Abstract
Greenpeace to Sizewell B: D'oh!
On October 14, about 150 Greenpeace activists gathered on the property of the Sizewell B nuclear power plant in Suffolk, England, to protest British plans for a new generation of reactors. As it turned out, the real lesson of the day was the nuclear site's frighteningly poor security.
The Sizewell site has two stations, A and B, operated by the government-owned British Nuclear Fuels and the private company British Energy, respectively. Greenpeace fears a Sizewell C in the not-too-distant future, despite the widespread unpopularity of the government's plans for new nuclear reactors. (A recent poll showed 72 percent of Brits favor renewable energy sources over new nuclear plants.)
In October, Greenpeace activists peacefully occupied the Sizewell B nuclear power plant in Suffolk, England. It took 25 minutes for security guards to arrive, two hours for the police.
With visions of a nuclear-free Britain powered in large part by offshore wind farms, Greenpeace went to Suffolk to demonstrate against new reactors.
Arriving mostly by busload at Sizewell B in the early hours of a windy Monday morning, the protesters gained easy access to plant grounds by tossing carpets over razor wire and then climbing ladders over the fences. Some slipped in unopposed over the fence at the main gatehouse, others at the back, which borders a beach. Other activists “walked slowly and noisily down half a mile of beach carrying flags and ladders, portable lavatories, umbrellas and paint pots, all in view of several CCTV cameras” (Guardian, October 15, 2002). Once inside, the activists occupied the rooftops of various buildings and unfurled anti-nuclear banners and signs.
Many of the participants were costumed as Homer Simpson (infamous nuclear worker) or as Tony Blair (well-known nuclear supporter) as a “comment on the stupidity of current government thinking over nuclear power,” according to a Greenpeace statement.
Bearing in mind the protest's lack of subtlety, it's more than a bit disturbing that it took 25 minutes before two private security guards arrived on the scene to politely ask folks to please stop crossing the fence, and two hours before six police officers showed up.
“We knew that the British nuclear industry was technically clapped out and financially bankrupt,” Greenpeace UK executive director Stephen Tindale told the Guardian. “Now we know it's also impossibly insecure.”
It may have been just beginner's luck, but the Sizewell protest was Greenpeace's first-ever occupation of a nuclear power plant.
What time is it, comrade?
A few months ago, Pavel Podvig, a member of the Bulletin's board of directors, sent the editors a Russian-language brochure titled “Nuclear Disarmament,” a recent publication of the weapons lab at Arzamas-16, the closed nuclear city that once served as the former Soviet Union's premier nuclear weapons research and development site.
Pages from the Arzamas-16 clock brochure.
According to the brochure, Arzamas has kept score on international nuclear dangers employing a clock eerily similar to the Bulletin's own “Doomsday Clock.” Even more extraordinary, the Arzamas clock allegedly came into existence two years before the Bulletin clock debuted.
Podvig's translation of the brochure reveals that the Arzamas clock was supposedly born in 1945, with its hands at five minutes to midnight as a result of the first U.S. nuclear test and the U.S. use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which brought “the world to the brink of destroying all life on earth.”
According to the brochure, the Arzamas clock's hands changed for the first time in 1948–to two minutes to midnight–in response to the U.S. deployment of nuclear weapons “close to the borders of the Soviet Union.”
In 1949, the year the Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb, the Bulletin moved the Doomsday Clock hands forward–to three minutes to midnight. In contrast, Arzamas set its clock all the way back to 20 minutes to midnight, because the Soviet Union's test of a nuclear weapon ended the U.S. nuclear monopoly.
Now set at 17 minutes to midnight, the Arzamas clock is described as having had a total of nine settings over the years. Some of the more notable changes:
In 1957, the clock was at 10 minutes to midnight, when the Soviet Union launched “its first artificial satellite, demonstrating its technological and technical superiority over the United States in missile technologies.”
But the clock was nudging up against midnight in 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis. At the time, “the Soviet Union deployed SS-4 and SS-5 intermediate-range missiles in Cuba,” and “U.S. and Soviet nuclear forces were brought to their highest state of alert.” (The Bulletin clock, on the other hand, did not record the Cuban missile crisis because it came and went so quickly.)
According to Arzamas, its clock, set at 25 minutes in 1963, reflected a world that was looking much rosier because the Soviet Union had developed and tested both hydrogen bombs and developed effective means of delivery, “creating a base for nuclear parity with the United States.” (The Doomsday Clock, in contrast, was moved back in 1963 because of the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty.)
The best setting ever, according to Arzamas, was 2000, when its clock hands were moved all the way back to 11 p.m. because of reductions by both Russia and the United States in the size of their nuclear arsenals and in their states of alert. Also that year, Russia ratified both START II and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Too bad both clocks have had to move forward since then.
Something in the way she walked?
