Monthly Archives: August 2021

Part I

The masters were dam tief, the Governor an old rogue, and the King not such a fool as to buy them half free when he was rich enough to pay for them altogether.

Port of Spain Gazette, August 5, 1834

Today is Emancipation Day. Ashton Ford, one of our respected elders, remembers the impetus that led former prime minister George Chambers to change the Discovery Day holiday (a day that recognised the misdeeds of our oppressors) to Emancipation Day that honours the achievements of our ancestors.

Chambers believed if you named your streets and monuments after local patriots, you encouraged a sense of nationhood and strengthened national identity among the population.

There is another aspect of this name change that is worthy of consideration. In his biography, Dostoevsky in Love, Alex Christofi outlines the themes that undergird Dostoevskys writing: The importance of understanding that autonomy and dignity are more precious to us than the rational self-interest of economics; that more people are killed by bad ideas than by honest feelings; that a society with no grand narrative is vulnerable to political extremism.

In 1848, at a meeting with his literary circle, Dostoevsky read V Belinskys famous open letter to NV Gogol. It said: The most urgent questions of national importance in Russia at present are the abolition of serfdom; the abolition of physical punishment; and the enforcement of laws that already exist. Belinsky described the Russian serfs as white Negroes. Dostoevsky devoted much of his early life to the liberation of the Russian serfs, which took place on March 5, 1861, Russias Emancipation Day.

One should keep these two considerations (Chambers rationale for creating Emancipation Day and Dostoevskys hatred of serfdom) in mind as one reads todays and next weeks columns.

On August 1, 1834, the glorious day arrived which the Trinidad planters had so opposed. On August 5, the Port of Spain Gazette apologised for not publishing its regular issue on Emancipation Day, the day on which for the first time for centuries the sun shone forth on the British West Indies without lighting a (single??) slave to labour; upon which 850,000 human beings who had gone to rest the previous night suffering under the weight of slavery and [sad]ness insupportable, arose free and happy, and rejoicing at their deliverance from [slavery] which had from birth kept them down to the level of beasts.

Prior to that glorious day, the enslaved made it clear that after Emancipation Day they did not have the slightest intention to work in the fields again. The Port of Spain Gazette reported that the orders of council, the ordinances and the proclamations relating to emancipation had been fully published and explained to the enslaved who had generally laughed at and rejected the interpretation of that august document that the governor had offered. They believed the King had freed them right out, and that the apprenticeship was a job got up between their masters and the Governor. Their masters were damn tief, the Governor an old rogue, and the King not such a fool as to buy them half free when he was rich enough to pay for them altogether.

These were the feelings expressed by the slaves whenever the topic of Apprenticeship was ventured upon, either by their masters or the Government, and it was consequently thought wise to provide some mode of convincing them of their errors more forcibly, than mere explanation and reasoning, and four companies of the local Militias were ordered to hold themselves in readiness to commence permanent duty.

This show of force did not intimidate the newly freed population. On the morning of that glorious day, the newspaper reported that the apprentices moved into town in numerous groups and gangs, and wended their way to Government House. Long before His Excellency the Governor arrived in town, the Court Yard and surrounding neighbourhood were peopled by the happy and free, to the number of about 400, who had come to inform His Excellency that they had resolved to strike work.

These men and women were determined to demonstrate their free condition. They would listen to nothing that the governor had to say about any restrictions on their freedom. They were not only utterly disregarded but grossly insulted, and openly set at defiance. Explanation was drowned by vociferation; persuasion was attributed to fear and treated with disdain, whilst threats [were] met with contempt. The mob [the newspapers description] would listen to none, and became more turbulent and insolent each moment. After being treated as beasts of burden for many years, they displayed a new understanding of their place in the world.

Even at this moment, the dominant class could not but show its adeptness and coercion. The militia were requested to appear and in a space of time scarcely creditable, the whole of the town corps were under arms, and in a force and state of appointment gratifying to every man [presumably, the whites] who beheld them. Mercifully, all of the armed forces did not behave the same way.

In spite of the military presence, the newly freed continued to swarm Government House until the evening without exhibiting the least inclination to return to the estates to which they were attached, and the Governor upon taking his departure for his residence was assailed with every kind of abuse that apparently impunity could suggest.

In spite of their jubilation, the newly freed remained remarkably peaceful.

