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October 10, 2014 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

The Physics of Domination and Compassion  

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2014
By John Heid
Through the Prism of Nonviolence

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. — Newton’s Third Law

The US-Mexico border is una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the First and bleeds. A 1,950 mile-long open wound dividing a pueblo, a culture running down the length of my body, staking fence rods in my flesh, splits me… splits me…. — Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands 

“The border wall tells us Mexicans you are scared of us. But what does your wall tell you about yourselves?” This from my conversation with an unidentified Mexican man in Nogales, Sonora.

At first the phone calls from the ticket clerk at the Tucson Greyhound bus station came about once a week. The conversation was simple: “Do you have room for a mother and her children tonight? Their ticket hasn’t come in yet.”

“Yes, we do.” The bus station closes nightly. That was over two and a half years ago. Gradually the number of requests increased. Most of the families were Guatemalan. All were indigenous. Every family had relatives in the US. All had come across the desert. Their stories were nearly identical. Rampant violence, death threats and extreme poverty had forced a choice: flee or perish.

One Saturday night last September a dam, of sorts, broke. The bus station clerk, Juan, called frantically saying he had 19 people who needed a place for the night. From then on the number of Central American refugees coming through our doors was consistently high. Night after night we heard the familiar story with different names.

Guatemalan society is being ripped apart at the seams. Late in the night I could hear the women talking across the hall in their native K’iche and Mam. Melodic languages filled the bedrooms of our small community, Casa Mariposa. In the past year, over 2,500 guests came through our doors; another 3,500 or so were offered food, clothing and comfort at the Greyhound station as they awaited their bus. A veritable flood of humanity. A contemporary exodus.

As this unprecedented displacement began to attract media attention, so did the random gestures of support. Our phone rang all hours of the day and night. Local women and children would show up at our door with bags of clothing, food, coloring books, diapers, whatever. We’d often wake to find boxes of toiletries and sundry items left anonymously on our front porch overnight. Others called to say they had space in their home to host a family. A construction worker called from Chicago offering to come down to Tucson and build houses for these families. Tucson witnessed its own kind of surge — a surge of compassion.

Before long the analysts and spin doctors pronounced the causes of the surge with nauseating monotony and finality: Poverty and violence. End of sentence; end of discussion. Yet the gristmill of poverty and violence is merely a symptom of a deeper phenomenon: the physics of domination. When digging deep to find its source, we will discover its gnarly roots in the dynamics of unequal economic, political and power relationships. Income disparity indeed.

Rarely mentioned in mainstream media is the history of strong US support for violent regimes in Guatemala and El Salvador. Throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, the US poured over $1 million of military aid every day into El Salvador alone, a place where 85% of the war crimes were attributed to the government. Over 100,000 civilians were killed. Guatemala’s story was similar during those years. In 2009, the US supported a coup in Honduras which deposed the democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya and led to an epidemic of violence against civilians. Honduras now has the highest per capita homicide rate in the world. Is it coincidental then that of the tens of thousands of children and families coming into the US this year 28% are Honduran, 24% Guatemalan, and 21% El Salvadoran? Nicaragua is the poorest country in the region, yet only 194 of the 63,000 unaccompanied children who entered the US this year are Nicaraguan. Poverty is volatile. Violence trumps.

Also, rarely mentioned by commercial news media is the devastating impact of international trade agreements on the village economies of Central American nations. After two decades, the tourniquet of the North American Free Trade Agreement and its structural adjustments has finally gotten a choke hold on the hemisphere’s most vulnerable populations. This impoverished environment has been fertile ground for recruitment by cartels, thus exacerbating the cycle of violence and justifying the infusion of even more US arms into the region. I never heard any of the hundreds of families coming through our doors talk about coming north in pursuit of the fabled American dream. I only heard stories of people in flight for their lives. Survival.

Yet, this “urgent humanitarian crisis,” as the President called it, is not acknowledged as a refugee crisis, but rather just another twist on northern migration for upward economic mobility. Children and families are treated as criminals, not refugees. Detention centers for youth were opened on three military bases. A detention facility for families was reopened in New Mexico, with more planned. Thus, incarceration of refugees and persons without status is normalized. The National Guard was mobilized in Texas. Governors from Maine to Arizona decried children coming to their state. Calls for even more border enforcement were raised. Vigorous efforts were made to rollback legal protection for vulnerable children under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act — which passed both Houses of Congress unanimously and became law in 2008.

Scant, scattered attention, let alone analysis, is given in the circles of power to the causes and conditions of the current movement of people into the US. In classic blame-the-victim reaction, young people become the scapegoat, with children, not the border, seen as the problem.

There is an open wound. It’s source is the clash of power and identity. Whose identity crisis is this? Not the Central Americans’. Refugees know exactly where they stand and why. It is our crisis and it has two faces: one, the humanitarian; the other, the wall. The earlier question echoes in the back of my mind: who does that wall tell us we are? Who does it say I am?