Biometrics,” using arcane measurements for identification purposes, is a hot, if controversial, topic. And some human characteristics do seem likely to be unique–DNA, of course, and fingerprints. But lately researchers have been claiming that less obviously different features of appearance are also unique. They also claim they can develop mathematical formulas that enable computers to compare an individual to a database of similar formulas, allowing a particular person to be matched up and singled out from a crowd. Right now, videocameras are being used in some public places to scan crowds. The video is fed into computers that, in real time, use “face recognition technology” to compare the faces picked up by the surveillance camera to photographs of wanted criminals.
Researchers at Georgia Tech are using a form of radar gun to measure each person's “gait cycle,” which, if unique to each individual, could be used for identification purposes.
The latest investigation into supposedly unique traits seems more unusual: Researchers at Georgia Tech are developing “gait recognition technology,” which they believe will be able to single someone out based entirely on how he or she walks.
According to the researchers, who are being funded by the U.S. military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the way a person walks doesn't have to be nearly as distinctive as John Wayne's swagger, nor as memorable as the perambulations seen in the classic Monty Python skit the “Ministry of Silly Walks.”
Researchers believe that using radar similar to that used by police officers to catch speeders, they can record the “gait cycle”–a pattern of how an individual's various body parts move over time. Once they've compiled the proper database, they say, they'll eventually be able to nail down anyone, based merely on watching how that person walks down the street.
The long-term goal is “to detect, classify, and identify humans at distances up to 500 feet away under day or night, all weather conditions”–whether that person happens to be “alone or among a group of people” (Georgia Tech press release, October 11, 2002).
Although the technique is said to have been 80 to 95 percent accurate in trials with a limited number of subjects, researcher Aaron Bobick admits that it remains considerably less accurate than the controversial face recognition technology. “Currently,” he says, “we can't recognize one in 100,000 people.”
The research group hopes to receive future funding from DARPA to see if the technology will work when applied to the general population. Their goal is to achieve a “high 90 percent range” identification rate, says engineer Jon Geisheimer. The team estimates that it will be about five years before the technology is ready for commercial use.
Perhaps then we will see proud police officers, when asked how they were able to apprehend some criminal or terrorist, explain simply, “There was something funny about the way he walked.”
Rumbly in the tumbly
The next time you're out at a WTO demonstration and things get a little unruly, it may not be the riot police or water cannons that simmer down the crowd. You might not even see what hits you.
The U.S. military and several private companies are exploring ways to use “infrasound”–sound waves lower than 20 Hertz–to incapacitate crowds. The human ear can detect sound waves between 20-20,000 Hertz, but infrasound is experienced as a series of vibrations that can debilitate people for hours and even days. When targeted by infrasound, people experience pulsing in their internal organs and blurred vision, both of which can lead to panic and, in rare cases, death (BBC.com, October 9).
Only new to humans? Elephants are known to use infrasound to communicate over long distances.
Though using infrasound could be tricky–massive amplitudes would be required to make the sound waves effective–it is possible that this technology could be the future of crowd control or even personal protection.
In Brief
If you are lucky enough to use Apple Computer's Mac “OS X” operating system, then a company called ExittoShell can put a “Homeland Security Alert” icon on your menu bar. The software “checks continuously for changes in the status of homeland security and updates the display [level/color] as needed.”
German federal police have been bugging thousands of people in an effort to catch suspected criminals and terrorists (London Daily Telegraph, November 1, 2002). But about 50 of those being bugged became suspicious in September when their mobile phone bills included charges for phone-tapping–and an itemized list of calls made to locations where recording devices were monitoring their mobile phone conversations.
In celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the “liberation” of Grenada by the Reagan administration, Oliver North's “Freedom Alliance” and the National Rifle Association have organized a Caribbean cruise scheduled for March 1-8, 2003. Younger Americans may not recall that “Operation Urgent Fury” defeated alleged Soviet aggression on small, nutmeg-exporting islands, and was the first of several skirmishes said to have erased the unfortunate legacy of Vietnam. As Mother Jones's Alastair Paulin wrote in the October 2002 issue, Grenadans should “beware of nostalgic Cold Warriors armed with camcorders and fruity cocktails.”
The November 4, 2002 issue of Business Week points out that Air Force One, the president's plane, was designed to withstand a nuclear attack, not to videoconference or monitor cable news–a problem that became painfully apparent on September 11. On that date, according to the head of Strategic Command, Bush “couldn't even watch CNN.” Not to worry, though: Two of the four presidential planes have now been upgraded, with all four scheduled to be refurbished at a cost of some $50 million. And as for CNN, forget it. The president prefers to use his in-flight time to exercise on the presidential treadmill.
The state of Nevada has been handed a new opportunity to challenge the federal government's decision to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. According to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the Energy Department had 90 days after the president's formal selection of a waste site to apply for a license for the facility. But October 21, 2002–exactly 90 days after President George W. Bush signed the Senate's resolution–came and went without a peep from Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, or any evidence of a forthcoming license application. When Nevada legislators asked Abraham why, the secretary declared that the 90-day rule was merely a “guideline,” and that the government would file an application in December 2004. The state will challenge the late filing when the application comes before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Ten years ago, the village cooperative in Ternopillya in western Ukraine bought a used Soviet tank for a third of the price of a tractor, removed the armaments, and installed a plow (BBC, October 19, 2002). A nearby tank factory provides spare parts when needed. Impressed by the villagers' efforts, Ukraine's Defense Ministry persuaded the tank factory to convert to producing agricultural equipment. But after remodeling some 50 tanks, the “tractor works” has attracted few buyers. Apparently the tank-tractors are anything but fuel efficient.