The estate workers around Port of Spain ceased work almost without exception, but not a single instance of violence was heard of. After dark, the newly freed Negroes (their term) dispersed and went back to their estates.

Prof Cudjoes e-mail address is scudjoe@wellesley.edu.

He can be reached

@ProfessorCudjoe

See the original post:

Glorious day(s) of the happy and the free - Trinidad & Tobago Express Newspapers

When inmates at Kingston Penitentiary decided in 1950 to start theKP Telescope, their very own newspaper, they already had a printing press and resources to start producing it. But when inmates across the street at the Prison for Women created their own publication, calledTightwire, in 1970, it was a different story.

We had to do everything from scratch, says Heather Evans, who contributed poems and artwork toTightwirewhile in the Prison for Women between 1984 and 1990.

The women, Evans explains, typed each issues articles on a typewriter, then photocopied and stapled the pages together themselves.Tightwirecontained original art, poetry, essays, reports, op-eds, and news from other institutions and the outside, along with health and programming PSAs for prisoners.

North American prisoners began producing their own publications in the 1950s and distributed them in prisons and to the general public. Contributors sold subscriptions and ads to support production. Asprison populations skyrocketedduring the last half of the 20th centuryandinstitutional control tightened, though, the tradition of the prison pressshifted toward obsolescence.

You can count on TVO to cover the stories others dontto fill the gaps in the ever-changing media landscape. But we cant do this without you.

But archived copies ofTightwireand other publications, maintained by former prisoners and their allies, remain important resources for learning about the experience ofincarceration and the movement for prison abolition.

It was very personal and extremely subjective, says Evans. It was our own experiences that went down on those pages, that we allowed other people to see. Thishelped cultivate mutual respect among the prisoners inside the Prison for Women, she says: You got to see what another person experienced on some level, as a child growing up in the foster system, as a child growing up in the residential-school system. They shared, and that brought us closer together.

According to Evans, the Prison for Womens management censoredTightwiresignificantly. Whenseven prisoners died by suicidein the late 1980s, Evans says, they had to sneak notes out to the public to draw attention to the crisis.They wouldnt want the whole truth getting out there, she says.

For the past 10 years, Melissa Munn, a professor at Okanagan College, in British Columbia, has been building a digital collection of penal-press issues atPenal Press A History of Prison Within. It now features more than 1,500 PDF copies of issues from institutions across North America, including 31 issues ofTightwire.

The women who wrote forTightwirewere politically conscious, what people would now call woke, says Munn. They were proposing interventions and alternatives like harm reduction and safe supply for drug usersthat were largely being ignored by both the correctional apparatus and the public at large.

Munn says that prisoners have always been the most accurate and effective writers and thinkers on prison systems, even if they havent received credit in the mainstreamPrisoners are not just passive recipients of penal policy and action but have always been active in their resistance to it and active in suggesting change, says Munn. The women who were involved in the publication ofTightwirewere activists and resisters and people who deeply contemplated incarceration and penal justice overall.

Inmates at such mens prisons as Collins Bay Institution and Kingston Penitentiary had a significant audience for their publishing work: the formersC.B. Diamond, Munn says, had 700 subscribers in March 1953; the lattersTelescopehad1,500 paid subscribers by June 1958.

By contrast, Munn says,Tightwires writers were incarcerated women who had largely been erased from the public eye: It gave women a forum to be heard and to demand attention to their issues.Tightwiregave them a voice to agitate for change that they would not have had otherwise.

Ann Hansen was incarcerated at the Prison for Women from 1984 until 1992; while she didnt contribute toTightwire, she holds a deep respect for the former zine and the friends who produced it. It gives you a bit of an eye into the soul of a lot of prisoners, says Hansen, who is a founding member of thePrison for Women Memorial Collective,a group of former prisonersadvocating for a memorial gardenand community space on the grounds of the institution, which closed in 2000. You dont get that perspective from people who havent been to prison, to really understand why a person is maybe dysfunctional in the average working or educational stream of society.

Hansen, whos been a prison-abolition activist for 47 years, says that, in the past few years, shes noticed increased awareness around the struggles that prisoners face. But, she adds, prisoners are still looked down upon even by potential allies.

People still assume that prisoners are weak and impulsive and need to be helped, says Hansen. When youre in prison, you realize just how strong and resilient the women in prison are. Theyre used to dealing with hardship. Theyre not easily frightened and are not stupid, regardless of their education.

