Atomic Lies & Nuclear Falsehoods
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By Patrick Moore
“We must not stop dismantling the atomic lies,
breaking them down into individual parts –
so that their complex functioning is disturbed, or at best destroyed!”
— Nuclear Energy Conference, Austria, April 29, 2021
Here at Fairewinds, we are now in our fifteenth installment of our Nuclear Spring Series. Our Nuclear Spring Series has taken a great deal of research and work with many colleagues. Our special thanks to all of you who are participating in this series and to our readers and viewers who have shown such a tremendous response to this project. Thank you!
We have enjoyed putting this series together, and we have more to share with you during the next month as we move from Spring into the long days of Summer beginning in late June. If you have missed any of the previous installments, be sure to see the Nuclear Spring Series page for the complete collection.
Earlier this month, Fairewinds’ chief engineer Arnie Gundersen had the unique pleasure of presenting at the 2021 Nuclear Energy Conference hosted entirely online from Linz, Austria.
The anti-nuclear movement in Austria began during the 1970s when a nuclear power plant was under construction with the encouragement and advisement of the United States (U.S.) The atomic power reactor was constructed and completed in Zwentendorf, Austria. Yet, in 1978, before the Austrian company and Siemens could start the reactor, Austria held a public referendum against the Zwentendorf plant. As a result, even though the reactor was technically finished, it was never turned on and was permanently shuttered. The vast majority of people in Austria are against nuclear power, as are all major political parties.
According to the sponsors and hosts of the Austrian Nuclear Energy Conference 2021,
“Nuclear power has relied on fanciful tales since having been put to work - fanciful tales that have already been exposed as unrealistic, as incorrect prognoses, as brazen presumptuousness, as fatal self-overestimation. Lies, one could call them.
There were high expectations, indeed promises, of a form of energy generation that would be too cheap to be measured at all - too cheap to meter. The opposite has happened…”
Entitled How to Dismantle an Atomic Lie – taking apart the nuclear falsehoods: Fukushima 10 years, Chernobyl 35 years, this year’s conference featured Linda Pentz Gunter, Beyond Nuclear; Dr. Alex Rosen, the German chapter of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW); Albena Simeonova, Foundation for Environment and Agriculture in Bulgaria (FEA); Sigrid Stagl, Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), and Eva Stegen Energy Consultant, Elektrizitätswerke Schönau (EWS).
Each speaker presented an aspect of the Atomic Lies and Nuclear Falsehoods. Everyone’s full bios are listed below, along with a video of their presentation for your viewing.
First, we will share Arnie’s presentation entitled National & International Nuclear Regulators. Who Do They Protect? Not People, but the Atomic Industry. View from an Insider & Whistleblower. In his presentation, Arnie was able to speak about the atomic lies we’ve all been told and was able to elucidate what Fairewinds has proposed all along: there was no regulatory capture!
We wanted to elaborate on the quality of Arnie’s and the other speakers’ presentations. The conference was translated simultaneously into German, Czech, and English. It was quite a fantastic effort by the translators and organizers of the forum! Thus, the speakers may appear to be speaking slowly or repeatedly stopping to allow time and space for translation. Arnie was reading from a pre-approved script that would simplify the event organizers’ ability to translate his words to two additional languages for the non-English speaking attendees and listeners.
Linda Pentz Gunter, a founder of Beyond Nuclear, specializes in international nuclear issues. The central focus of her work is on organizing and collaboration within the global anti-nuclear movement. She also works on nuclear weapons and their link with nuclear power development. She is a member of the jury of the Nuclear-Free Future Awards and a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Linda’s presentation is entitled The forgotten human faces of the Atomic Lie: to begin at the beginning.
The Fairewinds Crew is especially moved by Linda’s presentation and hopes that you will be as well. The human perspective is tantamount to everything we do here at Fairewinds, and we feel as though Linda truly tapped into that aspect throughout her presentation.
Dr. Alex Rosen, MD, has been a member and co-chairman of the board of the German chapter of the IPPNW from 2013 to 2021. His field is the health consequences of ionizing radiation and the effects of the nuclear chain, especially the nuclear disasters of Chernobyl and Fukushima. He has published numerous articles and analyses on the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters. In addition to his commitment to the IPPNW, Dr. Rosen is co-founder and former board member of the Düsseldorf refugee initiative STAY e.V. and involved in medical refugee aid. Dr. Rosen’s presentation is entitled Playing down the Risks of Atomic Energy - a Story Written on People's Backs: Chernobyl and Fukushima - Not yet fully Told.
Albena Simeonova is Head of the Executive Board of the Foundation for Environment and Agriculture in Bulgaria (FEA). Albena is best known for her work and activism on anti-nuclear issues, renewable energy, Danube River biodiversity protection, organic farming, and education.
She graduated from Sofia University with a degree in ecology and environmental management and is one of the campaign leaders against constructing a second nuclear power plant in Bulgaria - the Belene NPP project. Also politically active, she was elected to parliament for the electoral alliance Democratic Bulgaria / Green Movement in spring 2021. Albena’s presentation is entitled Eastern Europe – a Perfect Playground for Nuclear Stakeholders.
Sigrid Stagl is an economist and full professor at Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU). Currently, she is working on institutional arrangements that support sustainable work, developing socio-economic theories of human behavior, and the effects of financialization on the Environment. RPI awarded Sigrid’s Ph.D. in the field of Ecological Economics in Troy, New York. Before returning to Vienna, she worked at the Universities of Leeds and Sussex.
In 2014 she founded the Institute for Ecological Economics. At WU, she is currently the Chair of the Department of Socio-Economics and Director of the Competence Center for Sustainability Transformation and Responsibility. Stagl’s presentation is entitled The Emperor's New Clothes: Nuclear Power and EU-Taxonomy.
Dr. Eva Stegen is a private and professional energy consultant for the Elektrizitätswerke Schönau (EWS) and remains committed to replacing the fossil-nuclear energy system. She writes about energy transition topics, runs Blog on 'der Freitag', co-authors the information publication 'Das Desaster der europäischen Atomwirtschaft', and is a member of the Nuclear Consulting Group. In the case of the nuclear power debate allegedly carried out under climate protection aspects, she is particularly interested in its blind spot: the military drivers in the background. Eva’s presentation is entitled Refurbished Propaganda of an Expiring Industry – how the Nuclear Lobby abuses Climate Change.
All of us at Fairewinds would also like to acknowledge the work of Gabriele ‘Gabi’ Schweiger, Claudia Kothgassner, Roland Egger, and the rest of their team for the successful hosting of a global conference of this nature hosted strictly on the internet.
Header image provided by Maria Oswalt (@mcoswalt) from Unsplash.
