Anti-nuclear movement

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To be anti-nuclear means to be opposed to the use of nuclear technologies. This opposition can take various forms:

• opposition to nuclear weapons, weapons using depleted uranium, and in favour of nuclear disarmament
• opposition to nuclear power and generation of electricity with nuclear energy, typically combined with promotion of renewable energy sources as an environmental alternative.
• opposition to the use of radioactivity and food irradiation

Many people who have Anti-nuclear sentiments are against the use of nuclear power for electricity generation, since they think nuclear power is inherently dangerous. They consider the risk of a nuclear accident high and unacceptable and generally believe that radioactive waste cannot be safely disposed of. Many also see uranium mining and nuclear reprocessing as unacceptable, usually because of perceived and real environmental consequences of these activities.

History

The rise of environmental movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s meant that the potential impacts of complex technologies were now open to challenge. Nuclear power became a prime target for opposition because it offered a pollution-free, abundant energy source that advocates of less-intensive lifestyles considered incompatible with their view of the future. Early luminaries in the anti-nuclear movement made their motives clear.

If you ask me, it'd be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won't give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other.

— Amory Lovins, The Mother Earth - Plowboy Interview, Nov/Dec 1977, p. 22

Giving society cheap, abundant energy ... would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.

— Paul Ehrlich, "An Ecologist's Perspective on Nuclear Power", May/June 1978 issue of Federation of American Scientists Public Issue Report

We can and should seize upon the energy crisis as a good excuse and great opportunity for making some very fundamental changes that we should be making anyhow for other reasons.

— Russell Train (EPA Administrator at the time, and soon thereafter became head of the World Wildlife Fund), Science 184 p. 1050, 7 June 1974

Let's face it. We don't want safe nuclear power plants. We want NO nuclear power plants

— A spokesman for the Government Accountability Project, an offshoot of the Institute for Policy Studies, The American Spectator, Vol 18, No. 11, Nov. 1985

In addition, it was linked to nuclear weapons in the popular media. Opponents of nuclear energy used the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty of 1968 to reinforce the connections between the international export and development of nuclear power technologies and the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Finally, because power production by nuclear plants is usually centralised and nuclear power has always been a technology which employs specialists, some individuals with little or no scientific training view it as an elitist technology. The public view of nuclear power is based on popular political and social perception rather than in-depth knowledge of the technology and scientific specifics of nuclear power.

Much early opposition to nuclear power was expressed in relation to environmental grounds: thermal pollution (which any thermal power source can produce, and which impact depends on energy efficiency), known and postulated reactor accidents, potential release of radiation during shipments, and still-developing means for long term radioactive waste storage and disposal. The environmental movement made such concerns well-known, whereas opposition on issues such as concentration of capital in major engineering endeavours rather than decentralised and less productive energy sources, and proliferation of nuclear weapons, did not attract much attention.

By the time of the rise of New England's Clamshell Alliance, California's Abalone Alliance, and dozens of similar regional groups dedicated to stopping the growth of nuclear power through nonviolent civil disobedience based actions, points of opposition had expanded from supposed pollution and proliferation to include economic arguments and supposed terrorist target threats. Alternative technologies, solar panels, conservation, bicycle transit and other ideas were proposed as substitutes.

The movement was popularised in part by artists. Popular performers such as Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne recorded songs about nuclear or alternative power sources. Along with numerous documentary film treatments, the Academy Award nominated The China Syndrome, 1979, and Silkwood movies dramatised the fears of anti-nuclear activists.

Some observers claimed to see a considerable overlap between opponents of nuclear power and supporters of unilateral disarmament during the Cold War. Others link the anti-nuclear movement to currents within the environmentalist movement who want the West (particularly the U.S.) to stop using so much energy and reduce the size of its economy.

By the nations legislation under the, New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987,, all territorial sea and land of New Zealand is declared a nuclear free zone.

Further information: Nuclear-free zone § New Zealand

Stances

Nuclear accidents

Nuclear accidents are often cited by anti-nuclear groups as evidence of the inherent danger of nuclear power (see list of nuclear accidents). Most commonly cited by anti-nuclear people is the Chernobyl disaster, which resulted in massive amounts of radio-isotopes being released into the environment.

Nuclear waste

According to anti-nuclear organisations, rendering nuclear waste harmless is not being done satisfactorily and it remains a hazard for anywhere between a few years to many thousands of years, depending on the particular isotopes. The length time waste has to be stored is controversial because there is a question of whether one should use the original ore or surrounding rock as a reference for safe levels. Anti-nuclear organisations tend to favour using normal soil as a reference, in contrast to pro-nuclear organisations who tend to argue that geologically disposed waste can be considered safe once it is no more radioactive that the uranium ore it was produced from.

