The Nude in Activism at NUDE Magazine

Carrie Leigh & Gary Frischer, of NUDE magazine, the most successful art nude title to hit American newsstands in a long time, selling out both its first and second issue, are preparing quite a surprise for you online.

Carrie & Gary have been Native American rights activists for many years, combining their art with their convinctions. This is how we came to connect.

A couple of months ago, I introduced them to John LeKay, editor and founder of Heyoka magazine. John is also director of the Silkwood Project. John interviewed Carrie Leigh for his website, along with the most popular art nude model in the world, May Lindstrom. In the same issue, he talked to green super model Summer Rayne Oakes and FUSE USA founder/director Sherwood Martinelli. All oppose the relicencing of the Indian Point nuclear power plant on the Hudson river.

Gary Frischer and I came to talk about how the nude has been used throughout history to make a point, attract attention to political issues. The most recent use of the naked form to make a social statement is of course PeTA. The nude I shot of Isabel Vinson last year in front of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant landed Isabel on the cover of the Brattleboro Reformer.

This has been going on for eons... Lady Godiva rode a horse naked through the streets of Coventry, taking pity on the suffering caused by her husband's oppressive taxation. Her actions were victorious. Her husband abolished the onerous taxes.

In 1958, Helen Caldicott, the doyenne of the anti-nuclear movement, disrobed with 50 others and marched through San Francisco chanting "Nudes, not nukes!" This has since inspired hundreds such Naked For Peace demonstrations around the world. Every year, thousands of nudes cyclists ride through the streets of major cities to bring attention to biker rights.

It's in this spirit that the editors of Nude magazine have decided to create a dedicated section on their website to celebrate the nude in activism. They are asking photographers and models who want to contribute work to contact them.

Image of collapsed sheet metal Entergy would like to see disappear

(OK, so I cheat a bit... We've all seen that collapse cooling tower so often, I decided to throw in something a little different, yet still relevant. There's a law in Vermont where you can be naked in a public place, as long as you're not partaking in lude or offensive behavior. Just a few days ago PeTA took full advantage of that opportunity, perhaps inspired by Isabel Vinson making the cover of the Brattleboro Reformer a few months ago bearing all for the cause of shutting down Vermont Yankee. They organized their action right across the street from our friends at Save The Corporations. Store manager Ian Kiehle offered models Meggan Anderson and Ali Cayer some hemp clothing if they needed it... We here, at Green Nuclear Butterfly applaud PeTA for their efforts, and can't wait to organize a joint action... How about it PeTA? Animals are sick of radiation too! Click here for the video. RemyC.)

Sanders is right on VY
Reformer.com

Friday, October 5

The image of collapsed sheet metal, splintered wood and water cascading from a huge broken pipe is one that Entergy Nuclear would like to see disappear.

But that image, taken after the collapse of a 50-foot cooling tower at Vermont Yankee on Aug. 21, was blown up to poster size and displayed at Wednesday's hearing of the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change and Nuclear Energy.

Entergy is trying to make the case to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the cooling tower collapse, and an emergency shutdown of the plant caused by a stuck steam valve on Aug. 30, have no bearing on Vermont Yankee's safety and should not be taken into account when the NRC considers extending the nuclear plant's license past 2012.

All one has to do is look at that image of water gushing onto a pile of debris, and Entergy's argument falls apart. That has not stopped Entergy from trying to convince everyone that the 35-year-old reactor is perfectly safe and should be allowed to run until at least 2032.

Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., showed NRC Chairman Dale Klein the image of the cooling tower collapse and asked, "If you were living in southern Vermont, or New Hampshire, or northern Massachusetts, would you have confidence in the NRC after this series of events?"

"I would hope they have confidence in the NRC," Klein said.

"They don't," replied Sanders. "How can you look at that photograph and say you're not concerned?"

Because of the very real feeling that the NRC functions as a rubber stamp for the nuclear industry, Sanders has introduced legislation that would give states the right to ask for independent safety assessments at all of the nation's nuclear reactors.

The NRC has dismissed this idea, saying that its oversight is superior to any independent safety assessment. Given the track record of the NRC and its well-documented laxity in enforcement of the rules, we would put our trust in an outsider's inspection.

While the NRC is apparently seeking more information about the cooling tower collapse, as well as the inspection records for the towers, we would bet that Entergy will receive a slap of the wrist, a moderate fine, a brief period of increased NRC oversight and permission to keep the reactor open for another 20 years.

Vermont Yankee has functioned safely for 35 years. Its employees have worked hard to keep it functioning safely. But there comes a point where aging machinery becomes too expensive to fix.

That's why Maine Yankee in Wiscasset, Maine, and Yankee Rowe in Rowe, Mass., both were shut down. The cost of upgrading and maintaining the reactors cost more than the value of the electricity they produced.

