Demystifying Nuclear Power Through Education
Our mission is to educate the public about nuclear power and other energy issues.
Fairewinds Energy Education is an easy to use educational hub for fact-based, undistorted energy information. Fairewinds’ website features blogposts, podcasts, and videos in which we collaborate with experts in wide ranging fields to discuss energy issues.
From the beginning, their design and fabrication were one fiasco after another that led to almost 20-years of construction delays, during which portions of one Diablo Canyon reactor were built backward…
Today, Fairewinds is talking about history –– world history and herstory about the choices governments make when waging war and not planning for peace. On August 6, 1945, during World War II, the United States was the only nation in the world to unleash the horror of the Atomic Bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and then on Nagasaki just three days later…
Today, Fairewinds is sharing several very personal essays and thoughts on our Demystifying Nuclear Power Blog and via Newsletter, Twitter, and Facebook. Several weeks ago, our friend and colleague, Dr. Norma Field, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, published one of the best overviews any of us at Fairewinds has read about the impact of the meltdowns at the Fukushima…
History: As the clouds of war grew darker in 1939, the US government undertook the highly secretive task of developing the first atomic bomb in the belief that Germany was working towards the same goal. In what would later be known as the Manhattan Project, because the Army Corp of Engineers began the project in Manhattan, NY, government laboratories would span America from Washington state all the way to rural Tennessee…
Fact: nuclear power is too expensive and simply cannot compete against renewables. The Nuclear Industry’s solution? Cut corners to skimp on costs! And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is actively supporting this rushed attempt to pinch pennies…
I have never experienced so many people wearing protective masks on the Shinkansen high-speed train, as I did at the end of January 2020, when I traveled from northern Japan to the airport in Tokyo. The news of the coronavirus outbreak was just starting to dominate the media…
Fairewinds would like to thank all of our followers and colleagues who have followed our updates on the situation surrounding the construction of Plant Vogtle in Georgia. We remain committed to keeping you updated and informed as the process continues. You can read what we have previously written and shared here and here. Also, you can read the BREDL legal briefs and press releases here and here. Stay tuned!
Georgia Nuclear: Vogtle Unit 3 Is Sinking! [BREDL Petition], What Does the Leaning Tower of Pisa Have In Common with the Vogtle Nuclear Reactor? If you are a regular reader of our Demystifying Nuclear Power Blog, you know that the Fairewinds Crew posted this article on May 14, 2020, and if you have not read the article, you may wish to do so prior to reading Vogtle Unit 3 – The Atomic Empire Strikes Back.
Where will you be at 7:45 pm EST tonight Monday, June 8 2020?
We hope you will be settling in on Zoom for the Introduction to the Ploughshares Fund annual gala – Chain Reaction: Securing Our Future, at 5 pm Pacific & 8 pm EST.
With thousands of excess nuclear weapons worldwide, it’s shocking to think that we need to build new ones. While Fairewinds Energy Education predominately works in the area of atomic energy, we look at the whole ‘fuel chain’ which includes waste management and uranium mining as well as every phase in between…
Already facing significant losses, the communities impacted by the Woolsey Fire are now worried about airborne radioactivity because the Woolsey Fire burned the area around and adjacent to the Santa Susana Field Lab, an old nuclear test facility that is now a superfund site. Vegetation in close proximity to superfund sites tend to have high levels of toxic and possibly radioactive materials stored within them due to nutrient uptake through the roots. As the vegetation surrounding the Santa Susana Lab burned, it released these toxic particulates into the air to be dispersed at the whims of the breeze.
After fielding many questions and having been asked for support, Fairewinds has launched sampling protocols and procedures to collect a wide set of data from as many of the surrounding areas close to the site as possible. Once again, we are utilizing the power of citizen scientists and volunteers to collect these soil and dust samples, so that we and the scientists we work with may more accurately assess if Santa Susana radioactive isotopes are migrating to the surrounding communities or the pristine forests where people hike and explore.