Tightwireceased printing in 1995, one of a crop of penal presses that disappeared over the back half of the 20th century. Today, only a handful such asOut of Bounds, from British Columbias William Head Institution, andThe Mallard, from B.C.s Mission Medium Security Institution operate across Canada. According to Munn, most were diminished by censorship, a lack of resources, and outdated tech. With larger prison populations and strained inmate-committee funds, the production of penal presses has dropped off.

Evans and Hansen are glad that people can look at issues ofTightwireand learn directly from their friends and fellow survivors of Prison for Women, in their own words. Evans remains proud of the work she and the otherTightwirecontributors were able to accomplish, summarizing its ultimate value simply: It was just It was ours.

Ontario Hubs are made possible by the Barry and Laurie Green Family Charitable Trust & Goldie Feldman.

Read the original:

Writing in the margins: The story behind Kingstons Prison for Women magazine - TVO

A rendering of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project, the largest public works project in the early 1980s, which failed and was halted in 1983. (Wikimedia Commons)

This article was originally published byWyoFileand is republished here with permission.WyoFileis an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

July 30, 2021byJoel Funk, WyoFile

When state officialsunveiledin June that a nuclear demonstration project is slated for Wyoming, they touted it as an advanced technology. But critics of the Natrium project say weve been here before with the same technology and the same assurances made only to see hopes dashed and massive public investments go to waste.

Article continues below...

The multi-billion dollarNatriumproject is a joint effort of PacifiCorp, TerraPower and the U.S. Department of Energy that is expected to place a 345-megawatt power plant in Wyoming. Behind TerraPower is none other than Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Gates has injected vast sums from his enormous wealth into finding a solution to the worlds climate crisis that can be implemented in the near future. The investment in Natrium, Gates said during a recorded statement in June, would allow Wyoming to continue being a leader in U.S. energy.

Based on stipulations of the federal grant that makes the project possible, the plant is to be completed within seven years.

The unexpected announcementin early June brought rosy projections and big grins from Gov. Mark Gordon and U.S. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), along with representatives from TerraPower and Rocky Mountain Power. (Rocky Mountain Power is a unit of PacifiCorp.)

Gordon declared it game-changing and monumental for Wyoming, a state suffering massive budget shortfalls and economic ennui from a long-term downturn in fossil-fuel markets.

The advanced nuclear energy demonstration plant is slated to replace one of four coal-fired plant units in PacifiCorps Wyoming power system: either at Jim Bridger near Rock Springs, Naughton in Kemmerer, Dave Johnston near Glenrock or WyoDak near Gillette. Leaders in those communities have expressed hope tothe Casper Star Tribunethat they will land the jobs and tax revenues expected of the massive project.

Critics familiar with the technology and its history, however, doubt whether a commercially operating nuclear power plant will manifest in the next seven years or ever in Wyoming.

It would be quite a feat to pull off, Allison Macfarlane, Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair from 2012-2014, told WyoFile.

The history and current state of nuclear energy in the U.S. is long and complicated, but Edwin Lyman, Union of Concerned Scientists nuclear power safety director, said one thing is abundantly clear:No U.S. nuclear power project has been successfully completed on time and on budget in recent decades.

To attempt to build and operate a commercial unit without first taking the time to do all the necessary safety testing is a recipe for disaster, Lyman said of the Natrium project.

TerraPower declined a request for an interview.

The nuclear reactors that supply roughly 20% of American electricity are known as light-water reactors. These thermal neutron reactors use water as both coolant and neutron moderator. Heat generated by controlled nuclear fission turns the water into steam, which drives the power-generating turbines.

The proposed Natrium reactor, by contrast, belongs to a broad class of non-light-water reactors. Sometimes called advanced reactors, they are cooled not by water but by other substances, such as liquid sodium, helium gas or even molten salts.

Natriums specific design is known as a fast reactor. This type of nuclear reactor does not require a moderator material to slow down fission neutrons. Natrium uses liquid sodium as its coolant. (The name Natrium comes from the Latin word for sodium.) The solid sodium melts into a liquid form when it gets hot enough. That molten metal is whats inside the core cooling the reactor vessel and via a molten salt loop ultimately allowing a steam turbine to generate electricity.

Its significantly different from light-water reactors, Jeff Navin, TerraPowers director of external affairs, told Wyoming lawmakers June 25 in Casper. The design makes the system safer, he said, and inherently prevents meltdowns.

