Nuclear Weapons
65 groups resist DOE’s HALEU availability program
65 organizations, including Beyond Nuclear, commented on the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) program. They expressed deep concerns about: environmental contamination of already heavily-contaminated low-income communities, as in and around Portsmouth, Ohio; nuclear weapons proliferation risks; etc. See the coalition comment letter, here. The letter was spearheaded by attorney Terry Lodge,…
Read MoreSetting the record straight on tritium
In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post, Cindy Folkers, Radiation and Health Hazard Specialist of Beyond Nuclear, points out that tritium is not as safe as industry proponents claim it is, highlighting a recent paper by Mousseau and Todd, which found that tritium can have significant impacts when taken into the body, making…
Read MoreTrinity fallout hit 46 states, Mexico, Canada
New research, conducted by Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security, finds that Trinity atomic fallout reached 46 states, Mexico and Canada within 10 days of detonation in 1945. The hourly reconstruction of blast fallout shows that it was much larger than anticipated and the radioactive mushroom cloud traveled higher in the atmosphere than…
Read More“Zero trust”: St. Louis nuclear coverups
A Freedom of Information Act Request regarding Manhattan Project and Cold War radioactive contamination at numerous sites across the St. Louis region garnered some 15,000 pages of documents. A collaboration between AP, MuckRock, and Missouri Independent analyzed them, resulting in major coverage. Disregard for worker and public health by officials at the Atomic Energy Commission,…
Read MoreNew Mexico: Radioactive catastrophe commemorations
Beyond Nuclear was honored to participate in both the Church Rock uranium spill (July 16, 1979) and Trinity atomic bomb blast (July 16, 1945) commemorations last weekend in New Mexico. At the Red Water Pond Road Community on the Church Rock Chapter of the Navajo/Diné Nation, Beyond Nuclear joined many other groups in co-sponsoring, and…
Read MoreDestroyer of worlds: Avoiding Oppenheimer’s prediction
With the film, Oppenheimer, being widely heralded by the media, and as we remember the first explosion of a nuclear device, the July 16, 1945 Trinity test in New Mexico, can the nuclear genie first unleashed by the Manhattan Project be put back in the bottle? Beyond Nuclear board member, Karl Grossman, argues that it…
Read MoreOppenheimer’s bomb: Health impacts continue
At some New Mexico Oppenheimer screenings, a 15-second advertisement will precede the movie. “Oppenheimer’s bomb led to decades of nuclear testing across the Southwest,” it says. “Communities still suffer health impacts related to the tests, many without government recognition or justice.” The ad is intended to point out that, for those who actually live in…
Read MoreWatch Tritium Truths: Facts vs. Deceptions
Given the plans to dump tritium into Cape Cod Bay from Pilgrim, the dumping of tritium from Indian Point into the Hudson, the history of batch releases and leaks from Braidwood, the proposed release from Los Alamos, and the plan to dump the Fukushima tritiated water into the Pacific, we have put together a short…
Read MoreExploring Tritium Dangers
Exploring Tritium Dangers: Health and Ecosystem Risks of Internally Incorporated Radionuclides, by Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D., uses the tritium pollutant, which forms radioactive water, to illustrate the risks of taking any radioisotope into the human body. Tritium easily crosses the placenta (the book makes clear it is not the only radioisotope that does so) and can…
Read MoreUS nuclear facilities hacked
A contractor for the department’s Office of Science and national laboratories, including Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (pictured) that produces uranium for nuclear bombs and conducts nuclear energy research, was among the victims of a wide-ranging cyberattack that saw several federal agencies hacked, according to Bloomberg. “The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education is…
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