Read our full sampling protocol here
Press Release: Radioactive Hot Particles in Japan
Co-authored by Dr. Marco Kaltofen, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), and Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Energy Education, the article details the analysis of radioactively hot particles collected in Japan following the Fukushima Dai-ichi meltdowns. Based on 415 samples of radioactive dust from Japan, the USA, and Canada, the study identified a statistically meaningful number of samples that were considerably more radioactive than current radiation models anticipated.
Smokescreen Animation - Green New Deal #GND
The Fairewinds Crew created this special 2-minute animation to show you why building new nukes is a lost opportunity for humankind with precious time and money wasted on the wrong choice. At least $8.2 Trillion would be needed to build the 1,000 atomic reactors the nuclear industry wants – that’s 1 reactor every 12-days for 35-years. Watch the animation to see what it means and why!
Watch Smokescreen, also Available in French, German, and Japanese!
Recently Featured
This week marks the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The events of early August 1945, which changed the course of human history, might have been prevented had the Truman administration heeded the advice offered by seven prominent and prescient Manhattan Project scientists…
It was a late winter night in 1966 and a fully loaded B-52 bomber on a Cold War nuclear patrol had collided with a refueling jet high over the Spanish coast, freeing four hydrogen bombs that went tumbling toward a farming village called Palomares…
In this prescient interview with Nuclear Hotseat host, Libbe HaLevy, Arnie goes over the problems at the Vogtle nuclear reactor construction in Georgia, where the weight of the unit is already causing it to sink into Georgia’s red clay. Arnie analyzed the data that became the basis for the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL)’s petition…
On May 11, 2020, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL) filed a petition to intervene before the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and request a hearing to present opposition to the granting of licensure to Souther Nuclear Operating Company (SNC).
As Japan commemorates the 9th anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urges the authorities to let journalists freely report on the topic.
The Woolsey Fire started near the site of a 1959 reactor meltdown that released more radiation than the three mile island incident. Now Malibu residents worry their homes were tainted by radioactive fallout from the blaze.
Attached are non-illustrated versions of Jim Morris’ series for the Houston Chronicle entitled “Clamp Down: The Silencing of Nuclear Industry Workers" from 1993. Fairewinds hopes these PDFs will assist viewers that seek to better understand how the nuclear industry silences whistleblowers.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff and management don’t like whistleblowers, and somebody who probably ranks as their least favorite one is this week’s Nuclear Hotseat guest: Arnie Gundersen, chief engineer with Fairewinds Energy Education.
Arnie Gundersen, chief nuclear engineer with Fairewinds Energy Education Nonprofit, spent one week at the end of March in the Harrisburg Pennsylvania area for a series of events remembering the 40-years since the meltdown at TMI. Arnie was invited to present the keynote at Penn State’s 40th commemoration of the Three Mile Island disaster that was filmed by C-Span on March 27, 2019. Prior to uploading the filmed presentation to C-Span, the videographers and crew also professionally edited Arnie’s PowerPoint slides into the film itself.
Soviet doctors treating Chernobyl-exposed suddenly had an unwelcome crash course in this medical problem. They found that radioactive contaminants, even at relatively low levels, infiltrated the bodies of their patients, who grew sicker each year. Gradually, health officials understood they had a public health disaster on their hands. Thousands of archival records document the catastrophe. Ukrainian doctors registered in the most contaminated regions of Kiev province an increase between 1985 and 1988 in thyroid and heart disease, endocrine and GI tract disorders, anaemia and other maladies of the blood-forming system.
Imagine a stun gun powerful enough to immobilize the US. Listen to Nuclear Hotseat host, Libbe HaLevy, and Arnie Gundersen discuss the effects of an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) from a nuclear weapon in space. EMPs are becoming the new face of global war. It can happen here. Also hear Fairewinds Board Chair, Robert Manning, talk about the importance of detente for world peace.
Nearly everyone who’s seen it and lived to tell the tale describes it the same way: a horrifying, otherworldly thing of ghastly beauty that has haunted their life ever since.
“The colors were beautiful,” remembers a man in Morgan Knibbe’s short documentary The Atomic Soldiers. “I hate to say that.”
