Walt Patterson On Nuclear Energy

Born in Canada in 1936, I came to the UK in 1960, married my English wife Cleone in 1966 and have been here ever since. Trained as a nuclear physicist, I have spent my life teaching, writing and troublemaking.

My first published byline appeared in June 1970, on an article about radioactive waste. Nuclear issues thereafter took up two decades of my life. Four books, countless articles, speeches, letters and testimony rehearsed and refined the analysis. By the beginning of the 1990s I thought that rational argument and cumulative confirmation of our skeptical prognoses had finally carried the day. I was overjoyed to move on to less troubling, more positive topics.

Alas, nuclear proponents have now found a new generation of the gullible. The claims of the proponents, nevertheless, have long since been tested and found wanting. Those interested can find ample historical evidence on this website, and yet more in the Patterson Nuclear Collection.

Beginning in the 1960s I collected popular and semi-popular books on nuclear energy for more than three decades, eventually acquiring some 500 titles. I also accumulated many nuclear ephemera - brochures, posters, pamphlets, badges and other material - from nuclear issues and campaigns around the world. I was delighted when the Science Museum/Imperial College Library in London agreed to accept my collection and keep it together as what must be a unique historical resource.

If you wish to consult the Patterson Nuclear Collection, you can email
smlinfo@nmsi.ac.uk
or telephone +44 (0) 20 7942 4242.

Walt Patterson
Associate Fellow Chatham House
Little Rushmoor
High Bois Lane
Chesham Bois
Amersham Bucks HP66DQ UK
Tel +44 (0) 1494 726748
Mobile +44 (0) 7971 840036
walt@waltpatterson.org

Keeping The Lights On available from Brookings in the USA

Green Nuclear Butterfly's Attendance at Clearwater Festival Elicits Anonymous Death Threat on Blog This Morning

The same person, or groups of persons who have lobbed up onto the internet various and assorted meanspirited hate filled blogs against Green Nuclear Butterfly and its publisher seem to have esculated their campaign of intimidation against us. As many of our readers know, Sherwood Martinelli (that would be me) of Green Nuclear Butterfly was at the Clearwater Festival this past weekend collecting signatures on a very crucial Petition for Rulemaking that will be sent out to the NRC this week.

This morning, checking my email I was at first pleased to see someone had left a comment on our blog...I was far from pleased to open said comment, and find therein a death threat. If Entergy, Indian Point their employees and supporters do not like our anti nuclear positions, they should step forward from out of the shadows and debate us on the issue. Stooping to threats, intimidation, outing of personal information, and now death threats is not positive discourse.

I write about this, as I see a troubling escalation in these threats and intimidation that I recognize from my previous activists activities regarding another NRC licensee and their unionized work force. I've been run off the road returning home from a meeting, and trust me it is not an experince any one should have to endure. I share this incident with our readers for one reason...even though we have good reason to believe that these threats are coming from a nuclear insider, the NRC could care less. Even though they are charged with protecting human health and safety in a stakeholder community, they have no mechanisms to investigate when the Pro-Nuclear side (possibly even licensee employees) decides to use threats of bodily harm and intimidation against stakeholders who oppose the continued operation of a failing nuclear facility.

At the Annual Assessment meeting in April, when union workers associated with Indian Point were brought in by the droves to all but block the entrance to the meeting, intimidate members of the public by the shear force of their numbers, the NRC did nothing to clear them away from the entrance to the building. You can bet, that if 1000 anti nuclear stakeholders all showed up in similiar numbers something would have been done to disperse us. Even more disturbing...these people who showed up, who voiced quiet threats, who deliberately took up positions on the steps leading into the building were ordered to be there, were paid for their presense at the meeting.

These same Union Members had no problems in wanting/demanding cans of the free Energy Drink (Radioactive Energy) that Green Nuclear Butterfly was handing out at the meeting, but when they realized one of our members had snapped pictures of them for publication in our blog, they not so subtly let us know we had not best publish them, as they would find us. Unfortunately, their threats and intimidation worked, as the person who snapped the pictures, worried about personal safety decided not to put them up on our blog, or anywhere else. Oh well, lesson learned, next time I'll bring my own camera.

Speaking of cameras...anyone from the Anti Nuclear movement want to volunteer to film next Week's NRC meeting on relicensing? As we know, the NRC deliberately does not record or document these meetings, so that anything they say or admit cannot be used against them...IE, in the last public meeting, Sam Collins of the NRC stated very clearly that in the case of a fast moving incident at Indian Point, evacuation will not work...we should have had video footage of that comment upon on YouTube hours after the meeting.

Yucca Mountain On NRC Agenda

Yucca Mountain, and Nuclear Waste Streams, and how the NRC (does not) deal with them is on the agenda. If you have some time, register for the telephone conference to keep them honest. Click the notice to see full sized.