Friday Video: “The Nuclear Question” on PBS’s Need to Know.

Ursula Sladek, anti-nuclear activist. Photo from Fast Company.

As part of ongoing research into nuclear power and community life, this week’s Friday Video is an exploration of nuclear power and its contested role in the larger global energy debate.  Produced by PBS’s Need to Know program the video discusses both the potential benefits and risks and highlights the story of Ursula Sladeck, an German anti-nuclear activist who played a role in Germany’s decision to do away with nuclear power.  More on Sladeck in the near future.

What are your thoughts on this episode from Need to Know?

Check out our previous posts on nuclear power and community life here.  Do you have suggestions for readings on this topic?  Please be sure and let us know.  We’d love to hear from you.

Watch Fri., Oct. 21, 2011 on PBS. See more from Need to Know.

Friday Video: Creation of the Film “Acceptable Limits” by See Rock City Productions.

From Kickstarter.

This week’s Friday Video comes via a suggestion from friend, folklorist, and writer Rachel Reynolds Luster who passed the video our way this morning.  For several months now we’ve been researching the history of Arkansas Nuclear One and following discussions regarding nuclear sites throughout the country. To see other posts about this research go here. 

This video film is part of a documentary film project entitled  Acceptable Limits about the believed health and environmental effects of a 54 year old nuclear fuel processing plant in east Tennessee.  This video comes via Kickstarter where creators of the film are spreading the word and inviting those with an interest in the project to help fund the production of the film. If you are unfamiliar with Kickstarter and their grassroots funding methods, go here to learn more.

For those who are supporters of the nuclear industry and leery of activists who question the industry’s safety, you might feel there’s some bias in this film’s research. Here at the BDJ we are particularly interested in research projects that explore some of the lessor told stories of the nuclear industry and the complexities surrounding their presence in communities.   This film appears to posses the potential to do just that.  We welcome debate on these subjects and counter discussions.
From the Kickstarter site here’s a bit of backstory about the film:
Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS) has been the main employer in the rural valley town of Erwin, Tennessee for decades. On the edge of the Appalachian Trail, the facility sits on the Nolichucky River. Initially, NFS brought much needed jobs to the area, hiring those with little education at pay rates far exceeding any of the factory jobs in the area. For 54 years the neighborhood factory has accepted weapons grade Plutonium and Uranium from around the world to create fissionable nuclear fuel for our Navy’s fleet of submarines and aircraft carriers.

When tests of the water in the area showed rampant contamination, Michael Abbott Jr., an East Tennessee native, and his best friend Cosmo Pfeil decided to investigate how this pollution could be allowed to happen. They ended up embarking on an exploration of what the word “community” means to citizens of an Appalachian town dealing with the devastating effects of 54 years of nuclear contamination. Through interviews with former employees (some who were there as long as 30 years) now dealing with serious health issues, neighbors of the facility who watch white smoke billow from the stacks in the early hours of the morning and blow towards their homes, it became clear that there was a problem and that people in this town were sick and dying.

A university study, requested by environmentalists, is being conducted to determine uranium levels in the water and soil in the area. An interim report from the ongoing study states that NFS-derived uranium is present in the water and soil samples taken in Erwin and that the “quantities are likely to be very considerable”. The study also states that “The results also demonstrate the entry of groundwater discharges of NFS-derived enriched U into the surface waters, and point to serious questions about the scope/extent of groundwater contamination near the NFS facility.” To keep the full synoposis, visit their Kickstarter page here.

Here’s the video.  If you are intersested in learning more about this film or helping to fund their research (you can denote as little as one dollar to the cause) be sure and visit their Kickstarter page to learn more.  

If you have a suggestion for a Friday video please let us know.  We love hearing from readers.

Caution: Russellville, Arkansas Shirt

T-shirt design by Fayetteville based company, Bear State Supply.

As we continue research into how Arkansas Nuclear One plays a role in community life and community history, we’re always on the lookout for the ways the plant is discussed and interpreted.

In just the past two weeks we’ve done two separate posts about nuclear-based apparel. Just a few weeks ago we posted about a t-shirt designed by a local company bearing the slogan “Nuclear One is Nuclear Fun.”  And today I heard about T-shirt above, designed by Fayetteville-based company Bear State Supply.

Click here for all the details and shirt ordering.

Are there any other nuclear plant-inspired clothing items out there?  What about other states?  Do their plants inspire similar creations?

What a fascinating thing that nuclear plant is.  It inspires everything from fallout shelter to clothing apparel.  It’s clearly become a part of how we identify ourselves and how others indentify the region.

Want to read other posts about nuclear power in Arkansas?   Here’s our previous posts:

“A Bonanza—Not a Bomb.”  Commentary for Arkansas Power and Light, 1967.

“Growing Up Near Arkansas Nuclear One” on KUAF’s Ozarks at Large

Grist’s Four-Part Series on Nuclear Power

The Seed and the Story for July 13, 2011: Nuclear Plant as Physical and Cultural Landscape

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Grist Magazine’s Four-Part Series on Nuclear Power

From Grist.org

Grist.org, an organization that, as they claim, “has been dishing out environmental news and commentary with a wry twist since 1999,” recently published a four-part series on nuclear power.   If you’re interested in the research we’re doing on how the nuclear plant plays a role in community life, these series of posts by Arne Jungjohann, program director for Environment and Global Dialogue with the Heinrich Boll Foundation, might be of interest to you.  There’s certainly an anti-nuclear stance to the pieces, but regardless of where you stand on the concept of nuclear power plants there’s some helpful information to be gleaned from the articles.

