Nuclear Hotseat

This Week’s Featured Interview #1: A growing body of technical evidence is raising urgent concerns about a potential double standard in nuclear safety enforcement by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Drawing on decades of regulatory precedent, nuclear engineer and expert witness Arnie Gundersen warns that the NRC is failing to apply the same rigorous inspection...

This Week’s Featured Interview: I have the privilege of working with some tremendously skilled, knowledgeable, big-hearted people for this show, but we’re usually so focused on the work at hand that we don’t get to engage in longer, more wide-ranging conversations. Linda Pentz Gunter That’s why this week’s featured interview is a particular joy for...

This Week’s Featured Interview: Eric Epstein is the Chairman of Three Mile Island Alert, Inc., a safe-energy organization based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and founded in 1977. TMIA monitors the Peach Bottom, Susquehanna, and Three Mile Island nuclear generating stations. He is also coordinator of  the EFMR Monitoring, Inc., a nonpartisan community based organization established  in 1992. EFMR monitors radiation...

This Week’s Featured Interview: Nate Teach is a retired U.S. Army Sergeant First Class and an advocate for veterans affected by toxic exposures, including depleted uranium (DU). A combat veteran of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, Teach reports how he was exposed to radioactive DU contamination in 2003 while participating in cleanup operations near...

Fukushima Daiichi, Explosion in Reactor 1 on March 12, 2011 This Week’s Featured Interview: Nancy Foust Simply Info 15th Anniverary Report Fukushima Daiichi: LINKS to other Fukushima Anniversary Materials: Beverly Findlay-Kaneko – Voices from Japan Beverly Findlay-Kaneko at The Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum in Futuba, standing next to her “buddy,”...

Retired Colonel Ann Wright This Week’s Featured Interview: The United States, in conjunction with its ally Israel, has launched a war against Iran. There is no stated justification for it, no approval from the US Congress as required by the constitution before starting a war, not even an attempt by our current president to gain...

This Week’s Featured Interview: William L. Hartung Bill Hartung at West Side Comedy Club, February, 2025 Numnutz of the Week (for Outstanding Nuclear Boneheadedness): Links:

Radiation warning sign in Palomares, Spain, where a U.S. bomber plane crashed in 1966, releasing four hydrogen bombs, two of which scattered radioactive plutonium over 200 hectares (@2-1/2 acres each) of farmland and residential areas. It’s still not cleaned up. This Week’s Featured Interview: It may only look like a trailer to you, but this...

This Week’s Featured Interview: Links from the Interview: Additional Resources: Nuclear Hotseat Hot Story with Linda Pentz Gunter Linda Pentz Gunter Nuclear nations should disarm first before telling other countries such as Iran they can’t have the bomb.

Navajo Nation children make their wants and needs clear. This Week’s Featured Interview #1: Anna Rondon on government’s push for uranium extraction disguised as a “clean up”: Links: Featured Interview #2: Kevin Kamps and Holtec’s Planned Palisades Nuclear Restart in Michigan: ICAN Update with Alistair Burnett: Alistair Burnett, Head of Media for the Nobel Peace...

This Week’s Featured Interview: The 2024 film NUKED presents the story of the US nuclear betrayal of the people of the Marshall Islands after WWII. The film won several awards, including Best Documentary at 2024 International Uranium Film Festival and has been picked up for international distribution by the Al Jazeera Media Network. March 1...

Demonstration in New Mexico against the High Level Radioactive Waste Dump This Week’s Featured Interview: Award-Winning Greenland Film on Uranium Mining/Rare Earth Battle – Kuannersuit / Kvanefjeld Nuclear Hotseat Hot Story with Linda Pentz Gunter Even worse news at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as environmental oversight is set to be weakened. Numnutz of the Week...

This Week’s Featured Interviews: Lynda Williams Nuclear Hotseat Hot Story w/Linda Pentz Gunter Numnutz of the Week (for Outstanding Nuclear Boneheadedness): Sambal goreng udang (Indonesian sambal shrimp) – radioactive??? More radioactive food warnings from the FDA. You really don’t want to have any Indonesian shrimp dishes! Activist Shoutout:

KEYSTONE COVER PHOTO: NYTimes science reporter William L. Laurence – aka “Atomic Bill” – with Gen. Leslie Groves at the Trinity site. Credit: U.S. Army Corp of Engineers This Week’s Special Featured Interview: Atomic bomb “bedtime story” sold to Americans and the media manipulation it took to create it. Having spent more than 13 years...

This Week’s Year-End SPECIAL: Uplifting Stories of Nuclear Resisters, Heroes, Success! with Jack Cohen-Joppa Yes, fighting nuclear is an uphill battle – but sometimes we win! Here, for a year-end boost of optimism, hope and community is Jack Cohen-Joppa. He and his wife, Felice Cohen-Joppa, are co-founders and co-coordinators of The Nuclear Resister, a 45...