That liquid metal has a very high boiling point, and what that means is the reactor cant get hot enough to boil the coolant off, Navin said. So in the event of an accident happening, or loss of power, we dont have to touch anything to keep the reactor from melting down.

Though significantly different from the more-established light-water reactors, Natriums sodium-cooled approach isnt new.

Its new technological development is the molten salt storage component, which has the potential to boost the systems power up to a maximum of 500 megawatts, Navin said. A megawatt of capacity produces electricity thats equivalent to powering between 400 and 900 homes for a year,according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

That energy storage component is four times larger than the biggest lithium ion battery plant that is currently deployed around the world, Navin said. This is a real massive and a real big gamechanger on that front. So what makes it valuable, what makes us valuable, is the ability to respond to that supply and demand on the energy system.

The Natrium reactor would be roughly one-third of the size of a traditional light-water-reactor design, resulting in cost savings and reducing the scale in the event of an accident, Navin said. Additionally, proponents assert it would produce two-thirds less spent radioactive waste than a traditional light water reactor. Radioactive waste from the Natrium reactor would be stored on-site as the federal government continues to develop plans for permanent nuclear waste storage an endeavor that has eluded policymakers since the inception of U.S. nuclear power generation.

Fast breeder reactor designs such as Natrium date back to 1944 with the Manhattan Project. The worlds first nuclear reactor to generate electricity was the Experimental Breeder Reactor-I, built in Idaho, which powered four lightbulbs in 1951.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, five sodium-cooled fast reactors are operating today in India, Russia and China. Four are experimental, testing features of the power systems. One commercial demonstration reactor is in Russia, where operators are assessing its ability to generate enough power consistently to serve electrical customers. A demonstration sodium-cooled fast reactor in India is slated to go online in 2021, but Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists said theres some doubt as to whether that timeline will pan out. The only fast breeder reactors ever connected to electrical grids were the French Superphnix and the Russian BN-600 and BN-800.

None of these fast reactors are currently operating as commercial reactors serving power customers.

The U.S. Department of Energy in 2017 identified sodium-cooled fast reactors as one of two non-light-water reactor technologies it would focus on for demonstration. Two sodium-cooled fast reactor concepts were submitted to the federal agency for evaluation. One of those was the General Electric-Hitachi PRISM (Power Reactor Innovative Small Module) fast reactor, based on the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II.

Three companies, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, are developing reactors that are based, to varying extents, on the PRISM reactor design. One of those is TerraPowers Natrium reactor.

There have been high degrees of enthusiasm at various times in U.S. history for investing in nuclear power. Such endeavors have always come with baggage. Its expensive, technically complex and dogged by safety concerns. Public concerns about the prospects of a core meltdown, proliferation or security breach require constant management.

Nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism risk is the danger that nations or terrorist groups could illicitly obtain nuclear-weapon-usable materials from reactors or fuel cycle facilities, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Persistent problems continue to plague ambitions to incorporate more light-water reactors into the power grid. TheVogtle plant in Georgia, for example, is years behind schedule with projected costs standing at more than twice the initial estimate of $14 billion. Another example, theLevy County nuclear plant in Florida, scheduled to go online in 2016, was abandoned after costs ballooned from $5 billion to $22 billion and it was clear it would be roughly a decade behind schedule.

Proponents of nuclear energy understand there are public perception problems with continued government subsidization of light-water reactor projects, Lyman said. The interest in non-light-water reactors is, in part, a reaction to these perception problems, with supporters seeing the technology as a potential breakthrough in the nuclear industry.

But the term advanced reactor, when applied to non-light-water reactors, is something of a misnomer, Lyman said. Designs of today, he said, are largely descended from decades-old models.

There may be some variations on them, but you know its not like this hasnt been tried [in] many different countries for many decades, Lyman said.

In the mid-20th century, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission supported demonstration plants of non-light-water reactors at sites throughout the United States. One of those, a liquid-metal-sodium-cooled fast reactor calledFERMI-1, suffered a partial fuel meltdown in 1966. It went back online years later, but was shut down permanently in 1972. Another example is theFort St. Vrain high temperature gas cooled reactors in Coloradothat experienced operational problems. Established in 1979, thosefailedafter about a decade.

Several critics who spoke to WyoFile were reminded of the nuclear demonstration project that never was at Clinch River, Tennessee. In the early 1980s, it was thelargest public works projectin the United States.