In my darkest moments I have found comfort in recalling the soft song-like cadence of the Guatemalan women talking that night in our home. They have a passion and a hope that nurtures mine. I am heartened too by the likes of that fella from Chicago, whoever he is, who roused me out of bed early one morning to say, “I’m coming down to help build homes for these families.” He and the women have the kind of fiber and spirit that can and will change the world. That’s some place to stand. May we all be there one day — together.

— John Heid lives and works at the Casa Mariposa in Tucson, Arizona.

 

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter, Through the Prism of Nonviolence

October 10, 2014 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Risky Plutonium  Project Put on Hold

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2014

The Energy Department has proposed that construction of a nuclear reactor fuel production system underway in South Carolina be postponed. The factory would use an expensive and pollution-intensive process of mixing extracted plutonium with uranium to make a reactor fuel called mixed-oxide, or MOX, for use in commercial power reactors — a scheme that involved “significant security risks,” according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. A UCS analysis has found that the MOX system makes it easier for terrorists to steal plutonium during processing, transport and storage at reactors than containerizing the plutonium as high-level waste. 

The US and Russia have promised to dispose of some 34 tons of military plutonium, left from bomb production and dismantled nuclear weapons. The UCS and other experts recommend that the plutonium should be processed with inert material for long-term isolation. UCS is pushing Congress to officially terminate the ill-advised MOX program and pursue safer, less expensive alternatives. — JL

— Union of Concerned Scientists, Catalyst, Summer 2014 

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, Quarterly Newsletter, Radioactive Waste

October 10, 2014 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

International Nuclear Power Fading Fast, Study Finds 

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2014

The latest World Nuclear Industry Status Report, published in July 2014,* provides a comprehensive review of nuclear power data, which “is critically important to understanding the past and current situations without bias for a healthy public policy debate.” According to the study’s forward by Tatsujiro Suzuki — who until March 2014 was Vice-Chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission and is one of the report’s eight authors. 

The collage “Unsinkable,” by Chris Jordan, is made up of 67,000 photos of mushroom clouds, equal to the number of metric tons of ultra-radioactive waste being stored in temporary on-site pools at the US’s 100 operating reactors. A closer view o f the art is available at www.chrisjordan.com.

The report includes information on reactor operations, production and construction and looks extensively at the status of new-build programs in existing as well as in potential newcomer countries, considering in detail how changing market conditions are affecting the economics of nuclear power. The 2014 edition updates a Fukushima Status Report featured for the first time in 2013 which then triggered widespread media attention. The Nuclear Power vs. Renewable Energy chapter provides comparative data on investment, capacity and generation and assesses how nuclear power performs in systems with high renewable energy share. 

The report’s detailed country-by-country analysis provides an overview of all 31 countries operating nuclear power reactors, with extended sections on China, Japan and the United States. 

Some of the key findings by the report’s eight authors reporting from London, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg and Tokyo, include: 

• A declining role. Nuclear power’s share of global commercial primary energy production declined from the 2012 low of 4.5 percent, a level last seen in 1984, to a new low of 4.4 percent. 

• Aging machinery. The average age of the world’s operating nuclear reactors is increasing and by mid-2014 stood at 28.5 years. 

• Construction delays. At least 49 of the total of 69 construction sites — including three quarters of the Chinese projects — have encountered delays, many of them multi-annual. Construction of two units in Taiwan was halted. 

• Project cancellations. Several projects have been cancelled and new programs indefinitely delayed, including in the Czech Republic and in Vietnam. 

• Operating costs soar. Nuclear reactor generating costs jumped 16 percent in real terms in three years in France, and several units were shut down in the US because income does not cover operating costs. The economic survival of nuclear reactors is also threatened in Belgium, Germany and Sweden. 

• Renewables trump nuclear. In 2013 alone, 32 gigawatts (GW) of wind and 37 GW of solar were added to the world power grids. By the end of 2013, China had 91 GW of wind power and 18 GW of solar capacity installed, solar exceeding operating nuclear capacity for the first time. China added four times more solar than nuclear reactor capacity in the past year, and Spain generated more power from wind than from any other source, outpacing nuclear for the first time. Also the first time in any country, Spain made wind the largest electricity generating source over an entire year. Spain has thus joined the list of reactor operating countries that produce more electricity from new renewables — excluding large hydro-power — than from its nuclear reactors. The others are Brazil, China, Germany, India and Japan. 

*www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/201408msc-worldnuclearreport2014-hr-v4.pdf 

For further information and full copies of all previous reports see www.WorldNuclearReport.org. — JL

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, On The Bright Side, Quarterly Newsletter, Renewable Energy

October 10, 2014 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Air Force Launches Cosmetic Fixes for “Self-inflicted Rot” Among Nuclear Missile Crews

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2014

After a string of what the Secretary of the Air Force called “systemic” violations of nuclear weapons procedures involving drugs, alcohol, security missteps, leadership failures, morale problems and widespread cheating, the service has moved to address what one internal email called “rot” in the nuclear missile corps, the Associated Press reports.

Air Force higher-ups plan to fix the morale, drug abuse and discipline problems by offering bonus pay, a “nuclear service” medal and additional modernization of the Minuteman III missiles. The Air Force maintains 450 ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are spread across North Dakota, Montana and parts of Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska.

