Activists push Y2K nuclear pause
Date: 17-Sep-99
Country: USA
Author: Jim Wolf
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 on 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 U.S.
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 industrialised 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 taki
