JAILED IN LAS VEGAS | BRIAN TERRELL WHEN NUCLEAR POWER CAME OF AGE | BRIAN PARKIN GIMME SHELTER (FROM THE TAX MAN) | NOMI PRINS ColdType WRITING WORTH READING | PHOTOS WORTH SEEING ISSUE 118 DONALD TRUMP Breaking the bottom of the barrel Cover illustration: JAILED IN LAS VEGAS | BRIAN TERRELL WHEN NUCLEAR POWER CAME OF AGE | BRIAN PARKIN GIMME SHELTER (FROM THE TAX MAN) | NOMI PRINS Anthony Jenkins ColdType www.jenkinsdraws.com WRITING WORTH READING | PHOTOS WORTH SEEING ISSUE 118 DONALD TRUMP B r e a k i n g the bottom ColdType of the barrel Issue 118 / Mid-May 2016 3. wHEN NUCLEAR POWER CAME OF AGE BRIAN PARKIN 6. TRUMP: BREAKING THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL DANNY KATCH 11. GIMME SHELTER (FROM THE TAX MAN) NOMI PRINS City life: Detroit (left) New York (above) – Pages 18-27 18. DOWN, BUT NOT OUT, IN NEW YORK AND DETROIT ASH THAYER, DAVE JORDANO 28. JAILED IN LAS VEGAS BRIAN TERRELL 33. THE GOOD LAWYER DELL FRANKLIN 36. Uber’s union could be a fAUSTIAN BARGAIN SARAH KAINE & EMMANUEL JOSSERAND 38. LOCAL HEROES TONY SUTTON 44. ANATOMY OF A PROPAGANDA BLITZ DAVID EDWARDS 49. BREAKING THE SILENCE JAMIE STERN-WEINER Editor: Tony Sutton – [email protected] / Copy Editor: Patricia Gillies 2 ColdType | Mid-May 2016 | www.coldtype.net DEADLY ANNIVERSARY When nuclear power ColdType came of age Brian Parkin recalls 1986’s Chernobyl disaster and explains how a lethal combination of technical arrogance, corporate and state deceit, and human fallibility will forever lie at the heart of the myth of nuclear power he 1986 Leeds May Day demonstra- are concerned – particularly in the immedi- Carried upwards tion was a muted affair, coming as it ate aftermath of a major nuclear incident. by easterly spring did just 12 months after the historic But with Chernobyl, from April to May 1986, winds, fallout in the defeat of Britain’s coal miners by the the incident was of such a massive scale that form of isotopes of T caesium, iodine and Thatcher government after a year-long strike. any amount of cover-up was bound to fail. But, for me, it was memorable in another re- During the 24 hours preceding the acci- xenon had blown spect: It rained. Late in that afternoon a post- dent at Chernobyl, the operating staff had across much of graduate friend rang and asked if we had got been engaged in experiments aimed at im- Europe wet on our outing, “Because if you did you proving reactor efficiencies. One problem will have got some caesium-137, thanks to they were trying to deal with was the build- the Ukraine nuclear disaster.” Earlier, as a up of a reactor-poisoning isotope – xenon- routine task of monitoring overnight rainfall 135– that tended to slow reactor neutron at a Leeds University weather station, he had speeds when the plant was operating at re- found clear traces of the radioactive isotope. duced load. The experiment involved trying Within days, as even the secretive Soviet to maintain reactor stability and preventing state couldn’t suppress the truth, it became xenon formation by varying the time-span clear that a major explosion at a nuclear of control rod insertion. This was being done station in Ukraine had spewed much of the manually when the reactor temperature first contents of a shattered and burning reactor fell, then suddenly surged. The consequent into the atmosphere. Carried upwards by massive peak in temperature and pace of the easterly spring winds, fallout in the form of runaway reaction overwhelmed both manu- isotopes of caesium, iodine and xenon had al and automatic control rod processes. blown across much of Europe. At 1:23 am, an emergency SCRAM (Safety The international nuclear industry, under Control Rod Axe Man) shutdown was auto- the auspices of the International Atomic En- matically tripped as the core temperature ergy Agency, has proved over 50 years to be soared, with only 28 of the 211 control rods in an effective watchdog and regulator of mat- place. Within 30 seconds, 18 of those 28 had ters regarding nuclear power. It has also un- fractured due to the heat, and the first explo- dertaken the role of ensuring a uniformity of sion occurred as steam discharging from the secrecy and deceit as far as matters of safety broken fuel channels instantly expanded, rip- www.coldtype.net | Mid-May 2016 | ColdType 3 DEADLY ANNIVERSARY WARNING: Gas mask lies in the dust in the ruins of an abandoned school at Pripyat. Photo: Kvitlauk, via www.flickr.com As the doomed men ping the reactor structure apart, blasting the tion suits and entered what remained of the tried to cope with the upper containment plate through the roof. upper reactor level in an effort to suppress the effects of the second The Russian RBMK reactor, like many de- fire. Although rescued from the building, they explosion, a third signs worldwide, including all