Going subcritical: a nuclear test is a nuclear test is a nuclear test

by Andrew Kishner

http://www.opednews.com

In 1992, the Nevada Test Site hosted the last of over 800 underground nuclear detonations that had commenced in 1961. Five years later, in 1997, the DOE began a program of subcritical testing at the test site that has continued on through today. The philosophical differences between the two types of tests are minimal. The difference between an underground nuclear test and a subcritical experiment can be compared to the difference between firing an actual bullet as opposed to firing a blank.

You may think that the DOE isn't 'aiming' their gun at someone, and therefore no crime is committed, yet their 'gun' is in fact aimed. It is aimed at arguably the entire world. Locally, the DOE is pointing its gun at the Western Shoshone and all peoples who consume the air, the soil and water in Nevada and Utah. Critics of these tests also say that the DOE is aiming their 'gun' at any of the countries in the 'axis-of-evil,' and using these tests to send a threatening message of the U.S.'s intent to use nuclear weapons again.

Like underground nuclear tests, subcritical tests have a legacy of contamination that is stored underground. It is not impossible for the plutonium waste of subcritical tests to leach into the groundwater. The impacts to groundwater of the nearly two dozen subcritical tests conducted since 1997 have not been determined to date at the test site. Likewise, it is not impossible that subcritical tests can 'go critical' to the extent of producing some airborne fission byproducts that can eventually vent to the surface.

Since 1997, the DOE has aimed their gun and fired blanks over and over again. And the impact is no different than when a madman runs around aiming a gun at other people and firing blanks. The effect is de-stabilizing.

After the U.S. conducted its first subcritical test called 'Rebound' in 1997, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman immediately urged the U.S. to not carry out activities that do not conform with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), saying 'We stress that all countries should faithfully abide by stipulations in the nuclear test ban treaty.' In Nevada, anti-nuclear activists did their best to stop 'Rebound': three activists traveled on bicycles onto the test site near the detonation site and seven others blocked a public highway when a media bus tried to enter the gates. Some activists even crawled under the bus but were dragged out by the Nevada Highway Patrol and Department of Energy security personnel. Similar nonviolent actions tried to halt later subcritical tests, although unsuccessfully, and in 1997 a dozen U.S. anti-nuclear organizations brought a lawsuit against the DOE to stop the subcritical tests. In late 1997, Russia first confirmed that it had a subcritical testing program dating back ‘dozens of years’ that continued after the country signed the CTBT in 1996. By 1998 a subcritical testing arms race between the U.S. and Russia was well underway. On May 11, 1998, the government of India conducted a set of three underground atomic tests followed two days later by another two such blasts. These were the first nuclear tests conducted by India since 1974. An official announcement of the second set of blasts stated: 'The tests have been carried out to generate additional data for improved computer simulation of designs and for attaining the capability to carry out subcritical experiments, if considered necessary.' Two weeks later Pakistan joined the nuclear weapon club when it announced it had conducted five underground nuclear tests.

In early 1998, the European Parliament concluded that the United States was creating a 'crisis of confidence' in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by conducting subcritical experiments and passed a resolution urging the United States to 'halt the series of subcritical tests' which could otherwise jeopardize the treaty's entry into force. The resolution mentioned that at least 15 countries expressed their concern or opposition to the tests, among them Iran.

Protests by anti-nuclear organizations, foreign governments and international bodies continued against U.S. subcritical testing through about 2003, when worldwide and local dissent began to soften for unknown reasons. Then came the North Korean government's first mention of a nuclear test on Sept. 7, 2006. That announcement came on the heels of the United States' successful completion eight days earlier of its 23rd subcritical nuclear experiment. In its Sept. 7th official reference to a planned nuclear test, North Korea's Central News Agency noted that a South Korean group, the National Alliance for the Country's Reunification, made a statement accusing the United States' subcritical test as an 'obvious criminal act of disturbing the global peace.'

Subcritical testing is a threat to world peace and stability, and citizens should make use of an opportunity to voice their concerns about the legitimacy, impacts to global peace and environmental consequences of these tests through May 30th. Visit www.idealist.ws/action.htm and learn how you can tell the DOE that they should initiate a new Environmental Impact Statement process for the Nevada Test Site that will undoubtedly re-vitalize and address this important issue.

