Nuclear Power: a Snare and a Delusion for Illinois

(Originally published in October, 2014, as "Chicago, IL: Zero Carbon AND Zero Nuclear!" on the Zero Carbon Chicago blog.)


Just about every day when I open the newspaper, I see a full page ad from an interest group called "Nuclear Matters" suggesting that -- Good News! -- we have the solution to global warming and it's good, old nuclear energy!

Nuclear Matters lobbying campaign

It's very important -- for people in general, and for people who live in the Chicago area in particular -- to understand how vital it is at this moment to stand up against the possible resurgence of the nuclear energy industry.


"Nucleonics": Science is our friend

I was a high school student in the '70s, and was very proud to be able to not only study physics as a junior in high school, but to take an special advanced course called "Nucleonics" -- focusing on nuclear physics -- when I was a senior.  The course had been designed by a wonderful teacher in our school, Gertrude M. Clarke.

"Nucleonics" required us to do something very challenging: use the tools of science, including math and statistics, to understand phenomena that we couldn't see. This included labs involving the measurement of low-level alpha and beta emissions, as well as thorough study of the issues involved in epidemiology of radiation-induced sickness and disease.  My final project in the "Nucleonics" course involved measuring resistance to gamma radiation over the course of several generations of fruit flies.

Henry Moore, Nuclear Energy
This bronze sculpture on the campus of the University
of Chicago stands on the spot above Chicago Pile 1,
where Enrico Fermi and colleagues carried out the world's
first successful atomic chain reaction in December, 1942.
(Image from Philosophy of Science Portal)

Today I live in Chicago and from time to time traverse the spot where the very first atomic chain reaction was carried out by Enrico Fermi and his colleagues --  an event that was of tremendous interest to any student of "Nucleonics." When I look at the Henry Moore sculpture on that spot, I wonder if we as a society have really come very far in our understanding of the issues since that time.

Reflecting back over the years, what seems to me to be most significant about what I learned in "Nucleonics" is that there may be abundant scientific information on radiation and its effects, but of equal or greater importance is the difficulty that the vast majority of people have in visualizing what this information really means in their lives.


Illinois' special status: Nuclear Energy U.S.A.

Didn't know you were surrounded, did ya?
Chicago area nuclear plants (NEIS)

A case in point: according to the Chicago-based Nuclear Energy Information Service, "Illinois is by far the most nuclear state in the United States . . . . Illinois was also home to the first commercial power reactor . . . one of the first commercial power reactors to close prematurely . . . . ComEd’s two large PWR reactors in Zion, IL also had to close prematurely . . . . We also have the first and only commercial storage facility for high level waste . . . Besides the 3 plants which closed prematurely, Illinois currently has eleven operating nukes – far more than any other state . . . etc. etc."

Does the average person living in Chicago have any idea about the degree to which they are surrounded by nuclear plants here?

In recent days there was a release at a nuclear facility in southern Illinois. (See "Metropolis Radiation Site Emergency — Leak of Toxic Uranium Hexafluoride")

Chicago people need to know what we're up against. The company that calls the shots on energy in our neck of the woods, Exelon, has been trumpeting its role as a nuclear energy operator. (See "Exelon, politics and Illinois' low-carbon future" by Julie Wernau in the Chicago Tribune, August 15, 2014: "'What Exelon is suggesting here is, put all your eggs in the nuclear basket and just trust Exelon,' [said] Lee Davis, executive vice president and regional president for NRG Energy's east region" ) Put that together with the "Nuclear Matters" lobbying effort, and its clear that people in Illinois are going to continue to be exposed to more, not less, nuclear plant risk. Unless we do something about it.


"Our Whole World": The Magnitude of the Risk

I was a college student in 1979 when the partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant occurred.

I'm embarrassed to say that my clearest memory of that time was a comedy skit on Saturday Night Live. ("President Jimmy Carter (on call-in show): Hmm. Sounds to me a lot like a Pepsi Syndrome. Were there any soft drinks in the control room?") I'm coming to realize that often comedy is used to cover our distress about the direst emergencies in our society.