Monetary cost of nuclear power

Anti-nuclear organisations consider that nuclear power is not cost-effective because of the huge costs of constructing a nuclear plant (see Darlington Nuclear Generating Station), the public subsidies and tax expenditures involved in research and security, and the undetermined costs of storing nuclear waste. They also declare that the real cost of nuclear power is very high if all the expenses are honestly taken into account: public scientific research, decommissioning nuclear facilities, long term management of nuclear waste.

Nuclear proliferation

Part of the radioactive material produced in some types of nuclear reactors has the potential to be used to make Nuclear Weapons. Anti nuclear activists claim that this makes nuclear power undesirable out of concern for nuclear proliferation.

Anti-nuclear alternatives

Anti-nuclear groups suggest to develop a distributed generation of renewable energy, such as hydroelectricity, biomass (wood fuel and biofuel), geothermal power, co-generation, wind power and solar power.

Some few pro-fossil anti-nuclear proponents also consider that a nuclear power phase-out imply a sustainable transition period rely on clean coal-fired or gas-powered plants, but this damage the environment and produces global warming.

Anti-nuclear groups also tend to claim that reliance on nuclear energy can be reduced by adopting energy conservation and energy efficiency policies. Anti-nuclear groups and goverments normally favour changing human lifestyles to allow for a lower energy consumption met by renewable energy sources.

Criticism

Criticism comes mainly from three sources: nuclear experts with specialised technical knowledge, environmentalists, and (as would be expected) businesses that do nuclear work. The principal criticisms are that nuclear opponents overstate the impacts on human health and on the environment from nuclear energy and fail to consider the impacts of alternatives, that they make the same unbalanced comparisons with respect to economic cost, and that they ignore the practical limits of alternatives. Beyond that, critics charge that the more radical nuclear opponents argue points which are frightening but irrelevant, that they misrepresent the facts about nuclear energy and fail to substantiate their statements, and that they contradict independent analyses done by unbiased professionals.

Of the numerous nuclear experts who have offered their expertise in addressing controversies, Bernard Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh, is likely the most frequently cited. In his extensive writings he examines the safety issues in detail. He is best known for comparing nuclear safety to the relative safety of a wide range of other phenomena.

The well-known and respected environmental scientist James Lovelock regards nuclear energy as essential to minimizing global warming due to greenhouse gases. In his writings he refutes claims about the danger of nuclear energy and its waste products. Other well-known environmentalists who share his convictions include Patrick Moore (environmentalist) and Stewart Brand.

The Nuclear Energy Institute is the main lobby group for companies doing nuclear work. In seeking to counteract the arguments of nuclear opponents, it points to independent studies that quantify the costs and benefits of nuclear energy and compares them to the costs and benefits of alternatives. The Institute sponsors studies of its own, but it also references studies performed for the World Health Organization, for the International Energy Agency , and by university researchers.

Antinuclear and global warming

Main article: Global warming

Antinuclear movement rejects radiactive energy to displace fossil fuels (petroleum, coal, natural gas).

Anti-Nuclear, watchdogs, and nuclear awareness organisations

International organisations

• International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
• International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
• Friends of the Earth
• Greenpeace
• Ploughshares Fund
• Nuclear Information and Resource Service - World Information Service on Energy

Local organisations

• Anti-nuclear movement in the United States Template:Rhere
• Abalone Alliance, California, USA
• Clamshell Alliance, New Hampshire, USA
• Sortir du nucléaire in France
• Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Maryland, USA
• Sortir du nucléaire in Canada
• Citizens' Nuclear Information Centre in Japan
• Earthlife Africa
• Koeberg Alert

See also

• Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
• Global warming
• Karen Silkwood
• Nuclear-Free Future Award
• Nuclear-free zone
• Nuclear Power
• Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC)
• The China Syndrome (1979 film starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon and Michael Douglas

External links

• The History of the Clamshell Alliance and why it matters today.
• European NGOs aim to collect one million signatures against nuclear power in Europe
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• Three Mile Island Alert
• Greenpeace Nuclear Campaign
• World Information Service on Energy (WISE)
• Greenpeace — Calendar of Nuclear Accidents
• 1 million europeans against nuclear power
• Nuclear Files
• Template:PDFlink
• Template:PDFlink Online book
• Template:PDFlink
• Sierra Club
• Group NoNukes

Bibliography

• Lawrence S. Wittner The Struggle Against the Bomb Stanford, CA: Stanford University 3 vol. ed I 1993 II 1997 III 2003