Antinuclear movement

Definition: Social movement comprising a loose collection of organizations and individuals opposed to nuclear weapons and nuclear power.

The antinuclear movement, which emerged during the 1950s and gained momentum during the 1960s, initially focused its attention on the proliferation of nuclear technology, particularly weapons, and the threat of nuclear warfare. It later broadened its scope to include opposition to nuclear power plants and nuclear waste disposal facilities. Antinuclear activists have had some success in raising public awareness of the dangers of nuclear proliferation and in using safety regulations and environmental law to slow the development of nuclear power, particularly in the United States.

Objectives

Antinuclear activists generally believe that if nuclear weapons are available, these weapons will eventually be used; they therefore seek to rid the earth of all such armaments. By organizing seminars, rallies, protests, and public outreach campaigns, activists seek to stimulate public debate on issues previously left to insiders, and they help shape the political climate. For example, activists from the environmental organization Greenpeace drew international attention to France's resumption of nuclear weapons testing in 1995. The outrage that this publicity fueled may have contributed to the French government’s decision to conduct fewer tests than planned.

Antinuclear activists have often been successful in capturing favorable media coverage and mobilizing hundreds of thousands of citizens to protests. However, translating this success into practical results has often proved elusive. At a conference on abolishing nuclear weapons held at Boston College in October 1997, American Friends Service Committee staffer David McCauley offered a possible explanation. He suggested that the movement is fundamentally anarchistic and that distrust of people in power stifles activists’ ability to cooperate with established political practices.

Nuclear Freeze and Disarmament Goals

In the multilateral Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT), which was signed in 1968 and entered into force in 1970, five recognized nuclear-weapons states—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, and the Soviet Union—agreed not to transfer nuclear weapons to states without such weapons. With the treaty, signatory nations committed to work toward nuclear disarmament, yet the arms race continued. Antinuclear activists claimed that arms negotiators were allowing themselves to be defeated by complexities and suggested a mutual and verifiable freeze by the United States and the Soviet Union on the testing, production, and deployment of all nuclear weapons. The campaign attracted sympathetic media coverage and gained momentum, so that by the late 1970s, hundreds of thousands of people were attending massive rallies in the United States and Europe to protest the planned deployment of the ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM) and the Pershing II missile.

Leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), however, dared not ignore the complexities inherent in nuclear negotiations. In 1976, the Soviet Union began updating its forces by deploying SS-20 missiles. NATO viewed this as a destabilization of the balance of power because the SS-20s were mobile, more accurate, equipped with three warheads each, and able to fly 1,500 to 3,000 kilometers (930 to 1,860 miles) farther than the missiles they replaced. After all attempts at diplomatic negotiations with the Soviets failed, NATO responded in 1983 by deploying Pershing IIs and GLCMs, which were more accurate than the SS-20s but had less than one-half their range.

NATO and the Soviet Union eventually agreed to intrusive, on-site verification procedures. In late 1987, the two nations signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which completely eliminated an entire class of weapons: SS-20s, Pershing IIs, GLCMs, and all other ground-launched nuclear missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (310 and 3,420 miles), along with their launchers, support facilities, and bases. The treaty also banned flight testing and production of these missiles. The antinuclear movement deserves credit for helping educate the public and adding to the pressure that pushed politicians to the bargaining table. However, based on history, it seems unlikely that the treaty would have come about had NATO not deployed its own weapons.

In 1995, the year the NNPT was extended indefinitely, an antinuclear initiative called Abolition 2000 was proposed. Within a few years, more than 1,200 nongovernmental organizations on six continents had voiced support for it; by 2010, it had grown into a network of over 2,000 organizations in more than ninety countries. Abolition 2000 called for movement toward "clean, safe, renewable forms of energy production that do not provide the materials for weapons of mass destruction and do not poison the environment for thousands of centuries." It also called for negotiations on a nuclear weapons abolition convention that would establish a timetable for phasing out all nuclear weapons and include provisions for effective verification and enforcement.

At its 2003 annual meeting, Abolition 2000 launched a collaborative effort with Mayors for Peace, an international program established in 1982 that brings together the heads of city governments worldwide to encourage city-by-city support for the abolition of nuclear weapons. By August 6, 2010 (on the sixty-fifth anniversary of the first use of the atomic bomb), 4,069 cities in 144 countries and regions around the world had become members of the Conference of Mayors for Peace and were calling for complete nuclear disarmament by 2020. While the organization did not achieve its 2020 goal, its membership continued expanding, reaching more than 8,400 member cities from 166 countries by the mid-2020s.