Map of radiation levels in 1996 around Chernobyl
(map scale is about 300 miles across)

I was a young father attending to a new baby boy when the Chernobyl meltdown occurred.  I think the vast majority of people in the U.S. failed to grasp the magnitude of that disaster, though it wasn't lost on people in Europe (especially Germany).

I recently watched a short film called The Door that made me realize, "My city could become off-limits -- a ghost town -- if there was a nuclear accident here!" (I strongly recommend this film for anyone who is having trouble imagining the potential impact of radiation on their own life.)

Today, right now, people in Japan continue to cope with the radiation release that occurred when the Fukushima nuclear plant melted down. It is startling that people in the U.S. can disregard this experience!

In 2011 and 2012 there were a pair of excellent conferences held at the University of Chicago -- The Atomic Age -- that illuminated the connections between all these issues.  The Atomic Age's website has an ongoing archive of related information.

Despite all the available information, people have a very difficult time properly assessing the risk to which they, themselves, are exposed!


People who are part of the movement to create a "Zero Carbon Chicago" also need to be part of the movement to safely put Illinois' nuclear era behind us.


Related posts

It's not immediately obvious how Chicago and Illinois can move quickly to get electricity in a zero-carbon (and zero nuclear) manner. But here are a few initial thoughts . . .


(See What If Chicago Started to "Think Different" About Electricity? on the Zero Carbon Chicago website)






There is a great deal of expertise in our society in assessing -- and insuring against -- risk. (At least of a certain kind.) At the same time, we all have personal experience of the prevalence of "risky behavior." I wonder if we need to do more to try to imagine the true consequences of our most risky behavior  . . . .

(See Stop engaging in risky behavior)




Other related links

October 29, 2014 - "Exelon behind pro-nuclear website in Illinois" by Julie Wernau in the Chicago Tribune: "Exelon Corp. has stepped up lobbying in its effort to have state legislators reward the company's six nuclear plants in Illinois for producing electric power without emitting greenhouse gases. Three of the plants could be closed because of competition from cheaper forms of generating power."

SOLAR PANELS: A Force for Peace in Africa?

Will the people in Africa who are starved for electricity get it via solar panels supplied from China? What impact might this have on violent conflict?

Sustainable Development Goal 9:
Industry, Innovation, Infrastructure

The UN International Day for Peace 2016 has been tied to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. I was interested to see that an event titled World Economic Forum Africa 2016 is happening in Rwanda in the next several days. It made me curious to see what the Davos people might have to say about development (and, by extension, about peace) in Africa.

There's a big emphasis on digital and education at WEF Africa 2016. More information, more communication, more opportunity -- it's hard to argue with that as a good in general, and an essential lever in eliminating conflict in particular. Notably, WEF Africa 2016 is sponsored by a the Gates Foundation, numerous tech giants (Google, Microsoft, CISCO, Huawei, SAP), as well as the assortment of banks, consulting companies, and other corporate giants you would expect.

I'm a little curious, however, about where the power is going to come from to bring about the digital revolution in Africa.  A report on the WEF Africa 2016 website ("Africa’s digital revolution: a look at the technologies, trends and people driving it") provides this graphic:

AFRICA: Share of population without access to electricity
(Image: International Energy Agency)

Forget about electricity to power digital devices. How is it possible to talk seriously about a stable society and reversing the forces that bring about civil conflict when over 75% of a population has no access to electricity? According to the graphic, that means 60 million people in Congo, and 70 million people in Ethiopia.  In Nigeria, where somewhere between 25% and 50% of the people have access to electricity, there are still 93 million people without it.

There is a session on infrastructure at WEF Africa 2016, and I intend to watch it. I hope that it will not feature suggestions that nuclear energy is what Africa needs. (Stay tuned.)

What WEF Africa 2016 should be advocating is a massive solar energy program for Africa.

SolarGIS solar irradiation map, showing areas of highest exposure in Africa.

Trade, aid, lending, and investment between Africa and China have been growing rapidly. China is a massive supplier of solar panels. A project called Akon Lighting Africa (ALA) initiative aims to bring solar power to 600 million people in Africa -- with the help, it should be noted, of a $1 billion credit line from a Chinese solar system provider.