Read the 1998 European Parliament resolution here: http://stopdivinestrake.com/subcritical.html

One Thousand Paper Cranes for Peace

One Thousand Paper Cranes for Peace: The Story of Sadako Sasaki
3/12/2008

In my dream, Sadako says to me, "Leave it to me, mom" and I wake up calling, "Sadako!"

Then I realize it was a dream and I wonder how she is. For a while, I'm lost in my sad thoughts and join my hands in prayer before the tablet of the deceased.

- from a letter by Fujiko Sasaki, Sadako Sasaki's mother

On August 6th, 1945, World War II's Allied forces dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. In an instant, the city was obliterated. When the dust had cleared, people's shadows remained frozen in place on sidewalks and the sides of buildings. The people themselves simply vanished. On that tragic day, 140,000 civilians were killed.

The Sasaki family lived one mile from the spot where the bomb went off. The couple and their two-year-old daughter, Sadako, managed to survive the nuclear attack, though soon after the explosion, thick black clouds of radioactive soot and dust began to fall like snow. Though the family tried to protect themselves, they could not avoid breathing the contaminated air.

As time went on, the young family tried to rebuild their damaged lives. The war had ended; they could put it behind them. The Sasakis had three more children, though Sadako was always her mother's favorite: "She was so considerate and thoughtful that I relied on her," she wrote. As Sadako grew older, she became a strong, healthy, athletic young woman – she was the fastest runner on her school track team.

But when Sadako was twelve years old, she noticed that her lymph nodes were becoming swollen. A doctor's visit confirmed her parents' greatest fears: Sadako had been contaminated with radiation poisoning from the atomic bomb. She was dying of leukemia.

Soon, Sadako was forced to enter the Hiroshima Red Cross hospital for treatment. She spent months there, her disease progressing day by day. In August 1955, residents of Nagoya sent a gift of colored origami paper cranes to Sadako and the other hospital residents as a get-well present. The gift brightened the sick child's day – and it gave her an idea.

"She believed in a saying that if you fold a thousand cranes, you'd get over your sickness," her mother wrote. "She folded paper cranes carefully, one by one using a piece of paper of advertisement, medicine and wrapping. Her eyes were shining while she was folding the cranes, showing she wanted to survive by all means."

Though she was very weak, Sadako dedicated hours each day to folding cranes out of whatever materials she could scrounge together. "We warned her, ‘If you keep up that pace you'll wear yourself out,'" her father, Shigeo Sasaki, recounted. "Sadako continued to fold, saying, ‘It's okay, it's okay. I have a plan,' "

When she got to one thousand, she kept on going, hopeful that the paper birds might magically cure her illness. But it was not to be: Sadako died on the morning of October 25, 1955, surrounded by her family.

As for Sadako's thousand paper cranes, her mother gave some of them to her school friends, "and put the rest of them in her coffin as well as flowers so that she could bring them to the next world."

Although Sadako's thousand paper cranes could not save her life, they would take flight in another way, serving as a symbol of the growing movement for peace on Earth.

The following year, an Austrian journalist, Robert Jungk, traveled to Hiroshima, where he heard the story of young Sadako and her one thousand cranes. He was so moved by the tale of her determination that he told a modified version of her story to the world in a book, Light in the Ruins. In the years since, variations of Sadako's story have appeared in hundreds of other publications, most notably, a children's book called Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, written in 1977 by American author Eleanor Coerr. The story has been used in peace education programs around the world.

Sadako's short life has also inspired another sort of legacy: the Children's Peace Monument in Hiroshima. After Sadako's death, her classmates sought to honor their friend by creating "a monument to mourn all the children who died from the atomic bombing." With support from more than 3,100 schools around the world, the students created a nine-meter high bronze statue, topped with a figure of a girl holding a folded crane. Beneath the pedestal, there is an inscription: "This is our cry. This is our prayer. For building peace in this world."

Each year, children and adults from all over the world travel to the Children's Peace Monument, bringing their own folded paper cranes as a gift to Sadako's memory, and as a symbol of their desire for peace and for the abolition of nuclear weapons. In hundreds of other cities around the world, from Kuwait City to Santa Barbara, California, children have become involved in projects to create paper cranes as symbols of peace, honoring Sadako's legacy.

