page_title: Anti-nuclear movement in the United States
section_title: Post-Fukushima
hierarchical_section_title: Anti-nuclear movement in the United States / Recent developments / Post-Fukushima
caption_attribution_description: English: The Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Reactor 1 to 4 from right to left.한국어: 2011년 토호쿠 대지진 및 쓰나미 뒤에 후쿠시마 원자력발전소(오른쪽에서 왼쪽으로 1호기에서 4호기) Polski: Zniszczenia na terenie elektrowni wywołane trzęsieniem ziemi u wybrzeży Honsiu, tsunami i awarią – zdjęcie satelitarne reaktorów nr 1, 2, 3 i 4 z 16 marca 2011
context_page_description: The anti-nuclear movement in the United States consists of more than 80 anti-nuclear groups that oppose nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and/or uranium mining. These have included the Abalone Alliance, Clamshell Alliance, Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, Nevada Desert Experience, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Plowshares Movement, Women Strike for Peace, and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. The anti-nuclear movement has delayed construction or halted commitments to build some new nuclear plants, and has pressured the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to enforce and strengthen the safety regulations for nuclear power plants.
  Anti-nuclear protests reached a peak in the 1970s and 1980s and grew out of the environmental movement. Campaigns that captured national public attention involved the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant, Diablo Canyon Power Plant, Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant, and Three Mile Island.
context_section_description: Following the 2011 Japanese nuclear accidents, activists who were involved in the movement's emergence (such as Graham Nash and Paul Gunter), suggest that Japan's nuclear crisis may rekindle an anti-nuclear protest movement in the United States. The aim, they say, is "... not just to block the Obama administration's push for new nuclear construction, but to convince Americans that existing plants pose dangers."
  In March 2011, 600 people gathered for a weekend protest outside the Vermont Yankee plant. The demonstration was held to show support for the thousands of Japanese people who are endangered by possible radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.
  In April 2011, Rochelle Becker, executive director of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility said that the United States should review its nuclear accident liability limits, in the light of the economic impacts of the Fukushima disaster.
  The New England region has a long history of anti-nuclear activism and 75 people held a State House rally on April 6, 2011, to "protest the region's aging nuclear plants and the increasing stockpile of radioactive spent fuel rods at them." The protest was held shortly before a State House hearing where legislators were scheduled to hear representatives of the region's three nuclear plants – Pilgrim in Plymouth, Vermont Yankee in Vernon, and Seabrook in New Hampshire—talk about the safety of their reactors in the light of the Japanese nuclear crisis. Vermont Yankee and Pilgrim have reactor designs similar to the crippled Japanese nuclear plants.
  As of April 2011, a total of 45 groups and individuals from across the nation are formally asking the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to immediately suspend all licensing and other activities at 21 proposed nuclear reactor projects in 15 states until the NRC completes a thorough post-Fukushima reactor crisis examination. The petitioners also are asking the NRC to supplement its own investigation by establishing an independent commission comparable to that set up in the wake of the serious, though less severe, 1979 Three Mile Island accident. The petitioners include Public Citizen, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace.
  Thirty two years after the No Nukes concert in New York, on August 7, 2011, a Musicians United for Safe Energy benefit concert was held Mountain View, California, to raise money for MUSE and for Japanese tsunami/nuclear disaster relief. The show was powered off-grid and 
  artists included Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, John Hall, Graham Nash, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Kitaro, Jason Mraz, Sweet Honey and the Rock, the Doobie Brothers, Tom Morello, and Jonathan Wilson.
  In February 2012, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the construction of two additional reactors at the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, the first reactors to be approved in over 30 years since the Three Mile Island accident, but NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko cast a dissenting vote citing safety concerns stemming from Japan's 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, and saying "I cannot support issuing this license as if Fukushima never happened". One week after Southern received the license to begin major construction on the two new reactors, a dozen environmental and anti-nuclear groups are suing to stop the Plant Vogtle expansion project, saying "public safety and environmental problems since Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor accident have not been taken into account".
  The nuclear reactors to be built at Vogtle are new AP1000 third generation reactors, which are said to have safety improvements over older power reactors. However, John Ma, a senior structural engineer at the NRC, is concerned that some parts of the AP1000 steel skin are so brittle that the "impact energy" from a plane strike or storm driven projectile could shatter the wall. Edwin Lyman, a senior staff scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, is concerned about the strength of the steel containment vessel and the concrete shield building around the AP1000. Arnold Gund
caption: Following the 2011 Japanese Fukushima nuclear disaster, authorities shut down the nation's 54 nuclear power plants. As of 2013, the Fukushima site remains highly radioactive, with some 160,000 evacuees still living in temporary housing, and some land will be unfarmable for centuries. The difficult cleanup job will take 40 or more years, and cost tens of billions of dollars.[126][127]
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