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INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR A SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FUTURE: CONFRONTING NUCLEAR POWER WITH PEOPLE POWER PRESS RELEASE
Michael Mariotte, NIRS Anti-Nuclear Activists Deliver "Opening" Message to Exelon: Yorkville, IL— With the opening of the new Exelon corporate offices as the backdrop, safe-energy and anti-nuclear activists from 11 countries converged on the new corporate headquarters in Warrenville, IL to deliver a message about the future of nuclear power. "No more new reactors, no more radioactive wastes, no more weapons proliferation or construction, no more fake and broken promises about efficiency and renewable energy. No more, no way!" challenged Michael Mariotte from Nuclear Information and Resource Service of Washington, D.C. The demonstration at the new Exelon headquarters ribbon cutting ceremony was the culminating event of a week-long conference and activist training camp to prepare the next generation of safe energy activists who will oppose nuclear power expansion, and advocate an aggressive phase- in of energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. "Illinois is the ‘belly of the beast' when it comes to nuclear power," observed Chris Williams of Citizen Action Coalition of Indiana. "It has more reactors than any other state, and it makes more nuclear wastes. It spawned the nuclear age, and continues its problems more than any other state. That's why we are here— to end these nuclear hazards once and for all." "Exelon's plans to extend the operating lifetimes of the aging Illinois reactors is unacceptable energy policy, as is their plan to build new pebble-bed modular reactors at the Zion site on the shore of Lake Michigan," stated David Kraft, director of the Illinois nuclear power watchdog group, Nuclear Energy Information Service of Evanston. "The environmental community will never allow these plans to succeed," Kraft warned. The controversial Exelon plans have also attracted the attention of the international community. "The construction of PBMR (pebble-bed modular reactor) stations was canceled in Germany, Europe, as the design does not meet safety standards. We are looking with great concern at this dangerous technology development in the USA. If it cannot be accepted in Germany, how is it acceptable in the USA?" stated Myrthe Verweij, nuclear campaigner for WISE (World Information Service on Energy) in the Netherlands, one of the groups of the Exelon Watch International, which consists of members from Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Germany, the Netherlands, Korea, Canada, Hungary, Argentina, and Slovakia. The activists from these countries came to the action to deliver their statement opposing Exelon's plans, and to meet with Exelon co-CEO John Rowe. Their request was refused. The Action Camp consisted of a 2-day conference in Chicago, followed by the week-long intensive training for activists in Yorkville. "We're preparing people for a long-term fight for sustainable energy," stated Gabriela Bulisova, one of the Camp Steering Committee members. "We will conduct these Camps and actions for as many times as it takes for the Administration and the nuclear utilities to abandon their plans for nuclear power," she said. One of the issues covered at the Camp and Conference with serious implications for Illinois is the transportation of high-level "spent" reactor fuel through the state. "A severe transportation accident releasing high-level nuclear waste into the environment could cost tens to hundreds of billions of dollars to clean up and could kill hundreds," stated Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Waste Specialist with the Washington-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service of Washington, D.C. "Each shipment represents a potential ‘Mobile Chernobyl' rolling through our communities on the roads and rails," Kamps said. The DOE stated at a public hearing held in Chicago in 2000 that as many as 36,300 truck shipments of high-level radioactive wastes could be expected to pass through Illinois over a 24 year period when utilities begin to send these wastes away for perpetual storage. Kamps brought a full-size replica of an irradiated nuclear fuel shipping cask to the Camp, and has driven it several times across Illinois to increase public awareness of the hazards of radwaste transportation. "The nuclear industry has been touting a ‘renaissance' for the past year trying to get the public to believe the phony message that they are needed," said Laura Campbell of Citizen Action Coalition of Indiana. "Through public education and non-violent direct action, this Camp and the future ones we plan expose this message as a false myth," Campbell said. "We're here to put an end to the Nuclear Age and its myths, once and for all."
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