of the United all died in lead-clad hospital isolation units explosion occurred, Kingdom’s reactor fleet in 1986, was based on within the next 24 hours. which was effectively a graphite core through which the fuel and As the doomed men tried to cope with the kind of explosion control rods were passed in channels. Howev- the effects of the second explosion, a third associated with a er, the problem with graphite, although it can explosion occurred, which was effectively nuclear weapon moderate the speed at which reaction neu- the kind of explosion associated with a nu- trons move, is that, like coal, it is about 90 per clear weapon. This explosion removed most cent carbon in content. Consequently, when of Reactor 4’s upper building and set fire to the 10,000 degrees Celsius core was blasted Reactor 3 building’s roof. open, the oxygen in the air reacted with the The fires at Chernobyl raged for 14 days, red-hot graphite and burned fiercely. (This during which teams of miners were drafted led to the joke that Chernobyl was the world’s in to dig beneath the blazing reactor and first ever coal-fired nuclear disaster). put concrete ballast under the foundations The initial steam explosion was followed to prevent a core meltdown into the water by a hydrogen explosion with a simultaneous table. It has been estimated that 500,000 graphite core fire – all within seconds. The pow- workers were rationed to a maximum 40 sec- er station staff was completely overwhelmed. onds work near the reactor – during which Then a collective act of the most tremendous time they are thought to have received more heroism took place: Fully aware that they were than 50 lifetimes’ of safe lifetime radiation. already fatally irradiated, the 30 reactor work- Fifty-three thousand people were imme- ers dosed themselves with potassium iodine diately evacuated – forever – from the town tablets, donned respirators and decontamina- of Pripyat. 4 ColdType | Mid-May 2016 | www.coldtype.net DEADLY ANNIVERSARY NO MORE FUN: Fairground in the abandoned Ukrainian city of Pripyat. Photo: Kvitlauk, via www.flickr.com Although the International Journal of Can- tonnes of water per hour. It was estimated When human cer estimated about 4,000 deaths in Ukraine that a 30-second cooling water failure at Cher- fallibility becomes a from the accident, another 4,000 cancer nobyl would result in a fire. When the cooling technological hubris deaths were estimated for the neighbouring water supply began to fail as the pumps were that is applied to Belarus region. Greenpeace has estimated denied power from the reactor, the diesel energy processes more than 200,000 excess cancer deaths in power took more than 75 seconds to come hotter than the sun, Ukraine and surrounding regions more than online, by which time the core was alight. the worst can – 10 years after the reactor explosion. So, sequentially, every safety system went and will – happen The reactor type at Chernobyl 4 was a down, leaving a dying, reactor crew trying tried-and-tested design, common through- to bring the core under control by manhan- out much of the former Soviet Union, East- dling control rods into already-blocked con- ern Europe, and the UK, where all the Mag- trol channels. Chernobyl was the first-ever nox and AGR stations operating at the time Level-7 nuclear event – only surpassed by were graphite moderated, albeit gas-cooled. the Fukushima meltdown in 2011. The two Many of the problems associated with events, where there were repeated safety sys- graphite block constructed cores, particu- tem failures in split-second sequence, are the larly radial cracking around the fuel and con- stuff that any future nuclear catastrophe will Brian Parkin’s trol rod channel pathways, have manifested be made of. When human fallibility becomes commentary themselves on the eight AGR stations in the a technological hubris that is applied to en- first appeared at UK, most of which are licensed to run for at ergy processes hotter than the sun, the worst the web site of least another 10 years. The second-by-second can – and will – happen. the organization cooling requirements of a Chernobyl type For the sake of both sanity and humanity, Revolutionary and size of reactor are formidable. Each reac- the deadly alchemy of nuclear fission must Socialism in the 21st tor core has 1,600 fuel rod channels, each of be struck out for ever from our range of en- Century which requires a constant flow of 28 metric ergy options. We have been warned. CT – www.rs21.org.uk www.coldtype.net | Mid-May 2016 | ColdType 5 Voters’ DILEMMA Trump: Breaking the bottom of the barrel Danny Katch analyzes the Republican Party’s then-there-was-one moment, and wonders how Donald Trump will perform as president At the top levels he Republican Party’s nominee for power and American empire.