Sister Megan Rice getting a well-earned hug upon her release from prison for her non-violent break-in to the Y12 “U.S. Uranium Fort Knox” to protest nuclear weapons. She served more than two years in prison. This Week’s Peace Special Year-End Interviews: Sister Megan Rice Susi Snyder: What You CAN Do to Help De-Fund Nuclear Weapons...

This Week’s Featured Interview: Here’s This Week’s Second Featured Interview: Helen Young is an Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist who has forged a career as a filmmaker and writer by blending a passion for investigative reporting with a commitment to illuminating critical issues of the day. She was a staff writer and producer for CBS News...

This Week’s Featured Interview: Here’s This Week’s Second Featured Interview: Helen Young is an Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist who has forged a career as a filmmaker and writer by blending a passion for investigative reporting with a commitment to illuminating critical issues of the day. She was a staff writer and producer for CBS News...

This Week’s Featured Interview: Zoomathon interview with Prof. Steven Starr Steven Starr LINKS: This Week’s Second Featured Interview: Joseph Mangano Joseph Mangano and RPHP LINKS: Nuclear Hotseat Hot Story with Linda Pentz Gunter: Will a Supreme Court ruling mean the end of Democratic commissioners at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? Numnutz of the Week (for Outstanding Nuclear Boneheadedness):...

Dr. Ian Fairlie speaking at Dr. Helen Caldicott’s Symposium: Fukushima Two Years Later: NYC – March 11-12, 2013 This Week’s Featured Interview: Dr. Ian Fairlie, UK-based radiation expert, compiled statistics from 60 international studies done on leukemia rates for children living within 5 kilometers/3 miles of a nuclear reactor. His shocking results – all supported...

Filmmakers and life partners Mary Beth Brangan and Jim Heddle, who along with Morgan Peterson directed the award-winning film SOS: The San Onofre Syndrome This Week’s Feature: Some weeks, it’s personal. It is with great sadness that this week’s Nuclear Hotseat commemorates and memorializes a fierce, gentle anti-nuclear warrior who spent decades filming protests, meetings,...

This Week’s SPECIAL Episode on the International Uranium Film Festival in Navajo Nation The International Uranium Film Festival (IUFF) came to Window Rock, the capital of Navajo Nation, for the fourth time to present films focusing on all dangers of the nuclear fuel chain, with a special emphasis on uranium mining. Fourteen films over two...

This Week’s Featured Interview: Tom Clements has been the director of Savannah River Site Watch, a public interest organization in Columbia, South Carolina, since 2014. SRS Watch monitors US Department of Energy management of weapon-usable materials, nuclear weapons production, and clean-up of high-level nuclear waste, with a focus on the Savannah River Site. While in...

NOTE: I needed to go in for a medical procedure this week (don’t worry; I’m fine) and was unable to produce a new episode. Given that President Trump has threatened to resume nuclear testing – with no specifics of whether that’s atmospheric or underground explosions – I think this is a good opportunity to look...

A House of Dynamite by Katherine Bigelow This Week’s Featured Interview: A new film, A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE, by Oscar-winning director Katherine Bigelow, follows what would happen in the 18 minutes following discovery of a nuclear missile aimed at the United States. It exposes vulnerabilities to our purportedly 100% protection from incoming nukes and creates...

Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, head of Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP) This Week’s Featured Interview: Such a national study of the health risks posed by existing reactors should: LINK: Why a national cancer study near US reactors must be conducted before any new expansion of nuclear power – original article by Joseph Mangano and the...

This Week’s SPECIAL Feature: This year’s 35th annual Westheimer Peace Symposium was based on the theme “Practicing Art, Practicing Nuclear Abolition” It was presented in conjunction with the Wilmington College Peace Resource Center Academic conference: Archives as Witness from Monday, September 29 through Wednesday, October 1, 2025 at Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio. I attended...

Tombstone for Protest “Funeral” for Santa Susana Field Lab clean-up. (Photo Credit, Melissa Bumstead) Keystone (cover) photo credit: Sean Muniz via Snappr This Week’s Featured Interview: The long-promised clean-up of radioactive Santa Susana Field Lab site near downtown Los Angeles is being killed by Boeing & CA’s Department of Toxic Substances Control. Mothers from Parents...

This Week’s First Featured Interview: Alfred Meyer of Physicians for Social Responsibility, mid-Zoom interview This Week’s Second Featured Interview: Dr. Gordon Edwards, addressing the United Nations What Scares Me Most about Nuclear: Excerpts from last year’s Halloween feature: “What Scares Me Most about Nuclear.” I spoke with more than 30 activists and concerned citizens about...

Ollie Basta, playing the lead role of podcaster/activist Jessie Keever, addresses a rally at the United Nations at the climax of ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE This Week’s Two-Part Very Special Feature – The Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College and the Play, ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE: Ollie Basta as podcaster/activist Jessie...

