From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: FRIDAY NIGHT VIDEOS: Nuclear
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 08:05:19 GMT

FRIDAY NIGHT VIDEOS: Nuclear

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Note 158      "Deadly Deception" Video Now Avail  
dcole@igc.org                                             9:34 pm  Apr 17, 1992
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The film "Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons & Our
Environment" recently won an Academy Award for the best short-subject
documentary.  It demonstrates in a very powerful way the madness of
the nuclear arms race.  Copies are available from INFACT (for $15 plus
postage) by calling 1-800--688-8797.


******************************************************************
******************************************************************


 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Note 168      VIDEO SCRIPT: RUSSIAN NUCLEAR TEST  
greenbase@igc.org                                        7:11 pm  May 15, 1992
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

TL: VIDEO RELEASE SCRIPT: RUSSIAN NUCLEAR TESTING FOR CHEMICAL
DISPOSAL
SO: Greenpeace Communications (GP)
DT: May 8, 1992
Keywords: nuclear weapons civil chemicals disposal plans russia
cis testing transcripts /
                                                        

With its first nuclear test in 1949 the Soviet Union joined the
international arms race.

The nuclear scientists have been a privileged elite ever since,
benefitting from a higher standard of living than their fellow
citizens.

The men and women who pioneered what was then a new and glamorous
science, lived in a secret world  - two hidden cities know only
by their postcodes -Arzamas-16, 200 miles east of Moscow and
Chelyabinsk-70, a closed city of some 45,000 inhabitants in the
Urals.

But that all changed when President Gorbachev announced that he
would work for a nuclear free world by the year two thousand, and
with the United States, made deep cuts in nuclear arms.

By cutting funding and temporarily banning nuclear tests,
Gorbachev had turned his back on his top secret scientists. 
Deputy minister Mikhailov, responsible for nuclear weapons design
and production at the Ministry of Atomic Power and Industry, had
to justify his departments existence. Not only was he hamstrung
by the lack of funds and the moratorium, but Gorbachev was
refusing to discuss the issue with him.

Dr Valery Bogdan : Special Assistant to the minister, Russian
Ministry of Atomic Energy.
I must remind you that 1991 has been a very hard year for our
scientists, the process of disintegration of our country started
to happen then, causing big difficulties in the sphere of
financial and technical support of the scientific centres.

The scientists were forced to try and sell their nuclear
expertise for hard currency in order to finance new applications
for nuclear explosions.

But it is not nuclear weapons which would deliver the pot of gold
at the end of the Rainbow. What the nuclear scientist were
banking on is the so called 'peaceful' use of nuclear explosions. 

Among the applications were the extraction of oil, the creation
of underground gas reservoirs and the ability to divert rivers  
This concept is not new. In the Soviet Union alone there have
been 115 explosions of this kind, most of them have been
conducted outside the military test site.

The latest proposal on which the scientists are pinning their
hopes is to use a nuclear blast to incinerate highly toxic or
radio active waste underground. 

Greenpeace has obtained this video which has been produced to
explain and promote the concept to interested parties.

The heat and pressure created by under-ground explosions melt the
material into the surrounding molten rock and earth. During the
process of cooling, the materials are converted to chemically
inert glass silicate. All this happens deep underground.

SOT HASSARD

It's pretty well established now that 30% or thereabouts of the
soviets tests have vented to the atmosphere this is not disputed
now by people who have access to the data. 

It's the same problem as with many aspects of nuclear weapons and
their testing the only people who can safely criticise them, who
have access to the secret material are the ones who want those
tests to perpetuate

The scientists also argued that this "explosive" method of
disposal would defray some of the costs of destroying chemical
warheads, nuclear warheads and decommissioned reactors because it
would eliminate any preliminary disassembly. Bomb casings would
simply be vaporized.

But to develop the technique the authorities needed more money
than they could afford. They decided to make it a business
venture.

In December 1990 the CHETEK Corporation was formed and by the
following spring now began to promote and sell the expertise of
the Arzamas-16 scientists in the international marketplace.  
SOT HASSARD

There's several ways in which the weapons labs have tried to
perpetuate there role in society. They want to, of course,
continue testing even though many colleges. even within the
weapons labs, now readily admit that there's no real need for
testing weapons you can do the job with computers. 