The economic equation for keeping Vermont Yankee open hasn't yet shifted in that direction. Entergy is making a nice profit running the reactor in Vernon. When the day comes that it is no longer profitable, they will shut it down.

The question we have is, what will be the circumstances that prompt it and who will be stuck with the bill? We frankly do not trust Entergy nor the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to make decisions with the safety of this region in mind.

Is Vermont Yankee safe? Let's bring in people without ties to the NRC and Entergy to look at the plant objectively and give us an answer.

Close-up of Vermont Yankee cooling tower collapse

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Investigation begins at VY
By BOB AUDETTE, Reformer Staff
Brattleboro Reformer
http://www.reformer.com/headlines/ci_6716785
Saturday, August 25

BRATTLEBORO -- Hard-hatted workers clambered over and around the wreckage that used to be the wall of one of Vermont Yankee's external cooling fans Friday, looking for clues as to why the structure gave way.

Tuesday afternoon, the plant had to ratchet back on its power output after the wall gave way, spilling plastic slats, asbestos panels and wood beams onto the ground between the two banks of 11 cooling fans each.

Normally, a visitor to the site would see water vapor rising from the cowling around each of the 22 huge fans and hear them spinning, sucking heat from the water and moving it into the atmosphere.

A visitor would also hear the more than 350,000 gallons of water a minute that flow through the system, falling through thousands of plastic slats to cool the water before returning it to reactor, where it is used to cool and convert steam produced by the reactor back into water.

Near the top of the cooling tower, a 52-inch pipe that runs along a platform abruptly ends where a section of the pipe fell to the ground during the collapse. The pipe carried the water from the plant and distributed it to the 11 fans in the bank creating what John Dreyfuss, director of nuclear safety assurance at Vermont Yankee, called "a little rainstorm inside there."

But on Friday, the fans were turned off. With the reactor running at 50 percent its thermal output is reduced, so the cooling towers are not needed. Though its power output has fluctuated since the failure, it is producing on average about 265MWe.

Over the next few days, workers will go through the tangle of debris piece by piece, trying to find the reason for the failure.

"Not the kind of equipment performance to expect," said Dreyfuss. "As we remove timbers, we'll also be performing our investigation to find out what happened," a process he called "very deliberative."

Operators will not crank the plant back up to full power until workers can confirm the structure of the cooling fans is sound, he said.

Prior to the wall failure, technicians had shut down the fan because employees had reported hearing noises coming from it, which they were unable to reproduce.

"There was no evidence of structural issues (at that time)," said Dreyfuss.

As for the debris that collapsed out from the wall, "most the material you see is cosmetic," he said.

On hand to assist in the investigation were state inspectors, two resident inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and officials from the state's Office of Homeland Security.

Dreyfuss said homeland security had determined the failure wasn't caused by sabotage, and discounted the notion that it was related to ongoing contract negotiations between Entergy, the owners of the power plant, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents 157 workers there.

"We've ruled that out as well," he said.

Entergy recently received permission to increase Vermont Yankee's power output by 20 percent, from 540MWe to 650MWe, but Dreyfuss said there was nothing to indicate the power uprate had anything to do with the failure.

But not everyone is convinced.

"Did increased water flow rate through the cooling towers, or higher cooling tower fan turning rates, cause the collapse?" asked David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, in an e-mail to the media. "If so, why didn't the company's and the NRC's pre-uprate reviews identify this threat and prevent it from happening?"

If they did miss the problem, he wrote, "what other misses have not yet revealed themselves?"

Nuclear reactors such as that at Vermont Yankee are 33 percent efficient, wrote Lochbaum.

"While the reactor core may produce three units of energy, only one unit of electricity is generated," he wrote. "The remaining two units of energy must be discharged to the environment as waste heat. Nuclear plants rely on large amounts of water to carry away this waste heat."

Vermont Yankee has a single-unit boiling water reactor that had a maximum reactor core power level output of 1593 Megawatts thermal before its uprate approval. At 120 percent, the plant produces 1912MWt.

Plant cooling is provided by either an open-cycle system, a closed-cycle system or a hybrid of the two. How the plant cools depends on various factors, including river and air temperatures, but its cooling systems are meant to minimize its impact on the river.

When the plant uses its closed-cycle system, the cooling towers dissipate heat to the atmosphere. When cooling towers are used, water from the river is used to replace vapor blown out by the fans. Most of the rest of the water is sent back to the plant's main condenser, thousands of metal tubes that carry cooling water which are used to cool steam from plant turbines and convert it back into water. That water is sent back to the reactor to produce more steam, and the water in the condenser is sent back to the towers for cooling.

In the open-cycle mode, no water passes through the cooling towers. Water is taken from the river and discharged south of the facility.

Bob Audette can be reached at raudette@reformer.com or 802-254-2311, ext. 273.