Other Abolition 2000 projects included an Economic Dimensions of Nuclearism working group established in 2012, the Peace and Planet organizational network founded in 2014, and the Missiles and Space program begun in 2016 to model the regulation of missile systems and prevent space-based nuclear weapons.

Nuclear Power in the United States

Many members of the antinuclear movement are also against the development and expansion of nuclear power generation. They believe that nuclear technology is too dangerous and see reactor accidents caused by natural disasters, equipment failures, or human errors as inevitable. They do not believe that radioactive waste can be safely disposed of, and they see such waste as an unfair burden to pass on to future generations. Furthermore, many argue that terrorists or nations without their own nuclear arsenals could divert reactor materials to make nuclear weapons.

During the 1960s, the antinuclear movement became concerned with the possible effects of low-level radiation from nuclear power plants. Scientists are divided on whether low levels of radiation can cause an increased incidence of cancer in communities located near nuclear power plants. While some studies point to a significant risk, others report considerable evidence that the human body can repair damage caused by sufficiently low levels of radiation.

The antinuclear movement has been somewhat successful in using safety regulations and environmental law to effect change. By lobbying for stricter regulations and suing to force nuclear plants to follow safety regulations that they previously had been allowed to bypass, activists have contributed to making nuclear plants safer. These actions have also added to the costs of nuclear power plants and to delays in plant licensing. Using the courts to delay construction of nuclear plants has been a powerful tool for the movement. In 1967, construction time for a nuclear power plant in the United States averaged 5.5 years; by 1980, it had reached twelve years.

The price of electricity from nuclear plants has increased over time, with lengthening construction time, the addition of safety features, and the tendency of nuclear power companies to try new designs instead of settling on a standard design. In 1976, the price of electricity from coal-fired and nuclear plants was nearly the same, but by 1990, nuclear power was twice as expensive as coal power in the United States. One goal of the antinuclear movement was reached in the United States: with economics against them, as well as public opinion after the Three Mile Island incident in 1979, planners ceased construction of new nuclear power plants for years.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) eventually combined the construction and operating licensing procedures to minimize delays. Also, the industry significantly reduced operating costs. These factors, combined with mounting concerns about the finite nature of fossil-fuel supplies and the potential of the burning of such fuels to affect global climate, made nuclear power a more attractive prospect by the early twenty-first century. Some previously antinuclear environmentalists reconsidered their stance on nuclear power and came out in favor of it as an alternative to fuels that produce greenhouse gas emissions. However, even after a wave of new nuclear plant projects was announced in the 2010s, factors such as the declining price of natural gas and concerns following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan conspired to see several projects abandoned and others delayed.

A 2021 study asserted that, in terms of those who oppose nuclear electrical generation, activism is effective in bringing scrutiny against these types of facilities. This has the effect of industry regulators enacting more restrictive requirements and enhanced accountability. Despite the antinuclear movement's progress, the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia added two new reactors in the 2020s: the Vogtle Unit 3 in 2023 and the Vogtle Unit 4 in 2024.

Nuclear Power in Asia and Europe

While nuclear energy has long been heavily contested in the United States, it gained more widespread traction in some other parts of the world. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear share of electricity generation in 2016 was 13.1 percent in Germany, 40.0 percent in Sweden, and 72.3 percent in France, for example. By 2023, France still led all countries with a 64.8 percent nuclear share; other countries highly reliant on nuclear power included Slovakia, Hungary, Finland, and Belgium. Countries that must import much of the fuel for other energy production methods tend to find nuclear power particularly attractive. Nevertheless, the antinuclear movement has been active worldwide.

Antinuclear sentiment led Sweden to announce a phaseout of nuclear power beginning in 1998. The shutdown was delayed, however, for several reasons, including lack of replacement power, fears by workers and industry that the shutdown would lead to higher energy prices and exacerbate unemployment, and a lawsuit by a nuclear plant’s owners seeking indemnification. In 2009, citing climate concerns, the Swedish government officially abolished its phaseout scheme. Some 52 percent of the Swedes who responded to a 2010 survey favored keeping nuclear power and replacing old reactors with new ones.

