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Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear fission of uranium and plutonium in nuclear power plants. Nuclear decay processes are used in niche applications such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators in some space probes such as Voyager 2. Generating electricity from fusion power remains the focus of international research.
Helen Mary Caldicott is an Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate. She founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of nuclear power, depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, and military action in general.
The Campaign Against Nuclear Energy (CANE) was established in Perth, Western Australia on 14 February 1976 by Friends of the Earth (FOE). It included Peter Brotherton, John Carlin, Mike Thomas and Barrie Machin. CANE was a non-profit grass roots organisation whose aim was to stop the establishment of a nuclear power plant in Western Australia (WA) and to halt uranium mining. The organisation operated out of the Environment Centre in Wellington Street, Perth. The Whitlam Federal government in 1974 had dedicated about A$7,000 per state to set up Regional Environment Centres. Perth's Environment Centre housed other groups including the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Conservation Council of Western Australia, Friends of the Earth, and the Campaign to Save Native Forests. A CANE group was also established in Adelaide, South Australia.
Kevin Buzzacott, often referred to as Uncle Kev as an Aboriginal elder, is an Indigenous Australian from the Arabunna nation in northern South Australia. He has campaigned widely for cultural recognition, justice and land rights for Aboriginal people, and has initiated and led numerous campaigns including against uranium mining at Olympic Dam, South Australia on Kokatha land, and the exploitation of the water from the Great Artesian Basin.
Gordon Edwards is a Canadian scientist and nuclear consultant. Edwards was born in Canada in 1940, and graduated from the University of Toronto in 1961 with a gold medal in Mathematics and Physics and a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. At the University of Chicago he obtained two master's degrees, one in Mathematics (1962) and one in English Literature (1964). In 1972, he obtained a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Queen's University.
Professor Siegwart Horst Günther was a German physician and activist. He once worked with Albert Schweitzer in Africa. He was a prominent proponent of the disputed claim that the use of depleted uranium in munitions causes cancers, birth defects and other pathologies. In 2007 the Nuclear-Free Future Award honored for the third time Prof. Günther for refusing to back down to pressure and for visiting Iraq to study the real-life consequences of depleted uranium use.
Maisie Shiell (1916–2008) became involved in anti-nuclear issues in 1976 when public concern developed about a new uranium mine in Saskatchewan. At sixty-one years of age, Shiell began learning how to translate highly technical issues about radioactivity into something she could understand and pass along to other lay people.
Edward Bernard Grothus was an American machinist and technician at the Los Alamos National Laboratory during the 1950s and 1960s. In later life he became the owner of a surplus store which he used as a base for peace and anti-nuclear activism.
Nuclear weapons testing, uranium mining and export, and nuclear power have often been the subject of public debate in Australia, and the anti-nuclear movement in Australia has a long history. Its origins date back to the 1972–73 debate over French nuclear testing in the Pacific and the 1976–77 debate about uranium mining in Australia.
Yvonne Margarula is an Aboriginal Australian environmentalist who won the 1998 Friends of the Earth International Environment Award and the 1998 Nuclear-Free Future Award. She also won the 1999 US Goldman Environmental Prize, with Jacqui Katona, in recognition of efforts to protect their country and culture against uranium mining.
Since 1998 the Nuclear-Free Future Award (NFFA) is an award given to anti-nuclear activists, organizations and communities. The award is intended to promote opposition to uranium mining, nuclear weapons and nuclear power.
The Chinese Nuclear Society is a non-profit organization representing individuals contributing to and supporting nuclear science, nuclear technology and nuclear engineering in China.
The uranium mining debate covers the political and environmental controversies of the mining of uranium for use in either nuclear power or nuclear weapons.
In Argentina, about 10% of the electricity comes from 3 operational nuclear reactors: The Embalse Nuclear Power Station, a CANDU reactor, and the Atucha 1 plant in 1974, a PHWR German design. In 2001, the plant was modified to burn Slightly Enriched Uranium, making it the first PHWR reactor to burn that fuel worldwide. Atucha was originally planned to be a complex with various reactors. Atucha 2 began to produce energy on June 3, 2014, and it is expected to produce 745MWh. Plans for Atucha III, a third reactor in the Atucha complex, have been announced.
Strahlendes Klima e.V is a registered non-profit organization that produces films and media focusing on the issues of energy and resources for an environmentally friendly, more climate conscious world. Their main concept is to build a decentralised activist network in order to distribute topical content in terms of open licence publications. By offering free educational media they aim to raise awareness for environmental conservation.
Thorium-based nuclear power generation is fueled primarily by the nuclear fission of the isotope uranium-233 produced from the fertile element thorium. A thorium fuel cycle can offer several potential advantages over a uranium fuel cycle—including the much greater abundance of thorium found on Earth, superior physical and nuclear fuel properties, and reduced nuclear waste production. One advantage of thorium fuel is its low weaponization potential; it is difficult to weaponize the uranium-233/232 and plutonium-238 isotopes that are largely consumed in thorium reactors.
Katsumi Furitsu has a doctorate in medical genetics and radiation biology from Japan's Osaka University and currently works in the genetics department of the Hyogo College of Medicine. She became involved in peace and anti-nuclear movement activities as a student in 1980, helping radiation victims. From 1986 to 2000, Furitsu was a member of the "Investigation committee of A-bomb survivors" at Osaka's Hannan Chuo Hospital. She visits the Chernobyl disaster area every year and is a founder of Osaka's "Chernobyl Relief Group of Kansai". In 1992, Katsumi Furitsu attended the "World Uranium Hearing" in Salzburg. In 1996, she testified to the Permanent People’s Tribunal, Chernobyl Session in Vienna. Since 2004 Furitsu has been a member of the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons.
The World Uranium Hearing was held in Salzburg, Austria in September 1992. Anti-nuclear speakers from all continents, including indigenous speakers and scientists, testified to the health and environmental problems of uranium mining and processing, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, nuclear tests, and radioactive waste disposal.
Scientists against Nuclear Arms (SANA) was formed in 1981 by the physicist and peace activist Mike Pentz together with Steven Rose, both academics at the Open University, to oppose nuclear arms.
