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Report back from the KNOW NUKES Y’ALL SUMMIT
- 7-6-2012
- Categorized in: NUCLEAR POWER
David Matos l Carolina Peace 5 July, 2012
KNOW NUKES Y’ALL SUMMIT
Veteran activists and concerned citizens from across the Southeast and as far afield as Iowa, Wisconsin and New Hampshire gathered this past weekend at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga for the Know Nukes Y’all Summit. The fan-mohawked twenty year old battling chemical pollution in Michigan rubbed shoulders with the grandmother from Atlanta who saw an epidemic of leukemia growing up after the nuclear plant came to town. Mountain Justice activists joined elders who had pioneered actions with the Clamshell Alliance. Billing the South as “Ground Zero” for the attempted revival of nuclear power, the conference hosted by the Mothers Against Tennessee River Radiation (MATRR) and Bellefonte Efficiency & Sustainability Team (BEST) gathered a cornucopia of national, regional and local activist groups to compare notes and educate each other. The conference was at once a family reunion, a networking opportunity, a working meeting and an intensive seminar. Among those represented at the conference were the Sierra Club, NIRS (Nuclear Information Resource Service), Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, Beyond Nuclear, Nukewatch South, Georgia WAND, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), Mountain Justice, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA), Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL), Southern Energy Network, NC WARN, SAFE Carolinas, New South Network, Nashville Peace & Justice Center and Carolina Peace, just to namedrop a few… and of course the Helen Caldicott Foundation.
The Dave and Dave Show
Keynote speakers S. David Freeman and David Lochbaum, dubbed the Dave and Dave show, anchored the conference, speaking the first night and during the conference. Lochbaum, a twenty-year nuclear industry veteran became a whistle-blower and switched sides, now working for the Union of Concerned Scientists. Lochbaum combined his nuclear expertise with dry wit and deadpan humor that leavened the discussion. Could a Fukushima type event happen in the U.S.? Lochbaum described the possible things that could go wrong, how Murphy’s Law could easily unravel nuclear precautions and how precarious the current situation was, particularly with spent fuel piling up in pools in reactor buildings. Lochbaum urged removing such spent fuel and placing it in dry cask storage on site.
Freeman, a spry and vital elder, was a former TVA Chairman and utilities executive who shuttered several nuclear reactors. The financial money pit and cost overruns of nuclear power swayed him to mothball the plants. With industrial customers, churches and consumers realizing the increased cost of nuclear, he was able to steer the TVA board to this decision. Freeman, in his unctuous and forthright manner, urged activists to drop the jargon and call nuclear waste, “radioactive trash… 30 years of garbage piling up.” Later at the conference, he would again urge us to speak in plain language the public can understand and dump the arcane discussions and self-divisions in favor of uniting around a campaign.“ It’s not enough to be anti, you have to be for something positive.” With efficiency displacing the need for new power plants and renewable energy both having the best return, a green, clean energy future just might be the complement to opposing nuclear power.
Too Expensive to Meter
At the beginning of the conference, individuals grouped by state gave short minute reports introducing themselves and the work they were doing. A timer playing a blues piano tone cued speakers to wrap up and kept things on schedule. One theme kept repeating: challenging CWIP (pronounced quip) laws, authorizations to increase rates for Construction While in Progress (CWIP), basically blank checks for utilities to spend on nuclear construction leaving customers on the hook. Iowa and North Carolina had seen successful campaigns to block CWIP; while Georgia and South Carolina ratepayers had been put on the hook for new nuclear reactors. The successful campaign against CWIP in Iowa had even enlisted the help of AARP! David Freeman, in a following discussion, counseled an irresistible argument: “convince industrial and residential customers that nuclear will make them pay more” and, in more colorful language, that they’re being “screwed by the utility.” With cost overruns averaging 200% according to DOE’s own figures, as Lochbaum pointed out, consumers are being stuck with huge debt burden. Another incalculable burden is the cost of a Fukushima style accident; the German government estimated the cost of such an event at $11 trillion dollars. Consequently, Germany is phasing out nuclear and making major progress with renewable such as solar. Nuclear corporations in the U.S. are Limited Liability Corporations, meaning the bulk of the cost of such a disaster would be born by the taxpayers, not the company responsible for it.