Dana Milbank's October 22, 2002 story in the Washington Post suggested that President Bush's “facts” on Iraq's nuclear weapons were, well, “malleable.” One example Milbank cited was the president's quotation of a non-existent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to the effect that Iraq was six months away from constructing a nuclear bomb. Two days later, presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer responded that the president was citing a report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, not the IAEA. “The source may be different,” Fleischer wrote, “but the underlying fact remains the same.” But as letter writer William Murphy noted three days later, the report now claimed to be the president's source “was released September 9, two days after President Bush made his statement.” (The president's new source did not say Iraq was six months away from developing a nuclear weapon, either.)
The 1937 “rape of Nanking” involved the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers. An exhibit in the new military museum in Tokyo, Japan, though, offers a different slant on what it calls an “incident”: “Chinese troops were soundly defeated, suffering heavy casualties. Inside the city, residents were once again able to live their lives in peace” (New York Times, October 30, 2002.)
Infrasound may also influence more esoteric human emotions. Eerily enough, low-frequency sound waves (in lower doses than the military is playing with) have been detected in houses thought to be haunted. These less intense vibrations are felt by only a small percentage of the population, but those who do feel them often describe fear and panic–just the ticket when you're trying to disperse a crowd.
The presence of infrasound might also explain the feelings of awe and euphoria that some people experience in church, where pipe organs can produce not only celestial harmonies but also low frequencies that are felt instead of heard.
Infrasonic technology can also eliminate false alarms when monitoring for nuclear tests. A meteor, for example, may strike the earth with a force equal to a nuclear detonation, but with different low-frequency rumblings.
Anthony Mazzocchi
On October 7, 2002, Anthony Mazzocchi, founder of the fledgling Labor Party and for decades one of the country's leading union organizers, died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Washington. He was 76.
Mazzocchi was well known for his work with Karen Silkwood, a rep of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW) at the Kerr-McGee plutonium fuels production plant in Crescent, Oklahoma, whose suspicious death in a car accident in 1974 inspired the 1983 movie Silkwood. Mazzocchi aided Silk-wood in her efforts to expose Kerr-McGee's falsification of quality control data on its plutonium fuel rods.
Mazzocchi was a pioneer in the movement to establish worker health and safety regulations and played a central role in an array of ground-breaking initiatives, including a successful 1954 organizing drive to set up the country's first dental insurance plan, efforts to expose the dangers posed by workplace exposure to toxic chemicals, and a successful bid to secure equal pay for equal work for women at the Helena Rubenstein cosmetics factory in Long Island, New York.
In 1982, Ms. magazine included Mazzocchi in its list of the “40 Male Heroes of the Decade” for uncovering the forced sterilization of women working in toxic environments at American Cyanamid. He was also credited, along with Ralph Nader, for helping to bring about the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970.
Said Richard Miller, a former lobbyist for OCAW who worked under Mazzocchi:
“You know how they say that we walk on the shoulders of giants–well, Tony was one of those giants.”
Mazzocchi was also a bit of a renegade, breaking the union mold by reaching out to environmentalists, artists, and scientists in the anti-nuclear movement, and speaking out against labor's close ties to the Democratic Party–a position that ultimately led him to form the Labor Party in 1996. “The bosses have two parties,” he used to say. “We need one of our own. “
In May 1967, the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy held hearings on exposure standards at uranium mines. Despite evidence that Navajo miners were contracting lung cancer at an alarming rate, the Public Health Service neglected to include them in its report to the committee. In his 1994 book, If You Poison Us: Uranium and Native Americas, Peter Eichstaedt wrote: “While the medical studies conducted by the Public Health Service followed the usual practice of separating the data by race, the medical evidence presented to the committee was for white miners only.”
Although Navajo miners were not unionized at the time, Mazzocchi, then the legislative director for OCAW, spoke on their behalf in his testimony before the committee:
“How many dead miners justify the lack of ventilating equipment? How many families must be broken before this industry takes steps to eliminate the hazard?” asked Mazzocchi. “I say if a Navajo Indian breathes radon gas in the mines, he is injured just as much as a white man…. Do we establish industry solely for the benefit of those who would make a profit and … [accept] the unnecessary loss of human lives so that some bookkeeper can add a few more pennies to the profit side of the ledger?”
We're grateful
The Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science would like to thank the following foundations for their generous financial support in 2002:
The Ford Foundation
Carol E. Khoury Trust
Leighty Foundation
Levin Charitable Trust
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
The New-Land Foundation
Ploughshares Fund
Prospect Hill Foundation
W. Alton Jones Foundation
Samuel Rubin Foundation
Stewart Mott Charitable Trust