“It was completely daylight at midnight—brighter than the brightest day you ever saw,” says another.
Much of what’s known about the health impacts of radiation comes from studies of acute exposure — for example, the atomic blasts that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan or the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in Ukraine. Studies of those events provided grim lessons on the effects of high-level exposure, as well as the lingering impacts on the environment and people who were exposed. Such work, however, has found little evidence that the health effects are passed on across generations.
Nuclear-power experts Arnie and Maggie Gundersen return to Project Censored to publicize the ongoing damage the Fukushima meltdown site is inflicting on Japan and the Pacific. They also rebut the idea that nuclear power is part of the answer to climate change.
Arnie Gundersen appears on Global Research News Hour, Hosted by Michael Welch, to share his understanding of the spread of nuclear contamination at Fukushima,
The head of Tokyo Electric Power Co. apologized Tuesday over his predecessor’s order to not use the term “core meltdown” to describe the situation at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in the early days of the March 2011 crisis.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s promise that the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant was “under control” in his successful pitch three years ago for Tokyo to host the 2020 Olympic Games “was a lie”, former premier Junichiro Koizumi said on Wednesday.
Arnie and Maggie Gundersen appeared on TMI (Too Much Information) Podcast hosted by Dave Archer to discuss nuclear energy, the NRC, becoming whistleblowers, Fukushima, and all things in between.
When the deadly Woolsey Fire broke out at the Santa Susana Field Lab site last month, state officials assured residents that no high-level toxins or radiation were present at the site, known for decades of nuclear and rocket-engine testing in the hills above the San Fernando and Simi valleys. But those statements have been met with skepticism by residents and activists. Now, they are rolling out their own study that will look into potential contamination from the site during the fire.
Tucked away in the hills above the San Fernando and Simi valleys was a 2,800-acre laboratory with a mission that was a mystery to the thousands of people who lived in its shadow. In a place called Area IV of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL), there was a secret collaboration between the U.S. government and private companies to test the limits of nuclear power.
Margaret Harrington talks with Robbie Leppzer about his documentary film POWER STRUGGLE and Maggie and Arnie Gundersen join the discussion to tell the story of how their research exposed Vermont Yankee officials.
Nuclear-power critics Arnie and Maggie Gundersen return to Project Censored to explain some of the continuing hazards facing Fukushima, Japan, years after the meltdown there.
Arnie talks about his trips to Japan to collect dirt samples following the nuclear reactor explosions at Fukushima and his work with Japanese citizens who learn to collect and analyze samples. Gundersen finds to this day serious contamination up to 300 miles from Fukushima - even in areas that have been declared safe to live.
Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Energy Education appeared on Nuclear Hotseat, a podcast hosted by Libby Halevy, to discuss the human toll inflicted by the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi.
Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Waste Watchdog of Beyond Nuclear, talks with Margaret Harrington, Host of Nuclear Free Future, about the federal plan to transfer 40 years of Vermont Yankee nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
NIIGATA--An investigation committee is leveling the blame for the failure to use the word "meltdown" following the Fukushima nuclear accident in March 2011 at Tokyo Electric Power Co. President Masataka Shimizu.
Former nuclear industry senior vice president Arnie Gundersen, who managed and coordinated projects at 70 US atomic power plants, is appalled at how the Japanese government is handling the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
Filmed during the 5-year timespan the action was occurring, this feature-length documentary by filmmaker Robbie Leppzer highlights the heated politics involved in the state-wide community effort to close the aged Vermont Yankee (VY) atomic power reactor. The film chronicles the unfolding drama as citizen activists and elected officials – alarmed at ever increasing safety violations at VY – take on the federal government and one of the biggest nuclear power corporations in America demanding the closure of the reactor at the expiration of its original 40-year license.
Eager to maintain its energy policy in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, Japan made sure concerns about nuclear technology were downplayed at the 12th Group of Seven summit it chaired in Tokyo days after the disaster, according to Japanese diplomatic records declassified Wednesday.
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