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Isabel Vinson contributed to http://www.theenvironmentals.com/ last year. Her nude picture in front of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant ended up on the cover of the region's largest newspaper, The Brattleboro Reformer... I didn't know until a few minutes ago that she followed it up with a radio interview... where she shines, as usual!
http://www.ewiseradiotools.com/station_files/file_1177666610__.mp3

She has it blogged at: "radio interview oooh"
http://www.myspace.com/isabelv

Model Isabel Vinson Makes Cover of Brattleboro Reformer

Former local model bares it all for anti-nuclear cause
By BOB AUDETTE,
Reformer Staff

Tuesday, April 17
BRATTLEBORO --

She's bared it all for her art. Now Isabel Vinson is taking her clothes off to draw America's attention to a nuclear power plant, Vermont Yankee in Vernon, which has been operating since 1972 and is up for license renewal.

"There's no need for it anymore," said Vinson, a model and former Brattleboro resident who recently moved to Ware, Mass. She modeled sans clothes on the Hinsdale, N.H., side of the river because it's one way to make people pay attention to the issues related to nuclear power, she said.

"It doesn't matter who is in the picture," said Vinson. "They should just shut down the plant."

Living in Brattleboro for seven years made it impossible for her to ignore the dangers of nuclear energy.

"If anything happens, we're all gone," she said.

Vinson's picture isn't the only one of its type that can be found on the Internet, and much of it is due to the efforts of her photographer, anti-nuclear activist Remy Chevalier, who has started an online photo contest.

Winners will have their work showcased in major fashion, environmental and political magazines, both online and in print, said Chevalier, and a chance to exhibit at the Festival de la Photo de Mode in Cannes. There is only one requirement for the contest -- photographers have to use real nuclear power plants as a backdrop.

Chevalier and Vinson took their pictures from Hinsdale, sneaking around, said Vinson, to keep from getting into trouble with the law.

But they needn't have worried, said a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who said as long as they didn't take pictures of security measures in place at Yankee, they aren't breaking any laws.

"After Sept. 11, there was a lot of sensitivity about nuclear power plants," said Neil Sheehan, referring to the November 2001 arrest of Reformer photographer Jason Henske who was arrested after taking photos of Vermont Yankee. He was quickly released and no charges were filed.

"Since then, the hyper-sensitivity has eased off," said Sheehan. "There are no restrictions on someone taking a photograph using a nuclear power plant as a backdrop."

A spokesman for Entergy, which owns and operates Vermont Yankee, had no comment on the nude photographs.

For one photographer, who described himself as neither pro- nor anti-nuclear, submitting his photo to Chevalier was another way of getting his product out to a wider market.

"I do fashion photography," said Kim Taylor. During a photo shoot using clothing styles reminiscent of the 1940s, Taylor asked his models to stand in front of the Pickering nuclear power plant in Ontario, Canada.

Taylor said he found it interesting that both those for and those against nuclear power might use his photo subjects as "pin-up girls," and in calendars similar to those that hang in repair and machine shops around the country, full of scantily-clad models.

"Doesn't bother me at all," he said.

Chevalier started the photo project about nine months ago, and interest has been building ever since through word of mouth.

If he gets enough submissions -- and why not? There are 103 operating nuclear power plants in the United States -- he hopes to print a calendar or publish a book of the photos.

"Right now we are doing a calendar with electric vehicles," said Chevalier, who admitted he had about a thousand irons in the fire at any given time. But high on his priority list is getting Indian Point nuclear power plant shut down. He lives east of the plant on the Hudson River, in Wilton, Conn.

The intent, he said, of taking pictures of models at nuclear power plants "is to draw attention to these issues."

"People did not know about nuclear power are paying attention because of a pretty girl from Brattleboro," he said. "Never underestimate the power of a model."

Chevalier has also taken pictures of a model with Indian Point in the background.

"Remy has always felt the fashion community ought to become more conscious about their ability to contribute to this discussion," said Larry Bloch of Brattleboro, a long-time friend of Chevalier's.

Though protesting nuclear power is serious business, said Bloch, "there's no incompatibility between fun and activism." If seeing a nude model posing in front of nuclear power plant gets people talking, he said, then it's all for the good.

"There's a lack of education on a very serious subject," he said.

"That's really charming," said Deb Katz, of the anti-nuclear group Citizen Awareness Network.

"I appreciate whatever actions that get people involved."

While she felt some might be offended by the picture of a nude woman in front of Yankee, she agreed with Bloch that poking fun at their subject, and even themselves, is important for anti-nuclear activists.

"Hijinks are just as important as legal action," she said. "It's going to take different things to wake people up to the fact that we have to close the plant."

Trackback:
www.reformer.com/ci_5684015

For more photos from the project go to:
www.theenvironmentals.com