At the Santa Fe New Mexico Opening of Countdown to Zero Wilson explains how she got involved with the film, how nuclear proliferation is an issue of national security, how nuclear weapons are not a deterrent against current threats and in fact contributes to that threat. She suggests that global nuclear disarmament may be difficult but is necessary as an eventual goal. The video was shot by John Witham for Nuclear Watch New Mexico, part of the CTZ Campaign Alliance.
An interview of Lawrence Bender by Rachel Maddow about the movie Countdown to Zero.
Moderated by Peter Galison, an authority on the history of nuclear weapons, this panel examines the need for action to prevent proliferation. The filmmakers also describe their strategy for ensuring that COUNTDOWN TO ZERO has as great an impact as their last joint production: AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. Panelists include: PETER GALISON (moderator), filmmaker & University Professor, Harvard University; GRAHAM ALLISON, Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School; LAWRENCE BENDER, Producer; DIANE WEYERMANN, Executive Producer; VALERIE PLAME WILSON, former Covert Operations Officer, CIA.
Former CIA Covert Operations Officer Valerie Plame Wilson speaks about her involvement with the documentary film "Countdown to Zero," which was honored at the Gleitsman Social Change FIlm Forum at Harvard Kennedy School in 2010.
Lucy Walker, the director of COUNTDOWN TO ZERO, talks to Sharon Swart about fulfilling her dream of premiering a movie at the Cannes Film Festival. She made the film with Participant, and it'll be released through Magnolia. Lucy discusses about the extraordinary timing of the film, as the issues around nuclear weapons are currenly in the news, particularly around Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea. Be sure to text ZERO to 77177 to get campaign updates.
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A world without nuclear weapons, what a thought. 'Countdown to Zero' Producer Lawrence Bender explains the START Treaty will keep our country safer. This documentary calls for absolutely no nuclear weapons. He describes President Obama's leadership and effort. But the question still remains, how long it will take before all nuclear weapons will be eliminated.
Deepak Chopra hosts "The Road to Global Nuclear Disarmament: The Origin, the Evolution and the Future," a special edition of his weekly SIRIUS XM show on which Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, former CIA Covert Operations Officer Valerie Plame Wilson, Academy Award-winning producer Lawrence Bender and Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute. On the special, panelists offer extraordinary personal and professional insight and perspective on nuclear warfare, weapons, threats disarmament and related issues explored in the new documentary, "Countdown to Zero."
On July 16, 1945, the U.S. government tested their first nuclear bomb, led by J. Robert Oppenheimer. As the blast went off, Oppenheimer became aware not only the terrifying power of the nuclear bomb but also our inability to entirely comprehend the implications of this invention. His attempts to warn the public were silenced and ridiculed, though today, over 65 years later, his voice is a haunting reminder of our very real nuclear threat.
Featuring interviews from the documentary film "Countdown to Zero," this short is a look into the man who created the bomb...and a frightening new world. Find out more about the movie, and how you can demand a world without nuclear weapons, at TakePart.com/zero.
Produced by TakePart with Participant Media
Directed by Mariana Blanco at Hoodablah
Score by Austin Wintory
Featuring Grizelda by Yeasayer
Special Thanks to Lisa Remington, Susan Ricketts
Footage provided by:
Arnold Newman Collection/Getty Images, AP Image Source, BBC Motion Gallery, Corbis, Fish Films, Harvard University Archives, J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Committee, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Library of Congress, National Archives Records Administration, NBC News Archives , Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images, Streamline Films, Trinity and Beyond, VCE, Inc., World Security Institute
As the documentary "Countdown to Zero" on non-proliferation is screened at the Cannes Film Festival, RT talked to the consultant behind the movie on the global will to stop the spread of nuclear arms. Valerie Plame was a CIA agent whose mission was to fight the spread of nuclear arms. After her identity was exposed in a White House Scandal, she turned to film-making, yet retained the same ideals.
Title: Countdown to Zero
Release Date: May 2010
Genre: Documentary
Cast: Graham Allison, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Tony Blair, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ahmed Rashid
Director: Lucy Walker
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
Plot: A documentary about the escalating nuclear arms race.
Iran. Nuclear weapons. Sigh. Iran is part of the so-called axis of evil, which included Iraq and North Korea. North Korea has been pronounced to be a threat, they recently set off a small nuclear weapon of some kind, and this week Pres. George W. Bush was reported to have repeated the statement that growth of nuclear capabilities in North Korea is a major problem. Ditto the growth of nuclear capabilities in Iran.
Yet, the same week Congress finally voted approval for a deal Pres. Bush made with India to provide them with some nuclear technology. It's funny how India has nuclear weapons, is not a signatory to the non-proliferation treaties, and the U.S. is providing them with nuclear technology. It's especially funny how Iran is a signatory to the non-proliferation treaties, has not yet created nuclear weapons, yet the U.S. is threatening to invade Iran. Oh, and Pakistan, the country that was the worst proliferator of nuclear technology, without whom North Korea would not have gotten anywhere, is a partner to the U.S.
Very strange.
The process with Iran is seemingly the same as it was for Iraq leading up to the 2003 invasion of that country. There are shady exile groups making bold claims against the Iranian leadership, just as there were for Iraqi leadership. There are pronouncements and demonization by the U.S. leadership, just as there was for Iraq. etc. Yet we learned later that the whole story spun about Iraq was a total fabrication, and that seemingly the U.S. leadership knew they were lying while they were spinning their web of lies. The question is, how truthful are they being about Iran, or is this story just another big web of lies?
