point that marks an end not only to Germany's nuclear plants, but also to energy produced by consuming resources in general."

"Given the size of the task ahead, it seems almost ridiculous when politicians bicker whether three of the nuclear power plants should be running until 2022 instead of 2021, or whether one reactor should be retained as a "cold reserve" (and it is unclear how this could function)."

"The exact exit date is less important than the accompanying, much larger tasks. Germany must now make its own energy consumption more efficient, and increase the already impressive share of renewable energies. It is by no means about a forced surrender or 'green woollen sweater' ideology, but about modern, cutting-edge technology."

The Financial Times Deutschland writes:

"The main difference between the nuclear phase-out law passed by former Chancellor Schröder eight years ago and that agreed on by Merkel's government on Sunday night is that there is no longer a chance that it will be reversed. ... The electorate's memory may be short, but since the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima, it is impossible in Germany to mobilize a majority in favor of a return to atomic energy."

"This cross party and societal consensus is an enormous opportunity, particularly for energy firms. The debates will be bitter and protracted when it comes to how the transition into a nuclear-power-free era might look in detail and who has to pay for what. But the crude framework which has now been erected already offers one thing: legal security. Particularly for companies in a sector like energy which must make long-term investments, that is of inestimable value."

The tabloid Bild writes:

"No one can accuse the German government of inaction. Within a matter of months, the government has taken consequential action following the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima. … But were they the right decisions? After all, German prosperity and millions of jobs in the country are dependent on affordable energy. In that regard, there are a frightening number of questions left unanswered. Will sun, water and wind be able to provide us with ample and reliable energy? Who will build the needed new power masts? And what share of the costs will have to be picked up by renters and homeowners? The government has acted on the behalf of voters, but who will be forced to pick up the tab in the end?"

The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"Following the Japanese disaster, Merkel had nothing left to win. Sticking with the extension of nuclear plant life spans would have been political suicide. Even the chancellor's (harshest critics) would have agreed that the Social Democrats and Greens would likely get elected as the next government. It doesn't require much imagination to figure out what their first decision might be."

"But even the 'shift' (away from nuclear energy) does little to help Merkel politically. Abroad -- especially, but not exclusively, in the Middle East -- the German government's swing on energy policy (after its abstention on the UN Security Council vote on creating a no-fly zone in Libya) is being seen as yet another sign that the chancellor isn't as iron-cast as many like to think. Critics within her own party once again see the affirmation of their assumption that in questions of stability, Merkel shows considerable mobility -- often in ways that are detrimental to her own party. So far, voters aren't rewarding the Christian Democrats or the Free Democrats in the coalition government for doing what the majority of voters would like them to do, either."

"The ingratitude will continue because the next thing Merkel's government will have to do is open the envelope with the bill in it. The upgrading of Germany's energy supply, related costs and the necessity of greater energy saving will hit or at least be felt by all -- car and home owners, renters, environmental activists and companies. This project will change the entire country, and it will only be possible to know what the actual costs and undesired consequences will be once it is finished."

The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes:

"Why is no one in Germany celebrating the government's nuclear phase-out plans? It's all over the headlines around the world, but here in our own country no one really knows how to react. … The U-turn that Merkel and her government were forced into could not have been any more dramatic. Just half a year ago, Merkel had decreed that the reactors would stay online until long after 2030 -- now half of them are already off the grid."

"It is a huge victory for the anti-nuclear movement, which had promoted alternative sources of energy with great tenacity and kept the discussion alive. That was the reason why the electorate was so determined (to get rid of nuclear power) after the Fukushima disaster and forced Merkel to reverse her position. … The energy revolution can finally be taken to the next level."

The conservative Die Welt writes:

"The lifeblood of democracy is that you don't just have to follow one path. It's part of that lifeblood that there are always alternatives. But the German government is currently violating this basic rule in the most scandalous of ways. There's no question, in the future the country will need a smart mix of diverse energy sources, and that is why it is urgent to develop alternatives to nuclear energy. But the breakneck speed with which the government decided to hastily and permanently turn its back on the use of nuclear energy by 2022 makes a mockery of every democratic rule of procedure. It began with the repealing of the decision to extend nuclear life spans … which happened at the spur of the moment after Fukushima, without any discussion or reflection -- out of fear of the Greens (who have recently seen their influence increase dramatically in Germany)."

"Swiss Energy Minister Doris Leuthard, whose country determined not to build any more nuclear power plants and to abandon the use of atomic energy by 2034, said: 'We need time for this change, and we have that time.' This casual tone was painfully lacking in Germany. From the conservatives to the Greens, people competed to outdo each other in their proposals for how quickly the exit could happen. That damages reason."