In August, the Air Force’s Global Strike Command and the 20th Air Force also launched an “officer swap” among the three ICBM Air Force Bases — Minot in North Dakota, Malmstrom in Montana and FE Warren in Wyoming. “The idea is … to experience … the Force Improvement Program,” Lt. Col. David Rickards, 91st Operations Group deputy commander at Minot, said in a press release. “It’s always good to see how another team works,” the Col. said. Improved training and evaluation schemes are to start at Minot according to a press release by Minot’s Lt. Col. Rusty Williford.

In May 2013, 17 ICBM launch officers at Minot Air Force Base were removed from missile duty because of a long list of discipline and security failures. At the time, the deputy operations commander at Minot complained in an internal email of “rot” in his ranks.

“I think a lot of the problems in the missile world have been self-inflicted,” Capt. Adam Ross, a 341st Operations Support Squadron missile crew combat crew instructor, said in a statement.

Subsequent scandals involving gambling, alcoholism, drug use, cheating on missile control examinations and “burnout” among Air Force personnel moved the Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to say in January this year, “We know that something is wrong.”

Air Force Secretary Deborah L. James visited all three ICBM bases in January and afterward voiced her “profound disappointment” in the nuclear weapons controllers, saying the problems are “systemic,” not isolated the Associated Press reported.

In August Adm. Cecil Haney the chief of Strategic Command at Omaha Offutt Air Force Base flatly contradicted his Air Force boss, Sec. James, when he said to reporters at a conference in Omaha that “integrity lapses” occurred only among “a very small population.” Initially over 90 missile launch officers were removed from duty under suspicion of cheating on proficiency tests.

Hagel’s spokesman, Rear Adm. John Kirby, said in February that the secretary had launched two separate inquires to advise how best to address the string of scandals, particularly the allegations of drug possession and use among Global Strike Command officers. The Air Force is moving ahead with the publicized cosmetic changes although the findings of Hagel’s two investigations have not been disclosed. — JL

— Great Falls Tribune, Aug. 30; Government Executive news service, Aug. 14; and AP, June 10, 2014

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter

October 10, 2014 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

NRC: In Reactor Licensing, Government May Ignore Health and Environmental Threats of Mounting Waste Stockpiles

NRC: In Reactor Licensing, Government May Ignore Health and Environmental Threats of Mounting Waste Stockpiles 
Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2014

A fast-tracked vote August 26 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will allow resumption of licensing for new nuclear reactors, and re-licensing for old units. The agency’s 4-0 decision is based on the assertion that extremely radioactive waste fuel produced by the reactors can be stored onsite indefinitely without threatening nearby communities.

The NRC’s action is a response to an order by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which voided the agency’s Waste Confidence Rule — a key regulation that had streamlined the licensing process by declaring the NRC’s “confidence” that its regulations would keep the waste “safe” until that day when it would be moved to permanent underground storage — in 2012. The appeals court found that the NRC had no basis for “confidence” in waste management since there is no plan for how to manage or isolate the most concentrated radioactive wastes ever produced — used fuel from power reactors.

The appeals court ordered the NRC to consider various impacts of nuclear power’s waste production, noting that since the NRC “has no long-term plan other than hoping for a geologic repository,” it is possible that waste fuel will be stored at reactor sites “on a permanent basis.”

The NRC’s action will likely be appealed, but meanwhile allows new reactors to be built and old ones to expand their operations even without any long-term plan for disposing of the waste.

The court also rejected the NRC’s official minimizing of the risks of leaks or fires from waste fuel stored in reactor cooling pools. The court said the agency had not demonstrated that future impacts would be insignificant. It also concluded that the NRC had not shown that catastrophic fires in waste fuel pools were so unlikely that their risks could be ignored.

Diane D’Arrigo, Radioactive Waste Project Director at Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), an intervener in the federal case, said reactor licensing had been frozen since August 2012, when the NRC declared a temporary halt rather than conduct site-specific environmental reviews that would have been required without the “waste confidence” policy that was voided by the court.

With the August vote, according to a statement by Geoffrey Fettus, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, “The commission failed to follow the express directions of the court. [It] failed to analyze the long-term environmental consequences of indefinite storage of highly toxic and radioactive nuclear waste…” Fettus was the lead lawyer in the original court case. Even the Chair of the NRC, Allison M. Macfarlane, said August 29 that “the vote risked allowing Congress to ignore the long-term problem,” according to the New York Times.

In 2012, the NRC staff indicated it would take as much as seven years to critically evaluate the complex dangers of waste storage, including analysis of risks and impacts at reactor sites. A quicker way was chosen. The commission approved a “generic” environmental impact statement, “but did not address the impact to the environment if the stored nuclear waste were abandoned,” the Times reported.

“The Commission, like the Emperor who realizes he has no clothes, has been rushing around to find cover. Unfortunately, the vote [August 26] is for a fig leaf instead of a proper set of new clothing,” D’Arrigo said.

— NIRS News Release, Aug. 26, New York Times, Aug. 29, 2014; & Vegan magazine, June 2012.

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter, Radioactive Waste

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