Part One examines the United States use of nuclear power, nothing that , “The United States is the world’s No. 1 nuclear country. Of the 435 reactors worldwide, 104 are in the United States, providing approximately 20 percent of the nation’s power supply (in comparison to around 27 percent in Germany in 2010).”

Part Two provides information on which companies lobby for nuclear power and part three takes a look at the states and organizations who have been fighting against nuclear power in their area.  The series closes with part four, which examines the possible waning of “pro-nuke enthusiasm” in the wake of the Fukushima tragedy in Japan.

What articles, posts, and discussions about nuclear power have you come across?  We’d love to hear about them.

For related posts see:

Friday Video for August 5, 2011: Who’s Afraid of Nuclear Power?

“A bonanza—Not a Bomb.”: Commentary from Arkansas Power and Light, 1967

The Seed and the Story for July 13, 2011: Nuclear Plant as Physical and Cultural Landscape

“Growing Up Near Arkansas Nuclear One” on KUAF’s Ozarks at Large

“A Bonanza—Not a Bomb.” Commentary from Arkansas Power and Light, 1967.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arkansas_Nuclear_One.jpg

As part of ongoing research examining oral histories and public discussions about the creation of Arkansas Nuclear One, I came across this 1967 commentary from The Exciter, a publication of the Arkansas Power and Light Company.   The commentary was reprinted in the Courier on August 3rd, 1967.  No author’s name is provided.  This commentary, along with multiple others, was published in the months and years leading up to the plant’s creation and finalization.  This particular commentary ran in the Courier three weeks before Arkansas Power and Light announced their final decision to house the plant near Russelleville.  This and other past of issues of the Courier can be found at the Arkansas Tech Pendergraft Library.

Please note:  Sharing this commentary does not mean I agree with the points therein.

How do you think the column resonates now?  Would you consider ANO to be a “bonanza” today?  Any other thoughts?   Do you remember this commentary or others like it?  Let’s discuss.

A Bonanza—Not a Bomb, from The Exciter, 1967.  Reprinted in the Courier, August 3rd, 1967.

Because the application of nuclear energy got its beginning with nuclear weapons, many people naturally want to relate an atomic bomb to an atomic power plant.

But this is like trying to compare apples and strawberries.  Dr. T.J. Thompson of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has remarked, “It is unfortunate that the potentialities of nuclear fission were first introduced to mankind in the form of a bomb.”

Dr. Thompson reasons that “if gasoline had first been introduced in the form of jellied bombs, spreading havoc and destruction in war, I am sure that the development of the automobile would have been delayed for many years.”

If anyone asks you whether a nuclear plant can explode like an atomic bomb, just give them a simple and unequivocal answer.  NO.  If their curiosity persists, and they want technical details, explain that in an atomic bomb, the nuclear material is almost pure, high-fission material.

In a power reactor, the nuclear fuel is always in the form of a chemical compound or alloy that is totally unsuitable for use in a bomb and is surrounded by a multiplicity of positive controls.

The nuclear power plant is designed to be thoroughly safe and to automatically shut down.  As the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) points out, even in the event all reactor controls were jammed into the “on” position and the reactor operators ignored all controls, it would be impossible to create a bomb type explosion in a nuclear reactor.

Putting it briefly, Arkansas’s nuclear power plant is a bonanza, not a bomb.

Friday Video for August 5, 2011: “Who’s Afraid of Nuclear Power?”

From the film's webpage.

Continuing recent discussions about nuclear power and the role these plants play in community life, here’s a documentary from 2006 that takes a look at the drastically different perspectives regarding nuclear power in Australia and Scandinavia.  The film traces each country’s history with nuclear power and nuclear bombs, highlighting how the decisions of the past inform the perception of the plants in the present day.  I personally felt the video leaves more questions than it answers, and it doesn’t provide any new information about the safety of plants in general, the local economics as they apply to our own plants, or any other more obviously pertinent tidbits of information.

But what I did really enjoy about this film is how it highlights how different communities view nuclear power and how their cultural and political differences fuel safety regulations and public awareness.  It shows the extensive measures taken by the Swedes to ensure some form of reltavily safe depositing of nuclear waste and how this, in turn, translates into an 80% acceptance of nuclear power by the Swedish population.   These two different countries’ opinions are worlds apart.  This exploration of these drastic differences in public perception makes the film very much worth watching.

If you live near a nuclear plant, would you say your community responds to the plant in ways more similar to the Australians or the Swedes?  Or neither? Or both.

Below is the official press release for the film, created by Journeyman Pictures. To watch the film via the Four Corners Program on ABC’s Australian network click here.

Almost every day seems to bring more horror stories on fossil fuels. We’re bombarded with reports about global warming. The price of oil keeps increasing. But with each gloomy media prediction, the nuclear industry can boast: we’ve got the clean answer. This documentary looks at different approaches to nuclear power. It focuses on Australia and Scandinavia – where attitudes couldn’t be more different. While Australia derives 80% of its energy from coal, half of Sweden’s power is nuclear. This doc holds the answers to why we persist with nuclear power.

Continue reading »

“Growing Up Near Arkansas Nuclear One” on KUAF’s Ozarks at Large.

As part of my ongoing research into the oral history of Arkansas Nuclear One and how it informs the cultural landscape of the river valley, I produced this radio piece for KUAF’s Ozarks at Large Program detailing some of my own memories of growing up with the plant.  This piece expands upon the Post Dispatch column.

Commentary: Growing Up Near the Nuclear Plant by Boiled Down Juice

If you’d like to keep up with the programing on Ozarks at Large be sure and follow them on facebook.

Ozarks at Large is produced by member-supported KUAF, 91.3 FM out of Fayetteville, Arkansas.  Don’t forget to support public radio!