To get deeper into some of the underlying issues, check out this 2009 study on "China in the African Solar Energy Sector" based on the experience in Kenya.

Of course, solar power in Africa would have winners and losers. The winners would include companies in China supplying solar panels. Of course, Chinese companies could be counted on to start producing solar panels in Africa before long, so Africans would also be winners. Of course, thousands -- perhaps millions -- of local people in Africa would find employment installing and maintaining solar systems. And everyone in Africa would win from the absence of pollution.

Of course, there would be losers, too. Giant corporations like GE-Hitachi -- did I mention GE and Hitachi are sponsors of WEF Africa 2016? -- and Western engineering companies and banks will lose out if they do not get contracts to build nuclear plants in Africa.

I wonder if, when Peace Day 2016 rolls around in September, we'll be celebrating the continued progress of peaceful solar in Africa, or worrying about the creep of nuclear power across Africa?



Related posts

It will benefit us antiwar activists in the US to attend to and reflect upon the importance of these Sustainable Development Goals to achieving the goal of ending war.

(See PEACE DAY 2016: What comes first? Demilitarization? or Development?)












There's no question in my mind that Climate Action (Sustainable Development Goals #13) goes hand in hand with antiwar activity.

(See Peace Day 2016: 3 Ways Climate Action is Vital)













The U.S. could take a lesson from the "command economy" in China about government setting a bold new direction in using alternative energy.

(See #chinaEARTHusa -- Solar Panels at the Crux)








The enormous irony is that now one country -- India -- is responding to its past subjugation by the Western imperial program with this hugely self-damaging program, and another country that has struggled with its relationship to the Western imperial program -- Japan -- is doing everything it can to aid and abet.

(See INDIA: Lured into playing the "Great Power" Nuclear Game)

Peace Day 2016: 3 Ways Climate Action is Vital

The UN International Day for Peace 2016 has been tied to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Why is goal #13 -- Climate Action -- so vital to peace?

Sustainable Development Goal 13:
Climate Action

I think it is very possible to question whether many of the Sustainable Development Goals can be achieved before achieving substantial reductions in militarization, starting with the militarization of the US.

But there's no question in my mind that Climate Action (goal 13) goes hand in hand with antiwar activity.

Here are three big reasons . . .


(1) Climate Action ends the Global North's rationale for military dominance of the Middle East.

Ever wonder why the name of the US game is #permawar?

As a result of Climate Action, people have woken up to the fact that the world has far more fossil fuels than we can ever possibly burn.  People like Bill McKibben and his organization, 350.org, have made it clear that there is a carbon bubble, and the vast majority of oil, gas, and coal reserves are going to have to stay in the ground.

And once people in the US and other countries realize oil and gas will soon be a thing of the past, their very next question is "So why should we continue to try to militarily dominate the Middle East?"

Who knows? They may even begin to question whether it was just to fight for oil in the first place . . . .


(2) Our progress on Climate Action calls into question all resource-driven conflict -- the entire "race for what's left."

We need more BASES so we can get more STUFF ! ! !

Prof. Michael Klare has characterized the posture of the Global North as a "race for what's left" -- a race into which the Global South is being unwillingly dragged, and a race that is intimately tied to militarism.

A crucial element of Climate Action is recognition of our addiction to more and more and more stuff, and our inadequate attention to the possibilities of lowering consumption and moving toward economies of conservation, sustainability, and sharing.

It is inevitable that, as we do that, we will recognize the role of militarism in feeding the vicious cycle of acquisition and consumption. We have bases, therefore we must have important interests to protect; our important interests having been protected than a steady flow of economic activity -- raw materials, finished goods, investments, travel, and more?

What happens when we recognize a strategic imperative to do less, spend less, consume less?


(3) Climate Action is essential to our movement building.

Peace and Planet 2015 - model of cross-movement organizing

One of the big lessons to me of 2015 was that the peace movement and the environmental movement have realized that they are not separate movements, and they cannot accomplish their goals as separate movements.

An excellent example of this was the Peace and Planet event in New York City in April, 2015. It brought activists together from around the world to work on peace issues (particularly nuclear disarmament) and climate action.

Another example was the World Nuclear Victims Forum, which I attended in Hiroshima in November, 2015.

Yet another example is the integrated Alternative Global Security System from World Beyond War.


The closer we get to taking serious action on the climate crisis and global warming, the clearer it becomes that it is part and parcel of putting a stop to our militaristic ways.


Other Related Posts

It will benefit us antiwar activists in the US to attend to and reflect upon the importance of these Sustainable Development Goals to achieving the goal of ending war.

(See PEACE DAY 2016: What comes first? Demilitarization? or Development?)












Far more important than the historic performance of fossil fuel stocks is the future correlation of fossil fuel stocks to generalized, systemic risk in the market, and their negative correlation to the few sectors of the market that stand apart from that risk.

(See The Feel-Good Folly of Fossil-Fuel Valuation )




What if we had a massive region in the heart of the country pushing back against the war-crazed conventional wisdom of "more weapons," "more consumption," and "more destruction of the environment"?

(See Another Modest Proposal: A Green, Demilitarized Midwest! )

CHERNOBYL: Nuclear Energy - the door to . . . what?

Abandoned classroom, Pryp’yat, Ukraine
(Source: Britannica.com)

The Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster occurred thirty years ago -- April 26, 1986.

A series of images in today's New York Times invite people to remember and think about that event. It is particularly important at a moment when we are realizing that we cannot continue to rely on fossil fuels, and some people are pushing for reliance on nuclear energy.

You only need to search "Chernobyl" on Google images to find hundreds of images of what's left of Chernobyl, like the one at left.

How bad? The memorial to Chernobyl liquidators
in Moscow hints at the degree of devastation.

Most people have no real sense of the scale of the Chernobyl disaster -- the deaths and illnesses, the degree of contamination, the size of the no-man's land left behind.

Last year, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded for a book that provides first-hand accounts of the Chernobyl disaster.

Read this overview of Voices from Chernobyl to learn what happened, and why.

The Problem With Technology: Nuclear Radiation Injury and the Need to Admit Our Limitations

Jacob Peter Gowy's The Flight of Icarus.

During my time at the World Nuclear Victims Forum in Hiroshima (WNVF) I was struck again and again my the central role of technology -- or, more specifically, our failure to recognize the limits of technology -- in creating a hibakusha phenomenon that is truly global in scope.

The 20th century was the century of science and technology -- a time of belief that we can use science to solve any problem. "Everything is manageable."

The 21st century is starting to look like a century in which we say, "Knowledge, logic, ingenuity? Yes, but . . . . "

I remember the situation of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project in Chicago, and who thought their "expertise" would earn them the right to be heard about how the atomic bomb would be used.  (See Unfinished Business in Chicago (Nuclear disarmament, that is))

I think of the acres and acres of bags filled with contaminated soil from Fukushima. (See Radioactive Waste: "What are you gonna do with it?" )

Svetlana Alexievich's Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster is replete with examples of how people in the Soviet Union thought scientists could make anything work. There was "the cult of physics" (p. 179) and everyone said "nuclear stations . . . they're safer than samovars" (p. 87) . . . "At school and at the university we'd been taught that this was a magical factory that made 'energy out of nothing,' where people in white robes sat and pushed buttons" (p. 164)

Why did that Chernobyl break down? Some people say it was the scientists' fault. They grabbed God by the beard, and now he's laughing. But we're the ones who pay for it. (p. 78)

"The scientists had been gods, now they were fallen angels, demons even." (p. 192)


Admitting our limitations

Dr. Hiroaki Koide

Dr. Hiroaki Koide provided sobering testimony during his keynote lecture at WNVF. He said that he had sought out nuclear studies in the belief that peaceful uses of nuclear energy for power could in some way compensate for the suffering caused by its military use [i.e. in the atomic bombing of Japan]. However, he said, he realized that that hope was "a mistake" . . . . He now realizes that there are no "safe" ways to "harness" nuclear energy.

(His statement had echoes for me of my own experience as a high schooler studying "nucleonics" in New Jersey in the 1970s.)

It is one thing to embrace science -- an understanding of the true nature of reality based on experiment, observation, and deduction. At the same time, it is necessary to see the limitations of technology -- human actions informed by science.