"It is more astounding how radical the government here was in its refusal to consider alternatives. … And nobody seemed to be very upset by the fact that the committee Merkel convened to consider the issue of withdrawal was the cheeky 'ethics commission,' as if this were an ethical or moral issue rather than a question of practices and technological reason. Of the 14 members on the committee, the few who were proponents of nuclear energy were more or less silenced by the others. … And that is a victory for pugnacious democracy that lives on debate and doubt?"

Why Anti-Nuclear Belongs in All of Our Movements | Common Dreams

Why Anti-Nuclear Belongs in All of Our Movements | Common Dreams

by Betsy Hartmann

The stakes are getting higher by the day in the radioactive roulette playing out at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex. On Monday the Japanese government finally widened the evacuation zone and is raising the threat level from five to seven, the same level as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. In our own movements we need to raise the nuclear threat level too.

While it’s tempting to sit back and wait for an antinuclear movement to rekindle in the United States, we simply can’t afford the time. Nor is it clear that such a movement will emerge. The failure of the anti-war movement to gain broad traction is a case in point. Many progressive movements are just struggling to hold on in the face of vicious right-wing assaults and loss of funding. So the question becomes: How do we build an antinuclear politics in the absence of a full-fledged antinuclear movement?

The answer lies in finding points of convergence. After all, nuclear power, waste and weaponry threaten us all, as well as generations to come. The nuclear accident in Japan – if we can really call it an accident since potential disaster was built into the very location and design of the plants – serves as a glaring reminder that those who hold the reins of power do not have solutions for the serious social, economic and ecological crises of our time. On the contrary, they are making disasters, not unmaking them, risking our collective future for their own short-term gain. As economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote recently, financial meltdown and nuclear meltdown are closely related, both products of a system of delusional speculation, technological hubris, public subsidies and private greed.

In each of our movements, then, we need to make a space for antinuclear activism. Here are just a few of many possible points of convergence:

Nuclear power is a reproductive rights issue. Among other serious side effects, exposure to radiation can increase the risk of sterility, birth defects and genetic mutations that can affect the reproduction of generations to come. Plutonium, a by-product of nuclear power and a key component of atomic bombs, is the most potent manmade poison on the planet, with a half life of 24,000 years. It crosses the placenta and is stored in male testicles.

Nuclear power is an environmental justice issue, from uranium mining on indigenous lands in the southwest to locating reactors in poor African-American rural communities in Georgia.

It’s a climate justice issue. Don’t let them fool you. Nuclear power is not a clean substitute for dirty fossil fuels. For one thing, the government and industry have no idea of how or where to safely store the waste. Moreover, nuclear is hardly emissions-free when you factor in the mining, transport and enrichment of uranium as well as the leakage of the potent greenhouse gas CFC 114 from cooling pipes. The money spent on nuclear development should instead flow to the development of safe renewable energies and conservation.

It’s a labor rights issue. As we’ve seen at Fukushima, nuclear workers, many of them laboring on an exploitative contract basis, are being exposed to unacceptable health risks. Nuclear power also produces dangerous chemical by-products that affect workers. As an industry shrouded in secrecy, workers often lack redress or are scared to complain about health and safety violations for fear of losing their jobs.

It’s a peace and security issue. The notion of ‘atoms for peace’, first trumpeted by President Eisenhower in the 1950s, has always been a sham. Nuclear power fuels the atomic weapons industry, facilitates nuclear proliferation, and increases vulnerability to terrorist attacks. In a profound irony, it helps legitimize the national security state as necessary to protect us from nuclear threats of the state’s own making.

Nuclear power is a basic democracy issue too. Why does President Obama support nuclear power? Because the nuclear lobby supported his candidacy. If we want clean renewable energy, we need clean elections. And we need local control. Right now the brave state of Vermont is fighting to shut down the leaking Vermont Yankee nuclear plant that has the same flawed design as Fukushima. Its state legislature is pitted against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission which recently renewed the plant’s license. Whose vote should count – the people of Vermont’s or a few pro-industry representatives on the NRC licensing committee?

By including opposition to nuclear power in all of our diverse struggles, we can start to build an effective antinuclear politics that could spawn a broader movement. But even if it doesn’t, we won’t have stood by passively as the threat level mounts. While the Republicans play at shutting down the government, what really needs shutting down is the nuclear industry. We all need to help in that fight.

Betsy Hartmann is the Director of the Population and Development Program and Professor of Development Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. A longstanding activist in the international women’s health movement, she writes and speaks on the intersection of reproductive rights, environmental and climate justice, and peace. Seehttp://www.BetsyHartmann.com and http://popdev.hampshire.edu.