You can simulate the explosion very accurately with a computer.
They have therefore thought up in my opinion entirely fictitious
uses for weapons, and this Chetek idea is one such example which
I've no doubt American companies will join in with.

At a conference in Ottowa in April 1991, on the security of
underground testing, CHETEK  made its first presentation to the
world of the ARAZAMAS 16 plan for nuclear incineration. Officials
were embarrassed.

The ensuing press attention contributed to the sacking of the
CHETEK president Vladimir Demetriev a year later.

SOT BOGDAN

I would say that we are not happy with the way this idea has been
promoted. I must say that the ex president of "Chetek" and I am
stressing: the EX-President, Mr Dimitriev, without having any
real --knowledge, including any specifically scientific
knowledge, began very quickly and imprudently to promote the idea
as a private property of the corporation and guaranteed the
readiness of the corporation to carry out nuclear explosions all
over the world,

Meanwhile plans to demonstrate the technique at Novaya Zemlya
were delayed by the moratorium on nuclear tests announced by
Gorbachev on the 5th October 1991, just before he was ousted from
power.

Boris Yeltsin, now the head of the Russian Federation, initially
supported the moratorium, but recently he seems to have had a
change of heart towards the nuclear industry and the future
testing of nuclear devices.


In February this year Yeltsin visited the Arzamas-16 laboratory
and elevated Mikhailov to the head of the Atomic Energy Ministry. 

As a result, this decree, clearly marked "not for Publication",
drafted by Mikhailov and signed by Boris Yeltsin sets out the
future of the Novaya Zemlya test site.

It decreed that:-

1:   ...the Central Russian Test Site becomes the federal     
property of the Russian Government and is to be
     administered by the Ministry of defence and the Russian     
Atomic Energy Ministry.

2:   ...that in 1992, drilling building and assembling in     
preparation for 2 to 4 tests will be carried out..

3:   ...that they will prepare proposals for bi-lateral
     negotiations with the USA on limiting nuclear testing.  
4:   ...that they will consider proposals by those connected     
with the test site for realisation of nuclear testing at      the
test-site.

5:   and that the ministries of Economics and Finance will     
proved a line of credit to the test-site to finance
     underground nuclear tests.

Mikhailov and the plans of his scientist are now back in favour,
and the Russian nuclear blasts look certain to continue.

With the military required to destroy its chemical weapon stocks
by 1995 the scientist's idea looks more attractive, even to the
generals.


SOT BOGDAN

Considering that our limit is a device of 150 KTONS of power, and
in the experimental explosion we were planning to destroy about
3,000 tonns with a device of 50 KTONS, then it is not difficult
to   calculate how many explosions would be needed, in order to
dispose of the 40,000 tonns that we have piled up:
about 10 blasts.

Although the first demonstration  site is likely to be Novaya
Zemlya the ministry already has other plans.

SOT BOGDAN

As far as I know, the idea of an isolated island, which could
become an international test-site with the agreement of the UN,
has been discussed by our scientists. 

The technology might well be exported world-wide if the tests are
successful. 

But will it end there?
-
The control and development of nuclear incineration, like nuclear
weapons, will be surrounded by a curtain of secrecy.

-
The containment of toxic and radioactive products of the
underground nuclear incineration cannot be guaranteed.
-
Continued nuclear blasts will encourage non nuclear nations to
develop their own nuclear devices.
-
And by continuing an addiction to nuclear explosions through
nuclear incineration all the structures and institutions needed
to develop nuclear weapons are maintained.


Yeltsin and Bush are expected to discuss nuclear testing at their
summit in Washington in June.

But only by declaring an immediate Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
would they ensure that the world is not only free from Nuclear
weapons but also from nuclear incineration.

SOT HASSARD

I see Cheteks plan as a great incentive for proliferation, I
think we've got three or four years in which to solve the nuclear
proliferation problem , if we get distracted by plans such as
Cheteks now I think the games finished, we've had it.


Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive