about the risk to the Ft. Calhoun Nuclear Plant due to Missouri River flooding and other nuclear facilities in the area
attempting to quell fears over it's nuclear industry
Long article so read the rest on the website
again, long read, follow up on website
The different and more diffuse class composition of the European antinuclear movement found visible expression in the tactics of the activists and the police, which were much more belligerent than in America. In Europe, antinuclear protesters carried out acts of sabotage against power-lines, railroad lines, construction sites, factories supplying nuclear plants, and installations of utility companies including bombs placed near nuclear construction sites or plants. Marches and rallies attracting upward of 50,000 were commonplace. Police responded physically against demonstrators, using tear gas, clubs, dogs, even grenades, causing hundreds of injured and even death (as in the case of Malville). Civil war-like street blockades, dozens of miles away from the demonstration-sites and at national borders were set up to block demonstrators. Compared to the small showings and relatively peaceful actions in North America, the European state of affairs was much more dynamic.
The movement against the nuclear plants was one of the biggest mass movements of the 1970s and 80s in Germany. After a slowdown since, it has reappeared now like a phoenix from the ashes, The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 was a pivotal event for Germany’s anti-nuclear movement, following the event, the Green Party strived for the immediate shut-down of all nuclear facilities. The SPD pushed for a nuclear phase-out within ten years. Länder governments, municipalities, parties and trade unions explored the question of whether the use of nuclear power technology was reasonable and sensible for the future.
May 1986 clashes between anti-nuclear protesters and West German police became common. More than 400 people were injured in mid-May at the site of a nuclear-waste reprocessing plant being built near Wackersdorf. Police used water cannons and dropped tear-gas grenades from helicopters to subdue protesters armed with slingshots, crowbars and Molotov cocktails. Starting from 1995, when the first transports of nuclear waste to Gorleben took place, there was a slow, but continuous new growth of resistance, with demonstrations and blockades of the railway.
In 2002, the “Act on the structured phase-out of the utilization of nuclear energy for the commercial generation of electricity” took effect, following a drawn-out political debate and lengthy negotiations with nuclear power plant operators. The act legislated for the shut-down of all German nuclear plants by 2021
The two self-assigned homework projects are as part of a reflective effort to understand more about how human society moved from a period of optimism based on a vision of “Atoms for Peace” to a period where someone reading the advertiser supported press would believe that sensible people would logically consider giving up the whole technology out of fear of radiation and its health consequences.
One of the hopeful lessons I have learned so far is that the initial conditions of our current fight to defend and expand the safe use of atomic energy are far different from those that faced the people engaged in the earliest battles against a well organized opposition to nuclear technology development. We have a much better chance of success now than we did then – and there are several reasons why that is true.
On June 20 the Associated Press published the results of a year long investigative report on safety at nuclear reactors in the U.S. It is a major effort by an experienced journalist and will receive wide attention.
Coming on the heels of the Fukushima crisis on Japan, the first of two article contains some strong allegations.
AP's investigative reporter Jeff Donn writes that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has watered down safety regulations in order to keep older reactors like Oyster Creek open beyond 40 years.
The article, with its spectacular allegations, was swiftly picked up by the mainstream media including USA Today along with video and a picture of an example of reactor corrosion.
In a piece titled "Nuke regulator, industry compromise safety to keep reactors running," Donn wrote . . .
"Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.
Time after time, officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have decided that original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril, according to records and interviews.
The result? Rising fears that these accommodations by the NRC are significantly undermining safety - and inching the reactors closer to an accident that could harm the public and jeopardize the future of nuclear power in the United States."