Running the Nuclear Gauntlet
With such a tremendous amount of expertise gathered for the conference, participants ran a gauntlet of workshops and plenaries on Friday and Saturday and sometimes faced tough choices of which one to attend. Topics ranged from the harmful effects of radiation, the TVA, high and low level waste, the consumption of water resources by nuclear energy, Fukushima style reactors, uranium, to the nuclear weapons complex in the Southeast. Cancer clusters found in the African-American community in Shell Bluff, GA near the Vogtle Nuclear Plant and in Appalachia in Erwin, TN home to several uranium processing facilities showed the need for Environmental Justice. Billion dollar boondoggles with the MOX plutonium fuel fabrication facility at the Savanah River Site in SC and a new Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) in Oak Ridge, TN were described. MOX boosters hope to sell the MOX plutonium fuel to the TVA since there are no commercial customers that want it; meanwhile, the UPF represents a new nuclear weapons facility when the US is already bristling with excess nuclear weapons. Nonviolent actions with the Clamshell Alliance to shut down the Seabrook nuclear plant were detailed alongside more recent actions by Mountain Justice activists in a workshop on Creative Nonviolence/Civil Disobedience. The history of resistance to nuclear power and nuclear weapons was chronicled in another workshop. Strains of acoustic guitar and singing from Joanne Steel; cookies and coffee and literature to peruse peppered breaks as did constant discussions.
Dotmocracy
Having boned up on nuclear issues, we were ready to take the next step as organizers and activists. In the literature room, conference goers voted on several possible break out discussion topics for Saturday afternoon. With three dot stickers each, conference goers voted on their preferred topics placing their stickers on topics that soon grew into clusters of dots. Hence Dotmocracy, which is actually a quite effective means of democratically narrowing scope onto a handful of important issues. Movement building and stopping plant Vogtle were two sessions I chose. These were now small group discussions that concentrated the conference’s learning with the activist acumen of our diverse attendees. We made the commitment to take the next steps...
So Long Sweltering Chattanooga
As is often the case with conferences, I had to take leave early and make my way back home. Climbing into a Prius and out of the 105 degree + heat with my ride back to South Carolina, we wound through Chattanooga’s streets heading for the Interstate. Chattanooga had brought together a unique mix of folks for this conference, a truly strong Southeast alliance from Georgia, Tennessee , the Carolinas and beyond. New connections were being struck and old ones renewed. It just might have been the energizing moment needed to knock this “Nuclear Relapse” back. But it all depends on what happens when we get back home.
David Matos is the President of Carolina Peace, a nonprofit based in Columbia, SC that opposes nuclear weapons and energy.
Veteran activists and concerned citizens from across the Southeast and as far afield as Iowa, Wisconsin and New Hampshire gathered this past weekend at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga for the Know Nukes Y’all Summit. The fan-mohawked twenty year old battling chemical pollution in Michigan rubbed shoulders with the grandmother from Atlanta who saw an epidemic of leukemia growing up after the nuclear plant came to town. Mountain Justice activists joined elders who had pioneered actions with the Clamshell Alliance. Billing the South as “Ground Zero” for the attempted revival of nuclear power, the conference hosted by the Mothers Against Tennessee River Radiation (MATRR) and Bellefonte Efficiency & Sustainability Team (BEST) gathered a cornucopia of national, regional and local activist groups to compare notes and educate each other. The conference was at once a family reunion, a networking opportunity, a working meeting and an intensive seminar. Among those represented at the conference were the Sierra Club, NIRS (Nuclear Information Resource Service), Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, Beyond Nuclear, Nukewatch South, Georgia WAND, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), Mountain Justice, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA), Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL), Southern Energy Network, NC WARN, SAFE Carolinas, New South Network, Nashville Peace & Justice Center and Carolina Peace, just to namedrop a few… and of course the Helen Caldicott Foundation.
The Dave and Dave Show
Keynote speakers S. David Freeman and David Lochbaum, dubbed the Dave and Dave show, anchored the conference, speaking the first night and during the conference. Lochbaum, a twenty-year nuclear industry veteran became a whistle-blower and switched sides, now working for the Union of Concerned Scientists. Lochbaum combined his nuclear expertise with dry wit and deadpan humor that leavened the discussion. Could a Fukushima type event happen in the U.S.? Lochbaum described the possible things that could go wrong, how Murphy’s Law could easily unravel nuclear precautions and how precarious the current situation was, particularly with spent fuel piling up in pools in reactor buildings. Lochbaum urged removing such spent fuel and placing it in dry cask storage on site.
Freeman, a spry and vital elder, was a former TVA Chairman and utilities executive who shuttered several nuclear reactors. The financial money pit and cost overruns of nuclear power swayed him to mothball the plants. With industrial customers, churches and consumers realizing the increased cost of nuclear, he was able to steer the TVA board to this decision. Freeman, in his unctuous and forthright manner, urged activists to drop the jargon and call nuclear waste, “radioactive trash… 30 years of garbage piling up.” Later at the conference, he would again urge us to speak in plain language the public can understand and dump the arcane discussions and self-divisions in favor of uniting around a campaign.“ It’s not enough to be anti, you have to be for something positive.” With efficiency displacing the need for new power plants and renewable energy both having the best return, a green, clean energy future just might be the complement to opposing nuclear power.
