September 16, 1999

Activists Push Y2k Nuclear Pause

Filed at 5:22 p.m. EDT

By Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Environmentalists and arms control activists call it a modest proposal -- a kind of Year 2000 insurance policy for the world.

Power down the 433 nuclear reactors worldwide. De-alert the 5,000 nuclear-tipped missiles that the United States and Russia keep on hair-trigger status.

In a word, observe a year-end, 48-hour atomic ``holiday'' to avoid the remote possibility of nuclear disaster during the technology-challenging year 2000 rollover.

``It could be a matter of life and death,'' said Yumi Kikuchi, coordinator of a growing international grassroots campaign for a ``World Atomic Safety Holiday, or Y2K WASH.

Speaking at a news conference Thursday, Kikuchi and fellow activists ticked off reasons for a ``managed phase-down'' of reactors to standby, to be completed by Dec. 30.

``Rather than risk potentially catastrophic malfunctions with nuclear weapons and at nuclear facilities because of the Y2K problem, just give them the weekend off,'' said Michael Mariotte, executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a watchdog group in Washington.

``It's a no-brainer,'' added John Steinbach, co-author of Deadly Nuclear Radiation Hazards USA. ``It's like insurance.''

The movement for a year-end pause in atomic business as usual began in Japan, where 52 highly automated nuclear reactors dot a landscape the size of California.

Kikuchi, a 37-year-old concert flutist and mother of two, said petition drives were getting under way in Japan and the 30-odd other countries with nuclear power infrastructure.

Backers of the move argue that the United States should lead the way not because it is particularly vulnerable to Y2K-related disruptions of its 103 reactors, but because it would set a precedent for countries that are.

``Ukraine, Russia, Japan, China, India -- these are all countries that may face severe Y2K difficulties,'' said Mariotte, who faults the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Y2K readiness standards for plant operators here.

Kikuchi and a fellow Tokyo-based activist, Gen Morita, were given a chance to deliver their message Thursday afternoon to staff members of the special Senate Committee on the Y2K glitch.

``It's an initial meeting. We'll hear what they have to say,'' said Don Meyer, a spokesman for the bipartisan panel headed by Utah Republican Robert Bennett and Connecticut Democrat Christopher Dodd.

Meyer said the committee was concerned about nuclear safety during the century change, when the Y2K coding glitch could cause ill-prepared computers to crash.

But he said the panel was wary of any group using Y2K fears to push an unrelated agenda such as anti-nuclear power or nuclear disarmament, which fall outside its mandate.

The nuclear holiday campaigners say reactors are at risk because they typically depend on offsite power to run their safety systems. The State Department said Tuesday that Russia and Ukraine were among countries whose power grids could be knocked out by the Y2K glitch.

In one of 196 updated consular information sheets designed to alert U.S. travelers of risks, the State Department said Ukraine, home of the world's worst nuclear reactor accident in 1986 at Chernobyl, seems ``unprepared to deal with the Y2K problem.''

The British Foreign Office, in its Y2K advisories Tuesday, advised against all ``nonessential travel'' to Ukraine over the new year and early January ``until the situation becomes clearer.''

Next week, Kikuchi and fellow activists are taking their campaign to Berlin, where the G-8 industrialized powers will meet to discuss Y2K contingency planning.

She is prepared with an answer to any suggestion that Ukraine, Russia or any other country is too dependent on nuclear power to switch it off during the rollover.

``Which is better?,'' she says, ``to have radioactivity all over the place -- or to be freezing for a day. You have a choice.''

The United States and Russia agreed Monday to jointly staff a temporary military post in Colorado to watch for any Y2K-related false-missile alarms. But no move was announced toward taking missiles off hair-trigger alert.

The shared Center for Strategic Stability and Y2K ``will reduce the chance that a turn-of-the-millennium computer error will create an end-of-the-year security incident,'' Defense Secretary William Cohen said.

Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company

-- PH (ag3@interlog.com), September 16, 1999

Answers

Just noticed this one two threads down. Delete please.

-- PH (ag3@interlog.com), September 16, 1999.

At first I read your headline as "Japanese mom-flutist proposes y2k nude stand-down," and thought that was a REALLY GREAT idea!

Of course, a nuke stand down ain't gonna happen, so don't hold yer breath.

-- (dot@dot.dot), September 16, 1999.

LOL.

-- PH (ag3@interlog.com), September 16, 1999.

I am marrying a German woman, and to this day the Germans have the decency to hang their collective heads in shame over what some...far from all..of them did in 1933-1945. They can never, but never, make up for what some of them did, while far too many sheeple stood by (sound familiar?).We hear, rightfully so, about the horrors some of the Germans perpetrated; seldom do we hear about the youths of the White Rose, executed for speaking out, or seldom are we reminded of the MANY plots and attempts against Hitler. how ever pathetic, at least they have made some reparations. Yet we feel obliged to listen to the self-righteous prattlings of the Japanes, who have yet to fully remove their heads from the sand about Nanking... Bataan...the butchery conducted in China after the Doolittle raid, and let's not forget the airmen they killed!...Manila...the comfort women...and I will NEVER forget seeing a program as a little kid, I think it was "Victory at Sea", showing Japanese soldiers burying Chines civilians...ALIVE! But every August we listen to the shit these people turn out about how terrible it was that we nuked two of their cities. And probably saved 250,000 of our young men, and who knows how many of their young men...and women...and children. Every time I hear about their anti-nuclear posture it makes me sick. By the way we never hear about the Gulag and Stalin either... For what it may be worth, at the Bulge, my dad was one of those rear-echelon guys who found himself in the Infantry and lost half his leg...VERTICALLY! And I became a soldier in part because of my early memories of the Eichmann trial. Sorry for the rant, folks, we all have triggers and this is one of mine.

-- Mr. Mike (mikeabn@aol.com), September 16, 1999.

I agree. It ain't gonna happen. Am I concerned that there will be a problem? Yep. Very concerned, especially about the Russian, Ukranian, French, and similar reactors. I'd be less concerned if the Russians weren't claiming that they will be OK because they use "Western computers."

I'm not at all sure that there is really a (mere) 48 hour stand-down of a commercial nuclear reactor. Planned shutdown would take a while (probably a couple of weeks), and the warm start could take even more time. The key question is how much reserve capacity exists...and would pulling down the 433 reactors bring us below 100% of requirments?

Am I surprised that the greens continue to push for shutting down reactors and destroying the nuclear weapons? No, that's their agenda. They'd be demanding the same actions without Y2K.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), September 16, 1999.

My personal physician growing up was the #1 Pediatrician and #2 geneticist on the US Gov't study of H and N in 1950-1952. His comments, when we could get him to talk, were that the results of the bombing were NOWHERE NEAR what a LOT of people would have you believe. Point 1 is that in 1950 (ONLY 5 years later) the cities were pretty much rebuilt, with apropriate memorials. "Permanently uninhabitable" lasted only about 4-6 years. Point 2 is that, though he and his wife spent over a year in the areas, he just died a couple years ago and his wife is going like a freight train even now.

Chuck who likes fiction as much as the next person but likes reality even more

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), September 16, 1999.