This Week’s Featured Interview: CLICK on book cover to purchase from Amazon. Beyond Nuclear Article on M.V. Ramana’s Book: NUMNUTZ OF THE WEEK (for Outstanding Nuclear Boneheadedness)

PERSONAL NOTE: Portrait of a playwright/podcaster in Peak Happiness with the stage of her new play, ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE. Producer/Host Libbe HaLevy here. I’m in Ohio at the Wilmington College Peace Resource Center (PRC) for the world premiere staged reading of my play, ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE. It’s a featured...

William L. Laurence – “Atomic Bill” (l) – and J. Robert Oppenheimer (r) at the Trinity Site, one month after detonation of the first atomic bomb. Libbe’s Play: ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUEPremieres Sept. 9 at Wilmington Peace Resource Center Next Tuesday, September 9, my play on media manipulation at the dawn of the...

This Week’s Featured Interview: Cindy Folkers is Radiation and Health Hazard Specialist at Beyond Nuclear, with close to 20 years experience. She co-authored with Dr. Ian Fairlie the book, THE SCIENTISTS WHO ALERTED US TO THE DANGERS OF RADIATION. Here, she breaks down what’s wrong with the recent nuclear Executive Orders, including the mandate to...

United Nations report on the generational impact of nuclear radiation on women and children, written by Mary Olson of Generational Radiation Impact Project and Dr. Amanda M. Nichols. This Week’s SPECIAL Featured Interview: We all accept as proven scientific and medical fact that human exposure to ionizing radiation from nuclear weapons and their production is...

This Week’s Featured Interview: ICAN Executive Director Melissa Parke in Hiroshima. Photo: ICAN / Takeo Nakaoku Melissa Parke, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, traveled to Japan for the 80th anniversary commemorations of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She is a former Australian Minister for International...

This Week’s SPECIAL Featured Interview: On the anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a look at what this meant for further generations’ health and psychology. Yuki Miyamoto is Nisei Hibakusha, second generation daughter of an atomic bomb survivor, and brings a personal perspective to her powerful work. She is a Professor...

This Week’s Featured Interviews: Japan’s False Narrative of Fukushima Tritium-Contaminated Water Release: Planned Restart of Palisades Zombie Reactor in Michigan: ACTIVIST SHOUT-OUT

This Week’s Featured Interview: LINKS from the interview: Remembering Church Rock: Last week, we noted the dual nuclear nightmare anniversaries of July 16, focusing on the Trinity atomic test blast 80 years ago. There was no time on that show to go into the second July 16 anniversary, 1979’s Church Rock uranium tailings spill on...

The new commemorative plaque at the entrance to the Trinity site of the world’s first atomic bomb explosion finally acknowledges and commemorates Downwinders. (l-r) Seth Shelden, General Counsel and United Nations Liaison of ICAN; Tina Cordova of Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, Melissa Parke, Executive Director of ICAN SPECIAL: Trinity Atomic Bomb at 80 – New...

This Week’s Featured Interview: Tim Deere-Jones is a UK-based marine biologist, researcher and consultant. He specializes in analysis of the radiation threats to our planet’s waters from a wide range of nuclear sources. Here, he explains the radioactive orange water leak from Sellafield in the UK and the harebrained proposed scheme for excavating a radioactive...

This Week’s Featured Interview: Dr. Gordon Edwards is a mathematician, physicist, nuclear consultant, and president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. He is one of our most cogent thinkers on nuclear issues and he regularly puts together the pieces to give us a clear picture of exactly what is going on, why we should...

US BOMBS IRAN NUCLEAR FACILITIES – WE ARE UNOFFICIALLY AT WAR A roundup of what is currently known about last Saturday’s bombing attack by the United States on Iran nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. Next week will feeature an extensive interview on what level of uranium enrichment Iran has achieved and how close...

Yup – 14 years and 729 episodes down. What’s the half-life of a nuclear podcast? This Week’s Featured Interview: Links from Featured Interview: Israel/Iran Bombings – Susi Snyder of ICAN Susi Snyder of ICAN parses the meanings and history of the current Israel/Iran escalating exchange of drone and missile attacks. Given the recent and almost...

This Week’s Featured Interview: Numnutz of the Week (for Outstanding Nuclear Boneheadedness): Nuclear product rep claims to represents a process to “kill” radiation, tries to get Nuclear Hotseat host to endorse it. This does not end well for him… THE ICAN UPDATE – The Latest on the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons from the International...

This Week’s Featured Interview: Piles of bags containing radioactive topsoil scraped from all over Fukushima, still awaiting removal. Links from Interview: To purchase Return to Fukushima, go to: Nuclear Hotseat Hot Story with Linda Pentz Gunter Why the Golden Dome is another “insane” Trump obsession that won’t work. LINKS to Linda’s other work this week:...