Too Expensive to Meter
At the beginning of the conference, individuals grouped by state gave short minute reports introducing themselves and the work they were doing. A timer playing a blues piano tone cued speakers to wrap up and kept things on schedule. One theme kept repeating: challenging CWIP (pronounced quip) laws, authorizations to increase rates for Construction While in Progress (CWIP), basically blank checks for utilities to spend on nuclear construction leaving customers on the hook. Iowa and North Carolina had seen successful campaigns to block CWIP; while Georgia and South Carolina ratepayers had been put on the hook for new nuclear reactors. The successful campaign against CWIP in Iowa had even enlisted the help of AARP! David Freeman, in a following discussion, counseled an irresistible argument: “convince industrial and residential customers that nuclear will make them pay more” and, in more colorful language, that they’re being “screwed by the utility.” With cost overruns averaging 200% according to DOE’s own figures, as Lochbaum pointed out, consumers are being stuck with huge debt burden. Another incalculable burden is the cost of a Fukushima style accident; the German government estimated the cost of such an event at $11 trillion dollars. Consequently, Germany is phasing out nuclear and making major progress with renewable such as solar. Nuclear corporations in the U.S. are Limited Liability Corporations, meaning the bulk of the cost of such a disaster would be born by the taxpayers, not the company responsible for it.
Running the Nuclear Gauntlet
With such a tremendous amount of expertise gathered for the conference, participants ran a gauntlet of workshops and plenaries on Friday and Saturday and sometimes faced tough choices of which one to attend. Topics ranged from the harmful effects of radiation, the TVA, high and low level waste, the consumption of water resources by nuclear energy, Fukushima style reactors, uranium, to the nuclear weapons complex in the Southeast. Cancer clusters found in the African-American community in Shell Bluff, GA near the Vogtle Nuclear Plant and in Appalachia in Erwin, TN home to several uranium processing facilities showed the need for Environmental Justice. Billion dollar boondoggles with the MOX plutonium fuel fabrication facility at the Savanah River Site in SC and a new Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) in Oak Ridge, TN were described. MOX boosters hope to sell the MOX plutonium fuel to the TVA since there are no commercial customers that want it; meanwhile, the UPF represents a new nuclear weapons facility when the US is already bristling with excess nuclear weapons. Nonviolent actions with the Clamshell Alliance to shut down the Seabrook nuclear plant were detailed alongside more recent actions by Mountain Justice activists in a workshop on Creative Nonviolence/Civil Disobedience. The history of resistance to nuclear power and nuclear weapons was chronicled in another workshop. Strains of acoustic guitar and singing from Joanne Steel; cookies and coffee and literature to peruse peppered breaks as did constant discussions.
Dotmocracy
Having boned up on nuclear issues, we were ready to take the next step as organizers and activists. In the literature room, conference goers voted on several possible break out discussion topics for Saturday afternoon. With three dot stickers each, conference goers voted on their preferred topics placing their stickers on topics that soon grew into clusters of dots. Hence Dotmocracy, which is actually a quite effective means of democratically narrowing scope onto a handful of important issues. Movement building and stopping plant Vogtle were two sessions I chose. These were now small group discussions that concentrated the conference’s learning with the activist acumen of our diverse attendees. We made the commitment to take the next steps...
So Long Sweltering Chattanooga
As is often the case with conferences, I had to take leave early and make my way back home. Climbing into a Prius and out of the 105 degree + heat with my ride back to South Carolina, we wound through Chattanooga’s streets heading for the Interstate. Chattanooga had brought together a unique mix of folks for this conference, a truly strong Southeast alliance from Georgia, Tennessee , the Carolinas and beyond. New connections were being struck and old ones renewed. It just might have been the energizing moment needed to knock this “Nuclear Relapse” back. But it all depends on what happens when we get back home.
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David Matos is the President of Carolina Peace, a nonprofit based in Columbia, SC that opposes nuclear weapons and energy.
David, thank you for an excellent summary of the Know Nukes Y'all Summit. Sorry you had to leave early. You missed the final celebration where we sang songs of solidarity and proudly displayed our 'No Nukes', 'Yes Green Energy' signs at a Chattanooga Park along the Tennessee River in the 105 degree heat.
David, those of us who could not attend the Know Nukes Y'all Summit are especially grateful for your report. May we use a condensed version of your summary in our quarterly newsletter The League Line? Of course, we'll be sure to give you and your fine organization credit for the writing. Thanks to you once again! ~ Beverly Kerr, BREDL Communications
Dave,
Good to see you in Hot, hot Chattanooga! Great Report.
We've linked your story to ours on ActionSouth.blogspot.com.
Looking forward to gathering more of these activists together at Kings Bay for Alternative New Years!
Hey Dave, it was wonderful to see you there and your report is AWESOME. I think it is our time and we are going to have a blast rockin' the nuke.