Nukewatch

Working for a nuclear-free future since 1979

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Nukewatch Welcomes New Staff Member

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2015

Martha is our newest Nukewatch staffer. She has been visiting the Plowshares Land Trust since 2009 when she was a student group leader at the College of Saint Benedict, where she majored in Peace and Conflict Studies and Political Science. Recently she made the big move out to the farm and joined us on staff at Nukewatch. She has lots of experience working with young folks and leading groups on justice-oriented trips. At Nukewatch, Martha will be the point person for organizing students wanting to visit the farm and also for educational forums and trainings that other organizations would like to host. She loves to bake, ride horses, travel, garden, and lay in her hammock.

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Energy Transition Law Ends France’s Nuclear Renaissance 

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2015
By Kelly Lundeen

Nuclear power is on the decline—evidence is everywhere. A contributing analyst for Energy Investor, Jeff Siegel, wrote in a July article, “I changed my mind…. nuclear can’t cut it.” Sweden, which derives 42 percent of its electricity from nuclear, is closing four out of ten reactors due to the burdensome cost of nuclear energy. Now the financial crisis of France’s nuclear power industry has forced the country to announce an unprecedented Energy Transition Law that will reduce the share of nuclear energy from 75 percent to 50 percent of its total portfolio in less than ten years. This follows on the heels of a report released in June by the French Agency for Environment and Energy Management demonstrating how France could reach 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.

While France has aspired to fuel the nuclear renaissance, economic woes have plagued the industry. The large French nuclear power company Areva recently entered bankruptcy after a loss of $7.37 billion over four years and had to be taken over by the government-run EDF. Yet EDF is having financial troubles of its own, with a $38 billion debt and a negative cash flow. Amidst a throng of reactor construction contracts going over budget and running years behind schedule, along with the discovery of a major design flaw, the company had to abandon several projects. Since our last Quarterly, Areva’s reactor licenses for Calvert Cliffs 3 in Maryland and Callaway 2 in Missouri have been officially canceled. The French government needed a new plan to prevent an economic disaster for the country.

While a financial predicament has led France to see the non-radioactive beam of light in renewable energy, anti-nuclear organizations have always opposed nuclear power on ethical grounds. Pressure from these groups even resulted in EDF spying on Greenpeace, for which they were found guilty in 2011. This movement continues. As we go to press, there is an international action against radioactive uranium transport from Hamburg, Germany to Narbonne, France. A large anti-nuclear contingent is being planned at the United Nations Climate Change Convention beginning December 12, 2015, in Paris. (See http://www.wiseinternational.org/campaign/march-paris.) There is no doubt that the anti-nuclear movement has had an impact on the Energy Transition Law.

The new policy was passed in July by the French Parliament. While it could have gone further, the plan is very ambitious and will need support in order to be fully implemented. After replacing 25 percent of the nation’s electricity with renewable energy by 2025, it will continue to increase to 40 percent renewables by 2040. The Energy Transition Law will remove obstacles that have hindered renewable energy development, and it includes a carbon tax. More importantly, it gives France a place at the head of the table as it hosts the UN climate talks in December.

—Nuclear Heritage Network, Aug. 19; ClimateWire, Jul. 29; Energy & Capital, Jul. 22; Greenpeace France, Jun. 23, 2015

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Nukewatch Welcomes New Staff Member 

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2015
By Kelly Lundeen

Hello Nukewatch community! My name is Kelly Lundeen. I am a mother, organizer, and teacher, and I recently become a staff member at Nukewatch. I first learned about Nukewatch in the late 1990s and I became radicalized by the work to end the sanctions and environmental movement in Earth First. Since then, I have been working to end corporate rule and build people power in Wisconsin, Colombia, South America, Minnesota and back home in rural Shell Lake, Wisconsin, not far from Nukewatch, where I now live with my partner and two-year-old daughter.

Kelly holds a trespass citation after a 2004 direct action at the Navy’s ELF antenna.

For three years I was a live-in volunteer at Casa Maria Catholic Worker in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I helped provide shelter to homeless women and children while fighting the systemic causes of that poverty and working for immigrant rights. From 2002–2005, I lived in Colombia doing accompaniment with International Peace Observatory, an organization that accompanied peasant human rights organizations defending their lands from takeover by multinational companies through the use of the paramilitary and government army. I have been arrested six times in direct action against the military–industrial complex and corporate globalization, one of those arrests being at Project ELF, the nuclear submarine communication system in northern Wisconsin that Nukewatch worked for 15 years to close.

At Nukewatch I am thrilled to be a part of decades-long civil resistance to advance the mission of abolishing nuclear power and weapons, which I view as tools of US military and economic imperialism that deny the legitimacy of the human needs here in the US and around the world and prioritizes economic interests. I look forward to being part of a larger community—you all—that shares these concerns and is willing to take action for change!

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65-Day Protest at Germany’s Nuclear-Armed Büchel Air Base

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2015

A 65-day-long series of protests at the Büchel Air Force Base in west-central Germany—home to 20 US nuclear bombs—culminated on May 29. Thirty-five different organizations began their string of blockades on March 26, commemorating the Bundestag’s (Parliament’s) 2010 call to the German government to advocate for removal of US nuclear weapons in Germany. The occupations ended May 29, marking the conclusion of the UN’s 2015 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. (See “Nuclear Weapons Proliferation,” Page 1.)