Hersh: CIA Analysis Finds Iran Not Developing Nuclear Weapons Reports that a classified CIA document finds there is no developing nuclear threat in Iran. Further, the Bush Administration realized before the election that it's likely they would lose, and that Cheney threatened that their loss "would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option with Iran" that "the White House would circumvent any legislative restrictions" preventing Congress from getting in their way.
Hurm.. sounds like a constitutional crisis brewing here.
The system of checks and balances are supposed to keep one branch of U.S. government from riding roughshod over the others. But the last few years we've had a Congress that rubber stamped everything the administration told them to do. And among those things were suspensions or deletions of some of the checks and balances.
The Next Act is a New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh that was used as the source for the above article.
35-nations meet on denying Iran nuclear assistance "A push by Western nations to deny Iran technical help in building a plutonium-producing reactor has gathered enough support to be approved by the 35-nation board of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, diplomats said. Still, differences both within the Western camp and more broadly among different factions on the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on how harshly to punish Iran for its nuclear defiance persisted on the eve of the opening meeting Monday, the diplomats said. "
IAEA likely to block Iran atom aid at meeting "The U.N. nuclear watchdog is likely at a politically charged meeting this week to put on ice Iran's request for help with a heavy-water plant due to fears it could yield plutonium for atom bombs, diplomats say. The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation governing board urged Iran in February to "reconsider" the Arak reactor project. But Tehran vows to complete it and applied for IAEA technical expertise to ensure the plant meets safety standards. Although IAEA approval of such requests is usually routine, Western board members say the Arak case must be rejected given Iran's record of evading IAEA non-proliferation inspections and its defiance of U.N. demands to stop enriching uranium. "
Nuclear power has a greatly mixed blessing. On the one hand it offers vast quantities of electricity without the hydrocarbon-style pollutions, and you don't have to ruin a river valley by installing a dam. On the other hand nuclear wastes last for thousands of years, so disposal is a problem, and then what if the nuclear material falls into the wrong hands and they make bombs out of it? Proliferation of nuclear weapons is a serious problem.
The tension with both Iraq and North Korea right now is over their development of nuclear technology. Is it simply for peaceful purposes, providing electricity to run the country? Or are they building bombs? Since they're refusing to abide by the nuclear inspection regimine run by the International Atomic Energy Commission, how can we be certain?
All countries, developing and otherwise require power in order to modernize themselves. A team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been working on a particular solution to this problem.
SSTAR is a small and relatively lightweight nuclear reactor with which they intend to solve a broad range of issues around the use of nuclear reactors. Here's the feature set:
Clearly we have a two-edged sword here. Past nuclear reactors have safety problems, could provide weapons making material to undesirable institutions, and have massive technology and infrastructure requirements to build and maintain. Further the waste disposal problem is very bad, with growing resistance to the transport of nuclear waste around the world (and with good reason).
These problems have resulted in a vehement anti-nuclear crowd that knee-jerkily shouts "NO NUKES" whenever possible. They regularly protest anything remotely nuclear, and just last week a protester in Germany lost his life trying to block a train carrying nuclear waste.
With the current state of nuclear technology, I must agree with them. It is very dangerous stuff, and I am glad that the U.S. has not built new nuclear plants in decades.
However, this LLNL design provides for some very interesting thinking.
What if ... The design is of a size useful to a developing country, and appears to have enough safeguards for deployment nearly anywhere. And it offers "clean" power, in that the immediate output of the reactor is steam that runs a turbine. Due to the high temperature it can also be used in hydrogen production, providing a source of pure hydrogen for fuel cells.
What are the problems with nuclear power and how does this design stack up against them? Here's a few, and it makes the rosy scenario painted by the scientists to be a little less certain. I am comforted somewhat that they envision shipping these as product in 2015, which gives us a few years (5-10 maybe) of design debugging.
| Issue | Solution | Devils Advocate |
|---|---|---|
| Proliferation | Tamper-"resistant" and includes notification facilities. | "Resistant"? I'd rather it be tamper "proof" but how could that be accomplished?
The notification facility is likely some kind of satellite radio system. The article discusses the notification system being triggered by detectors rigged to "identify actions that threaten the security of the reactor". What if a country gets real "uppity" and successfully wards off inspectors and the "international community" to tamper with and remove the nuclear material for their own nefarious ends? |
| Waste & Radiation in general | The waste stays within the reactor. It gets "recycled" after the 30 year lifespan is up. It has to be returned to the supplier for recycling. | What if the supplier goes out of business?
How can we test against leaks over a 30 year lifespan? What if there's an accident during transport to the destination, or upon return to the supplier? Will the design withstand being dropped while being loaded or unloaded on the cargo ship? What if the cargo ship sinks? |
| Meltdown | Liquid metal "coolant" cannot boil off
Liquid metal is at a low pressure The design can include a passive shutdown feature |
In the article they discuss "corrosiveness" of some formulations of the liquid metal coolant. Will this work over a 30 year lifespan?
Control systems fail all the time, and computer systems always have bugs. How can we trust 30 years of successful operation to a computer software system? |