Though she could not save her own life with one thousand cranes, her story may yet save millions.


Original story by Kathryn Hawkins

Atomic testing burned its mark

Test Site employed thousands, put many more at risk

By Mary Manning

Thu, May 15, 2008 (3 a.m.)

Atomic Testing

Predawn atomic fireballs and billowing mushroom clouds — plus the radioactive and political fallout accompanying them — are all part of Nevada's long-time association with nuclear weapons testing.

The government's nuclear testing, which was at one time capitalized on by Las Vegas businesses as a super fireworks spectacle for tourists, began six years after the first atomic bomb, Trinity, exploded on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico.

At that time, the government wanted a nuclear proving ground on the continent to save money after it conducted expensive atomic tests in the Pacific Ocean. It also wanted federal scientists to be able to continue their secret work far from the Korean War.

That lead to President Harry Truman approving on Dec. 18, 1950, the Nevada Test Site, which was 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The barren testing range carved out of the Mojave desert would be home for the next several decades to 928 of the 1,054 above- and below-ground nuclear experiments conducted by the U.S. The testing finally ended in September 1992 when a moratorium went into effect.

Over the years, up to 100,000 people have worked at the Test Site, with more than 12,000 employed there during the peak years of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The first nuclear experiment in Nevada lit up the desert sky on Jan. 27, 1951. In May 1953 the government triggered an above-ground nuclear blast code-named “Harry,” whose radioactive fallout blanketed not only the arid desert, but farm fields, homes, schools, factories and businesses across the country. The fallout even wiped out film at Kodak headquarters in Rochester, N.Y. Government agents washed cars and brushed (with whisk brooms) the clothes of residents of St. George, Utah. The government assured those residents everything was safe, but at least 4,390 sheep grazing in Utah died from radiation sickness. The government admitted nothing.

Since the beginning of the Test Site, protesters have demonstrated against the tests. Included in the numerous groups were homemakers who showed up in the 1950s, wearing shirtwaist dresses and carrying parasols. The largest protest occurred in the 1980s when more than 3,000 demonstrators made their feelings known. Famous protesters included scientist Carl Sagan, actor Martin Sheen and singer/songwriter/actor Kris Kristofferson.

Supporters of nuclear testing considered themselves “Cold Warriors,” fighting a major nuclear threat from the Soviet Union. Others, many of whom called themselves “downwinders” because the wind had placed them in the path of the radioactive fallout clouds, fought the secrecy and silence surrounding the U.S. nuclear testing program.

In 1984 a federal judge in Salt Lake City ruled the government had been negligent by exposing thousands of downwinders to radioactive fallout. Utah, Nevada and Arizona residents described the cancers and other radioactive illnesses they or their families suffered. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate 11,000 people died from diseases directly related to nuclear test fallout. Later, Test Site workers sued the government and lost their case.

The Test Site was the second largest employer in Nevada during its peak years, behind the mining industry, according to Energy Department records. The casino industry came in a distant third. Workers labored in secrecy at the remote site, which is larger than Rhode Island. Employees weren’t allowed to tell their families about nuclear activities witnessed there.

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev signed a treaty that required the superpowers to conduct nuclear experiments underground. The historic treaty banned nuclear testing in the air, oceans or space.

Kennedy has been the only sitting president who visited the Test Site. He toured it in 1962.

From 1980 to 1984 the Test Site became an outdoor laboratory for experimenting with a nuclear defense shield envisioned by President Ronald Reagan. Critics named the project “Star Wars.”

Today the Test Site offers a remote location for chemical tests and training for homeland security. In addition, researchers conduct subcritical experiments, testing radioactive components of nuclear weapons, but the explosions do not cause a nuclear chain reaction. By presidential order, the site must be ready to resume nuclear weapons tests within 18 months to three years after a presidential or congressional order.

It wasn’t until 1993 when President Bill Clinton and Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary released more information to the public about how military personnel and citizens had been exposed to radioactive fallout. Still, many of the secrets of atomic testing in Nevada remain under lock and key

The Lieberman-Warner climate change bill

SENATE CLIMATE CHANGE BILL COULD GIVE BILLIONS OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS TO THE NUCLEAR POWER INDUSTRY

YOUR CALLS NOW CAN STOP THIS, AND HELP PAVE THE WAY FOR CLEAN, SAFE AND AFFORDABLE SOLUTIONS TO THE CLIMATE CRISIS

May 12, 2008

Dear Friends:

The Lieberman-Warner climate change bill is slated to come to the Senate floor the week of June 2-6, 2008.

Without even explicitly mentioning nuclear power, the bill would be the largest giveaway to the nuclear power industry ever­some $500 billion worth.

And if that weren’t enough, we expect one or more amendments to be submitted to give even more billions of taxpayer dollars to the nuclear industry; further reduce public participation in nuclear issues; and speed the development of new radioactive waste sites over public opposition.

We need to stop this nuclear nonsense, and your voices need to be heard.

Even our friends in the Senate, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), say they are not receiving enough phone calls on this issue. They, and we, are urging you to call your senators now and demand that they oppose any nuclear provisions or amendments to the Lieberman-Warner bill.

Your calls are especially important because the nuclear industry is actively lobbying to obtain more taxpayer dollars, and they have far more resources to do so than the environmental movement.

Please call your Senators today: Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121.

And activate e-mail lists, phone trees, myspace and facebook sites, and any other networks you have. We need to get as many of your voices to the Senate as possible.

Some background information on the Lieberman-Warner bill, and some of the nuclear provisions now being talked about, is below.

First, we all know that election campaigns take huge sums of money, and we know that many of you have been contributing to your candidates this year. But issue campaigns, like this one, require resources too. After you’ve called your Senators, please consider making an extra $30 donation (or $300 or $3,000, if you can!)­in honor of NIRS’ 30th anniversary this year­on our secure website here.

Background information on Lieberman-Warner Bill (S. 2191)

According to an aide to Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill scheduled to be debated on the Senate floor during the first week of June “would be the most historic incentive for nuclear in the history of the United States."

The cap-and-trade carbon emissions system that the bill would establish would both make utility investments in carbon-emitting technologies like coal and gas less economically competitive by putting a price on carbon, and would also create a fund­totaling as much as $500 Billion over the next four decades­that could be used for nuclear power investment.

There are many problems with the proposed legislation, not the least of which is that its emissions reductions targets fall far short of what science now says is necessary to avoid a climate catastrophe. In fact, the global carbon emissions reduction of 80% by 2050 called for by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Global Climate Change translates into a 95% reduction in U.S. emissions­or essentially a carbon-free energy economy. But at best, the Lieberman-Warner bill would reduce emissions about 60-70% by 2050, and perhaps not even that much.

Nuclear amendments that have been discussed on Capitol Hill may include some, or even all, of the following:

*more money for taxpayer loan guarantees for new reactors
*more money for “risk” insurance if reactors are delayed because of interventions or other licensing problems
*establishment of “interim” storage sites for high-level radioactive waste
*speed-up of Yucca Mountain licensing
*further restrictions on public participation in reactor licensing
*money for training nuclear engineers
*money for training skilled workers (like welders)
*money for security guards and improvements
*money for Hardened On-Site Storage
*money to build new factories to manufacture large reactor components
*money for new transmission lines
*money for transformers

We need safe, clean, fast and affordable solutions to the climate crisis. Nuclear power meets none of those criteria. Your actions now can make a real difference!

Please call your Senators today: 202-224-3121, and alert your colleagues, co-workers, church groups, PTAs, and all of your friends and ask them to call too! And please call both of your senators no matter where you think they may stand on the issue: we need to create a better sense in the Senate that people care about this issue.

Thank you for all you do. Together, we can stop the nuclear industry’s misguided notion that climate change legislation is their opportunity to have an atomic Christmas in June!

As always, if you have questions or comments, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Michael Mariotte
Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
nirsnet@nirs.org
www.nirs.org
301-270-6477

This is NIRS’ 30th anniversary year: Help kick off our next 30 years, and our work to build a nuclear-free, carbon-free energy future, with your most generous contribution possible. Please make your tax-deductible donation here.

And if you haven’t done so yet, don’t forget to sign the statement on nuclear power and climate at www.nirs.org (but please don’t sign more than once!). If you’ve already signed, please ask your friends and colleagues to sign!

Going subcritical: a nuclear test for a nuclear test destroys the entire world

In 1992, the Nevada Test Site hosted the last of over 800 underground nuclear detonations that had commenced in 1961. Five years later, in 1997, the DOE began a program of subcritical testing at the test site that has continued on through today. The philosophical differences between the two types of tests are minimal. The difference between an underground nuclear test and a subcritical experiment can be compared to the difference between firing an actual bullet as opposed to firing a blank.

You may think that the DOE isn't 'aiming' their gun at someone, and therefore no crime is committed, yet their 'gun' is in fact aimed. It is aimed at arguably the entire world. Locally, the DOE is pointing its gun at the Western Shoshone and all peoples who consume the air, the soil and water in Nevada and Utah. Critics of these tests also say that the DOE is aiming their 'gun' at any of the countries in the 'axis-of-evil,' and using these tests to send a threatening message of the U.S.'s intent to use nuclear weapons again.

Like underground nuclear tests, subcritical tests have a legacy of contamination that is stored underground. It is not impossible for the plutonium waste of subcritical tests to leach into the groundwater. The impacts to groundwater of the nearly two dozen subcritical tests conducted since 1997 have not been determined to date at the test site. Likewise, it is not impossible that subcritical tests can 'go critical' to the extent of producing some airborne fission byproducts that can eventually vent to the surface.

Since 1997, the DOE has aimed their gun and fired blanks over and over again. And the impact is no different than when a madman runs around aiming a gun at other people and firing blanks. The effect is de-stabilizing.

After the U.S. conducted its first subcritical test called 'Rebound' in 1997, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman immediately urged the U.S. to not carry out activities that do not conform with the CTBT, saying 'We stress that all countries should faithfully abide by stipulations in the nuclear test ban treaty.' In Nevada, anti-nuclear activists did their best to stop 'Rebound': three activists traveled on bicycles onto the test site near the detonation site and seven others blocked a public highway when a media bus tried to enter the gates. Some activists even crawled under the bus but were dragged out by Nevada Highway Patrol and Department of Energy security personnel. Similar nonviolent actions tried to halt later subcritical tests, although unsuccessfully, and in 1997 a dozen U.S. anti-nuclear organizations brought a lawsuit against the DOE to stop the subcritical tests. In late 1997, Russia first confirmed that it had a subcritical testing program dating back to the 1980s. In 1998 the U.S. claimed that it was conducting more tests to respond to ongoing Russian subcritical testing. On May 11, 1998, the government of India conducted a set of three underground atomic tests followed two days later by another two such blasts. These were the first nuclear tests conducted by India since 1974. An official announcement of the second set of blasts stated: 'The tests have been carried out to generate additional data for improved computer simulation of designs and for attaining the capability to carry out subcritical experiments, if considered necessary.' Two weeks later Pakistan joined the nuclear weapon club when it announced it had conducted five underground nuclear tests.

In early 1998, the European Parliament concluded that the United States was creating a 'crisis of confidence' in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by conducting subcritical experiments and passed a resolution urging the United States to 'halt the series of subcritical tests' which could otherwise jeopardize the treaty's entry into force. The resolution mentioned that at least 15 countries expressed their concern or opposition to the tests, among them Iran.

Protests by anti-nuclear organizations, foreign governments and international bodies continued against U.S. subcritical testing through about 2003, when worldwide and local dissent began to soften for unknown reasons. Then came the North Korean government's first mention of a nuclear test on Sept. 7, 2006. That nuclear test came on the heels of the United States' successful completion eight days earlier of its 23rd subcritical nuclear experiment. In its Sept. 7th announcement of the test, North Korea's Central News Agency noted that a South Korean group, the National Alliance for the Country's Reunification, made a statement accusing the United States' subcritical test as an 'obvious criminal act of disturbing the global peace.'

Subcritical testing is a threat to world peace and stability, and citizens should make use of an opportunity to voice their concerns about the legitimacy, impacts to global peace and environmental affects of these tests through May 30th. Visit www.idealist.ws/action.htm and learn how you can tell the DOE that they should initiate a new Environmental Impact Statement process for the Nevada Test Site that will undoubtedly re-vitalize and address this important issue.

Read the 1998 European Parliament resolution here: http://stopdivinestrake.com/subcritical.html