That's why the "Declaration of the World Nuclear Victims Forum in Hiroshima (Draft Elements of a Charter of World Nuclear Victims’ Rights)" states:

Complete prevention of nuclear chain related disasters is impossible. No safe method exists for disposing of ever-increasing volumes of nuclear waste. Nuclear contamination is forever, making it utterly impossible to return the environment to its original state. Thus, we stress that the human family must abandon its use of nuclear energy. (emphasis added)

(Read the Declaration of the World Nuclear Victims Forum in Hiroshima (Draft Elements of a Charter of World Nuclear Victims’ Rights) in English | in Japanese )

The very fundamental problem that we must discuss thoughtfully with everybody is the tension between the hopefulness inspired by the many amazing things humankind can do using science, and the reality of the utter failure to control nuclear radiation.


"Knowledge, logic, ingenuity? Yes, but . . . . " It's a 21st century idea. It's also one that some have been inviting us to heed for a very, very long time.


Related posts

I never quite understood how much of a Chicago story the Bomb and opposition to it really is. I can think of at least three reasons why people right here in Chicago -- today -- need to make themselves heard about nuclear disarmament . . .

(See Unfinished Business in Chicago (Nuclear disarmament, that is))











I'm marveling at the adjacency of a piece of public art -- one with a very clear message about the risk of human ambition and self-absorption and heedlessness -- to the center of political power in the city of Chicago.

(See NUCLEAR WEAPONS: Who will bring us down to earth? )










We can now entrust all the dirty work -- including war -- to robots. (Or can we?)

(See A Modest Proposal: Debate the Drones )














Do we have a way to immerse ourselves in the experience of what the use of those nuclear weapons would really mean -- prospectively -- so that we can truly cause ourselves to confront our own inaction?

(See Stop engaging in risky behavior )

IN ORDER TO HAVE A FUTURE: We MUST Study Chernobyl . . .

Map of radiation levels in 1996 around Chernobyl
(map scale is about 300 miles across)

My participation in the World Nuclear Victims Forum in Hiroshima (WNVF) made me pay renewed attention to Chernobyl.

There is something out of whack about the way the Chernobyl disaster keeps getting "put into perspective."

For instance, I have learned that a UN report (Chernobyl Forum) puts a number of four thousand on the total number of deaths attributable to the accident. It is hard to square this with the suggestion in Voices from Chernobyl that "[t]wo hundred and ten military units were thrown at the liquidation of the fallout of the catastrophe,which equals about 340,000 military personnel." (p. 131).

Similarly, the testimony of speakers at WNVF, like Alexander Velikin (who had himself participated in the cleanup as a "liquidator"), Anton Vdovichenko (Radymich, Russia, representative of Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Victim Support NGO), and Anatolii Chumak (Ukraine: Vice Director of the Institute of Clinical Radiology of National Research Center for Radiation Medicine) gave glimpses into specific aspects of the health effects of Chernobyl, but could not begin to encompass the whole.

As a brief review of the section on "deaths due to radiation" at Chernobyl on Wikipedia indicates, the estimates range widely and it's hard to get your arms around the truth.

Svetlana Alexievich,
Voices From Chernobyl:
The Oral History of a
Nuclear Disaster

As suggested in my post about the "human nexus" in addressing the challenge of global hibakusha, I pointed to the importance of personal testimony. Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster is an immensely rich resource for anyone concerned with nuclear issues, and, in fact, with protecting our future.  (It's author/compiler, Svetlana Alexievich, was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature. just a few months ago.)

The examples from Voices from Chernobyl that I share below give just a glimpse of the richness of this resource.


Just another "battle"? ("We'll defeat Chernobyl!")

An unmistakable element of account after account in Voices from Chernobyl is the way in which response to the Chernobyl disaster was conditioned by the wars and threats of war that the Soviet Union experienced in prior years.