The actions against Germany’s Nuclear-Armed Büchel Air Base included a die-in staged to dramatize Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream by the French group Stop Nuclear Weapons. Photo by Büchel Atomwaffenfrei.

Over the course of the 65 days, over 400 people participated in 31 blockades through a wide variety of demonstrations. Local, national and international organizations came to present lively opposition to nuclear weapons and the base’s role in the US–German “nuclear sharing” agreement. The actions ranged from an orchestra concert to tripod blockades, a red carpet roll-out of peace flags, a die-in staged to dramatize Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream, and a Maypole dance. Banners galore punctuated the actions and constantly decorated the peace encampment. Birthdays and a Good Friday service were observed at the gates, contributing to what became disruption of traffic three to four days a week, preventing personnel from accessing the base, and often closing it. On the last day alone, 35 people were taken into custody as they blocked seven gates to the base. A total of 60 protestors arrived armed with toothbrushes to symbolize their willingness to remain at the blockade until there is a commitment to withdraw the weapons. The US removed its nuclear weapons from England and Greece prior to 2010. The US B61s at Büchel include 20 of the 180 bombs remaining in five European allied states. The stationing and potential use of the weapons violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which prohibits signatories like the United States from transferring nuclear

weapons to non-nuclear states like Germany; Büchel is charged with the nuclear missions of NATO and the B61 bombs would be delivered by German Tornado aircraft. Contrary to a move toward fulfilling international obligations under the NPT, there are plans to upgrade the B61s to “smart” bombs, giving them the embarrassing distinction of being the only such nuclear weapons on European soil. In a move that some have called a “new arms race,” the upgrade plan will further endanger Russia’s trust in disarmament talks with NATO.

—Atomwaffenfrei, May 30; Büchel Atomwaffenfrei, May 26; Rheinische Post, Mar. 24, 2015 —KL

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45,000 Rally Against  Nuclear Power in Taiwan

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2015
By Kelly Lundeen 

On March 14, around 45,000 activists gathered across major cities in Taiwan to oppose nuclear power, marking the fourth anniversary of the Fukushima-Daiichi triple reactor disaster. The island-wide mobilization marked the third year in a row that tens of thousands of anti-nuclear activists have taken to the streets in a movement that has been galvanized by the Fukushima meltdown. Like Japan, Taiwan is located near the tectonically-active “Ring of Fire.” Concerned about a similar disaster, environmental, human rights, aboriginal, student, labor, workers’ and farmers’ organizations are demanding green energy and a Taiwan free of nuclear reactors. Pieces of this dream could become reality if the government follows through on its pledge to phase-out nuclear power by letting licenses expire on the three operating reactor complexes and abandoning construction on a fourth.

Anti-nuclear protesters rally in Taipei, Taiwan on March 14. Their signs include the message “stop the nuclear power and start the green power.” Photo by Sam Yeh, AFP.

Of the existing reactors, the oldest are scheduled for decommissioning by 2019 and 2023. The fourth reactor has been in planning stages since the 1980s, but its construction has run into continual setbacks. Last year, it was brought to a complete standstill and the reactor was sealed off as the government was forced to respond to strong public opposition. The reactor’s completion now depends on a public referendum expected within the next few years.

A 2014 World Nuclear Association report found that 55 percent of Taiwan’s population supported terminating construction and closing the reactor permanently. Taiwan’s government appears to be taking public opinion into account in view of its claims to have plans to put an end to nuclear power.

Every year since the Fukushima disaster, the size of nationwide protests has grown from thousands to tens of thousands, reaching 68,000 in March 2013. Activists have employed hunger strikes, sit-ins on high-traffic boulevards and railway stations, marches and other tactics. In the 2012 presidential elections, the popular opposition candidate made ending reliance on nuclear power a central issue. Even though the president—whose party had previously backed nuclear power—was re-elected, he recently backed away from his support of the nuclear industry. The halt to construction on the fourth reactor has been largely due to public pressure, exemplified again by the enormous outcry heard on March 14—although regionally this has not been the case.

Asia is considered to be the emerging market for investment in new nuclear power, and 11 countries in the region have or are developing plans to build new power reactors. Nuclear power promoters like the World Nuclear Association forecast that by 2030, 266 new reactors could be built across Asia. Of the projected $1.2 trillion to be invested in nuclear power worldwide, almost $800 billion of that could be in Asia.

Amidst multi-national corporate momentum toward more nuclear power in Asia, Taiwan is one of the few countries in which politicians have been responsive to the movements against it. And if millions of Taiwanese get their way, the country will join the ranks of Switzerland, Belgium and Germany and make a good-faith commitment to truly rid their home of nuclear power.

—Agence France Presse, Mar. 14, 2015 & Mar. 20, 2011; World Nuclear Association, Mar. 2015; World Nuclear News, Jan. 8, 2015; Green Citizen’s Action Alliance, 2015; Straits Times, Jul. 31, 2014; Reuters, Apr. 27, 2014; Bloomberg Business, Mar. 3, 2013; New York Times, Jan. 12, 2012; Taipei Times, May 1, 2011

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