As part of the price of forming a ruling coalition with Germany’s Social Democratic Party, the environmentalist Green Party extracted a promise that Germany’s nuclear power reactors would eventually be eliminated. Shutdown plans were made official in 2002. Germany’s government faced problems similar to Sweden’s in trying to phase out nuclear power and felt additional pro-nuclear pressure from England and France, which held contracts worth $6.5 billion to reprocess German nuclear fuel. By 2008, concerns about power availability, costs, and carbon dioxide emission reduction goals had prompted Germany to explore how to keep its existing nuclear power plants online, even as thousands of protesters turned out in opposition to the shipment of nuclear reactor waste from France to a German storage site in Gorleben. Major antinuclear protests were held in Germany in 2011 following the Fukushima incident. In April 2023, Germany shut down its final three nuclear power plants—Isar 2, Neckarwestheim-2, and Emsland.

As a significant generator of nuclear power, Japan historically saw less of a dedicated antinuclear movement than the United States or Europe from the 1950s through the 1980s. Several power plant accidents and scandals in the 1990s and early 2000s sparked a growing public debate over the issue. The 2011 Fukushima disaster saw the Japanese antinuclear movement develop considerably, with major protests and marches occurring throughout the country. In 2012, the Japanese government responded to public pressure by announcing it would phase out nuclear power by the 2030s, focusing instead on green renewable resources such as solar and wind power. However, this course was reversed again when the administration of Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe took up support of nuclear power.

Scientific Groups

A few scientific groups have been especially influential in the area of nuclear arms control. Many scientists who developed the atomic bomb were against leaving decisions about its uses to a few elite government and military officials. Immediately after World War II, some of them formed the Atomic Scientists of Chicago and began publication of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Another group formed the Federation of Atomic Scientists. The efforts of these scientists contributed to the founding in 1946 of the Atomic Energy Commission, a civilian agency that took control of the materials, facilities, production, research, and information relating to nuclear fission from the military.

In response to the escalating arms race, in 1955, the physicist Albert Einstein and the philosopher, mathematician, and social critic Bertrand Russell published a manifesto in which they called upon scientists to assemble and appraise the perils of nuclear weapons. Cyrus Eaton, a wealthy industrialist and admirer of Russell, invited twenty-two scientists from both sides of the Iron Curtain to a conference in July 1957 that was held in Eaton’s summer home in the small village of Pugwash, Nova Scotia. The scientists were able to function as icebreakers between governments; in fact, some were government advisers. More Pugwash conferences followed, providing invaluable contacts, networks, and facts for those involved in arms control. The antinuclear movement in general and scientific organizations in particular were instrumental in bringing about several treaties, including the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, in which signatory nations agreed to end aboveground nuclear testing.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) was formed in 1969 by faculty and students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who felt that too much emphasis was being placed on research with military applications and not enough on research that could address environmental and social concerns. The UCS subsequently evolved into a coalition of scientists and citizens across the US, expanding its focus to include renewable energy and other environmental issues. The UCS combated the establishment of an antiballistic missile defense system in the United States and played a key role in defeating a scheme to rotate two hundred MX missiles among 4,600 protective silos. The plan would have cost $37 billion and would have swallowed vast tracts of the western desert of the United States.

The UCS has also waged campaigns calling for US support of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which prohibits all nuclear explosions (the United States signed the treaty in 1996 but has not ratified it). The UCS has worked in support of other nuclear disarmament treaties as well, including a series of agreements between the United States and the Soviet Union (later the Russian Federation) limiting the number of nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles that these nations may deploy: the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), and the 2010 New START.

Renewed Activism and the Suspension of Nuclear Arms Control Treaties

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sparked new activity among antinuclear organizations. Russian president Vladimir Putin's repeated references to the possibility of employing nuclear weaponry attracted widespread international concern and criticism. By 2023, the contentious state of foreign relations between the United States and Russia had led to the suspension of most nuclear arms control agreements between the two countries. Antinuclear activists roundly criticized this breakdown of international antiproliferation efforts as a significant threat to global security.

Many observers noted structural changes to the antinuclear movement in the 2010s and 2020s. The large-scale demonstrations typical in previous decades were largely replaced by other forms of activism, such as social media organizing and outreach. There were some efforts to reshape the movement's message as well. For instance, several antinuclear spokespersons cast their movement as one of social justice, mirroring other influential groups who have advocated for causes such as police reform and gender equality.

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