Over and over, reference is made to World War II, and how it shaped people's response.  "You can't compare it to a war, not exactly, but everyone compares it anyway. I lived through the Leningrad Blockade as a kid, and you can't compare them. . . . ." (p. 119)

Closely associated with the war years were the years of Stalin's terror. "Stalin's old vocabulary has sprung up again: 'agents of the Western secret services,' 'the cursed enemies of socialism,' 'an undermining of the indestructible union of the Soviet peoples,' Everyone talks about the spies and provocateurs sent here, and no one talks about iodine protection." (p. 124)

Memorial to Chernobyl liquidators (Moscow)

The closest referent was the expectation of nuclear war. "You know, we all had a military upbringing. We were trained to block and liquidate a nuclear attack. We needed to be ready for chemical, biological, and atomic warfare. But not to draw radionuclides out of our organisms." (p. 119) "People didn't understand. They'd been frightened over and over again about a nuclear war, but not about Chernobyl."(p. 168)

This was essential to bolstering a spirit of cohesion, with strong statist and militant character. "[w]e were a Soviet generation." (p. 182) "My neighbor told me in a whisper that Radio Free Europe had reported an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. I didn't pay her any mind. I was absolutely certain that if anything serious happened, they'd tell us." (p.202)

And the enemy of cohesion, of course is "panic".  "We got telegrams from the Central Committee, from the Regional Committee, they told us: You must prevent panic. And it's true, a panic is a frightening thing. Only during the war did they pay so much attention to news from the front as they did then to the news from Chernobyl. There was fear, and there were rumors. People weren't killed by the radiation, but by the events. We had to prevent a panic." (p. 196)

All this adds up to a war-based attitude and response toward Chernobyl. "We were all part of that system. We believed! We believed in high ideals, in victory! We'll defeat Chernobyl! We read about the heroic battle to put down the reactor that had gotten out from under man's control. A Russian without a high ideal? Without a great dream? That's also scary." (p.197)

Soviet military badge (left) and medal (right) awarded to liquidators. (Wikipedia)

Wasn't anybody thinking?

As Voices from Chernobyl progresses, the accounts touch more and more on the question of the personal responsibility of the people involved. Yes, there were external factors -- the government, the legacy of the past -- but at some point someone has to start to ask: How come no one spoke up? Why did people go along with the government's approach to the disaster, especially all the hiding and silencing?

I focus on this question because it is one we all have to face in our own lives. What are the distractions and excuses that we use to enable us to look the other way?

One can't help noticing that vodka is a big factor.  Vodka was pushed especially hard at the people with direct access to the disaster -- "It will counteract the effects of the radiation" -- and a lot of people in Voices from Chernobyl describe escaping the call to think independently through serial inebriation. "If we weren't drinking like crazy every night, I doubt we'd have been able to take it." (p. 157)

Detail: "Chernobyl. Last Day of Pripyat"
(See full work and additional close-ups.)

Of course, people were dazzled with incentive pay, too. "[P]eople talked more about the rubles than the radiation." (p. 205)

(In the West, of course, we obtain our inebriation from a more varied buffet of intoxicants and inducements, but the resulting paralysis is the same . . . . )

Another big factor was the need to belong.  Over and over, people in Voices from Chernobyl refer to their "Party card." "That evening on the way back to Minsk on the institute bus we rode for half an hour in silence, or talking of other things. Everyone was afraid to talk about what happened. Everyone had his Party card in his pocket." (p. 178) It took me a while, but I began to understand that the need to continue being part of the system, to not be shunned, was so strong that people couldn't really bring themselves to contemplate going against the mainstream.

(Is it so different in our society? You don't have to have a Party card in your wallet to feel the gnawing sense that "people will turn their backs on me if I'm difficult" . . . . )

The converse of this, of course, was the medals and certificates handed out for "heroic service" in the cleanup.

Do we need a radical re-examination of our material culture simply to assure that our minds can truly be free to see (and communicate!) a clear path to a healthy future?


In order that the truth be told . . .

from Chernobyl Children:
"On UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities
we think of those affected by the Chernobyl disaster."

Voices from Chernobyl is itself a rock upon which to build a global effort to tell the truth about Chernobyl and the hibakusha of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.

The short film The Door dramatizes one of the accounts in Voices from Chernobyl. (The Door made me realize, "My city could become off-limits -- a ghost town -- if there was a nuclear accident here!")

The novel All That Is Solid Melts Into Air is a dramatic entry point into understanding the Chernobyl disaster. For one thing, it makes clear that, once radiation is released, it is a monumental (and nearly hopeless) task to contain it.

Some of the facts are being publicized by charities helping the survivors, such as Chernobyl Children International.

In fact, there is a continuing stream of video, images, and other information being shared via Twitter using the hashtag #Chernobyl.

The question is how to lift up the questions of Chernobyl into the larger #GlobalHibakusha discourse.

Some of the images shared on Twitter at the hashtag #Chernobyl.

Related posts

Upon returning from the World Nuclear Victims Forum in Hiroshima, I introduced 10 of the post prominent examples of "global hibakusha" about which I learned at the conference.

(See NUCLEAR RADIATION VICTIMS: 10 Dimensions of the #GlobalHibakusha Phenomenon)



 

Three factors have played a big part in Germany's decision to go 100% "zero nuclear" by 2022 has relied on : the threat posed by the big powers, soul-searching within a very "bourgeoise" society, and organizing.

(See GERMANY TURNS OFF NUCLEAR: The long road to freedom . . . . )









 

According to the Chicago-based Nuclear Energy Information Service, "Illinois is by far the most nuclear state in the United States . . . . Illinois was also home to the first commercial power reactor . . . one of the first commercial power reactors to close prematurely . . . . ComEd’s two large PWR reactors in Zion, IL also had to close prematurely . . . . We also have the first and only commercial storage facility for high level waste . . . Besides the 3 plants which closed prematurely, Illinois currently has eleven operating nukes – far more than any other state . . . etc. etc."

(See Chicago, IL: Zero Carbon AND Zero Nuclear! )








After removing a thin layer of soil from just the residential areas, the workers had produced acres of garbage bags full of contaminated soil.

(See Radioactive Waste: "What are you gonna do with it?" )

It can all happen very fast . . . . No one really knows ahead of time what will happen . . . . That's why it's so important for people to get together and talk.

(See The Lesson of Reykjavik: TALK About Nuclear Disarmament (You Never Know) )

"It's not enough to remember this just once a year; it's not enough that we make a single book -- Hiroshima -- required reading, and never go beyond that. There should be a whole canon that people study progressively, year by year, to grasp and retain the horror of this."

(See FIRE AND BLAST: A Curriculum that Confronts Nuclear Danger?)

GERMANY TURNS OFF NUCLEAR: The long road to freedom . . . .

One of the most important messages stressed at the World Nuclear Victims Forum in Hiroshima is that everyone should study the example of Germany's decision to go 100% "zero nuclear" by 2022. I think this is particularly important as the global climate summit is proceeding in Paris, and countries are talking about their commitments to cut fossil fuel use, and to find alternatives.

As I've learned more about the situation in Germany, I've come to understand that three factors have played a big part in this outcome: the threat posed by the big powers, soul-searching within a very "bourgeoise" society, and organizing.


"Kill the people and leave the buildings standing"

Germany: caught in the middle
... between massive US and USSR nuclear forces
(Source: Superpower Rivalry p 36)
(retrieved from Sandy's World History blog)

I have a very clear memory of the time when the US was promoting the idea of a "neutron bomb." The idea was that, if the US and the USSR clashed in Europe, the use of atomic weapons would destroy everything. The "solution" was a new type of weapon that would  "kill the people and leave the buildings standing."

The neutron bomb epitomizes for me the larger predicament that Germany has faced in recent decades: atomic weapon-armed superpowers facing each other down, and Germany caught in the middle.

Awareness of this predicament forced Germans to do some real soul-searching. I think it is not unreasonable to compare this to the far-reaching impact of the draft in the US during the Vietnam War: its effects touched everyone in the society.

In addition, I think the neutron bomb concept was a real wake-up call to the fact that there are no good "solutions" that can be engineered by radiation weapons designers. Nuclear weapons is a field in which "brilliant" just means "more deadly."

Step One in Awareness: recognize the magnitude of the threat posed by empires
Kennedy and Khrushchev (and their nuclear weapons) square off
(Cartoon sourced from Vanchai's Modern World History blog)

Finding the inner compass

Growing up in the US as a Lutheran, with German grandparents, I always had tremendous interest in understanding German culture and society.

It is a simple fact that the preponderance of impressions about Germany that a boy growing up in the US in the '60s and '70s had concerned Nazis and WWII. Blame it on Hogan's Heroes, but also TV shows like the oft-rerun segment on Adolf Hitler on Biography, movies like The Sound of Music, The Great Escape and The Guns of Navarone, books we read in school like Diary of a Young Girl and Escape from Warsaw. The single clearest memory of the local library's shelves was the bold swastika on the spine of the mammoth Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. (And that's just the start of a long list of the products of our war-obsessed entertainment, toy, and leisure industry.) Why, even my adorable Volkswagen Beetle had its roots in the Hitler era.

It was an excruciatingly long process for me to learn that there was more to German culture. It was actually when I was in college in the late '70s that I learned in a course with Franklin Ford that Germany had a culture defined by Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Mahler, Strauss, Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Hegel, and many many more. Of course, this didn't completely answer the question for me -- I still couldn't quite see the forest for the trees.

What I eventually came to understand was that Germany was/is a society characterized to a very great degree by the strength of the middle class, by progressive attitudes, by comfortable homes and communities -- in other words, a lot like the small-town life I had experienced in the US! Words like gemütlichkeit -- and by extension mittelstand -- helped me understand an approach to life that is "not too edgy, not too boring ... not too big, not too small ... just right."

1970 time capsule: Brandt and Grass
(Source: Wikipedia)

I have a very distinct memory of reading a book by Günter Grass during the time I was living in Taiwan (1979-80). The book was called From the Diary of a Snail (how's that for a modest avatar?) and it described Grass' activities helping Willy Brandt and others campaign during the German election of 1969. It gave me the impression that the soul of modern Germany lay not in technology, or in wealth, or in culture, but in the need to step back from the heights of experience and surrender to the always more mundane True and Sustainable.

I provide this extended account of my own path in trying to understand Germany in order to say (a) the experience of the members of German society feels to me as if it has enormous relevance (hope?) for the members of US society; (b) there is a discernible path away from distracted by the things of this world and toward consideration of serious choices; and (c) the emergence of a powerful Green Party and progressive movement in Germany in the '80s can be understood.

It is certainly true that the impact of the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident and radiation harm to Germans spurred the success of the Greens. But it is interesting to note that other nuclear accidents (Three Mile Island, Fukushima) have not, themselves, given rise to such strong political parties. The overall context is important to consider.

On Feb. 28, Germany's largest anti-nuclear demonstration takes place
against construction of the Brokdorf nuclear plant on the North Sea
coast west of Hamburg. Some 100,000 people face off with 10,000 police
officers. The plant begins operations in October 1986. It is scheduled
to go offline in 2018. (Source: "Nuclear power in Germany: a chronology")

THIS is what a Green Party looks like!

Germany's Green Party

In 2011, Germany decided to close all nuclear reactors by 2022. The process of arriving at that process has had its ups and downs, involving political parties across the spectrum, but I think it is essential to recognize the momentum given to the process -- and to the formation of public opinion -- by Germany's vibrant Green Party.

The Germans also had an anti-nuke party as of 1980, namely the Greens, who carried the concerns of the mass movement into the national parliament, the Bundestag. No other country in the world has had a force so determined and influential in taking on the powerful atomic energy lobby. The Greens emerged out of the New Social Movements of the 1970s, as an alternative to the Social Democrats who were split on the issue of nuclear power. The environmental party entered regional legislatures during the 80s and 90s, and then finally shared in national power in the 1998-2005 “red-green” government. Pushed by the Greens, the government negotiated a compromise with the energy companies to phase out nuclear power over thirty years.

I recommend everyone read "Why Germans Are So Skeptical About Nuclear Energy" by Paul Hockenos on World Policy Blog -- from which the above quote is taken -- for excellent analysis of how the anti-nuclear movement grew in Germany.

"This past weekend, at midnight on Saturday (25.06.2015), the next
shutdown took place: The Grafenrheinfeld power plant in Bavaria has
been removed from the power grid, nearly exactly on schedule.
(Source: "How far along is Germany's nuclear phase-out?" on DW.com)

The struggle continues . . . .


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