The project a joint effort of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the U.S. electric power industry was intended to demonstrate the sodium-cooled fast reactor technology. It received an injection of government money with the idea it would be commercially viable after that initial boost. The Congressional appropriation came in 1972 after President Richard Nixonestablished it as the nations highest research and development priority. Cost estimates that started in the hundreds of millions grew to billions. There was opposition from the political left and right, and it lost lawmakers confidence. Construction that broke ground in 1981 under Reagan ceased in 1983.

Henry Sokolski, nowexecutive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, worked in the 1980s for the conservative Washington, D.C., think-tank the Heritage Foundation. When he first came to the foundation, it was in support of the Clinch River fast breeder nuclear project. Under Sokolskis direction, the think-tank would change course, condemning and eventually helping kill the project.

In Sokolskis view, pursuing another fast reactor is akin to swimming upstream against history, with the chances it will be commercially viable vanishingly small. Looking at predictions, and promises of the past, Sokolski said the federal government is again going down a fraught path.

Attempts at implementing fast breeder reactors have failed, Sokolski said, pointing to theSNR-300 in Germany;Dounreay in Scotland;Superphnix in France;JoyoandMonjuin Japan; and more.

The PRISM design that the Natrium is based on has not had real-world experience, Lyman said.

TheVersatile Test Reactor a sodium-cooled fast reactor funded by the Department of Energy originally intended for operation in Idaho in 2026 andalready projected to see cost overruns and Natrium are intended to serve as the first large-scale demonstrations of PRISM technology.

All non-light-water reactor designs, Lyman wrote in a March 2021Union of Concerned Scientists report, will require testing to understand and address new safety issues that come with the technology. To determine whether non-light-water reactors are, in fact, safer than light-water reactors,the reactor must achieve an advanced stage of technical maturity, undergo complete comprehensive safety testing and analysis, and acquire significant operating experience under realistic conditions.

Because of the questions about safety and reliability, Lyman wrote that proceeding with construction of the VTR and the Natrium without conducting prototype testing could pose unacceptable risks to public health, safety, and security, as well as to the success of either project.

Eight countries in the past 60 years have collectively spent more than$100 billionunsuccessfully trying to produce a commercially competitive sodium-cooled fast reactor, Macfarlane wrote in aJuly column in Foreign Affairs. Theeconomic, technical and logistical hurdles that stand in the way of building safer, more efficient and cost-competitive reactors are too great to succeed in the required timeline for reducing fossil fuel emissions in the fight against the global climate crisis, she told WyoFile.

Im a realist and a pragmatist, Im a scientist, Im a geologist by training, and its just not possible for nuclear to have any kind of significant impact on reducing climate change in the next 20 years, she said.

TerraPower is hoping its Natrium reactor project in Wyoming will be the first of 100 advanced nuclear reactor power plants operating commercially in the U.S., Navin told lawmakers in June. Wyoming, as a global leader in energy for more than a century, was a natural choice with several advantages, he said.

But critics are uncertain whether Natriums timeline, Wyomings workforce, and natural resource utilization projections are realistic.

Sen. Barrasso introduced and was the lead Senate author of theNuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, which has facilitated greater investment in research and development of advanced reactor technology and reaffirms congressional support for nuclear energy. The legislation directs the NRC to be much more aggressive in bringing resources to the table to help get these advanced reactors licensed.

The licensing phase would likely take two to three years, TerraPower president and CEO Chris Levesque said during the June announcement.

TerraPower estimates that once construction is allowed to begin, there could be 2,000-3,000 workers needed, with another 300-400 permanent jobs projected through the 60-year life of the plant, Navin told lawmakers June 25.

There is a conflict, however, between economic viability and maximized on-site employment, Lyman said. On one hand, he said companies are telling audiences at conventions they are finding ways to cut capital costs, including labor, to make sure new nuclear power is competitive with other forms of power generation. On the other, Lyman said its advantageous to give politicians in Wyoming the higher end of labor projections.

Many small reactor vendors are banking on the ability to reduce both construction and operating costs radically in order to compete with lower-cost sources of generation, he told WyoFile in an email. TerraPower cant have it both ways.

TerraPower repeatedly told lawmakers June 25 that the company hoped it would take advantage of the existing Wyoming workforce for its labor needs, citing its experience and motivation. Lyman, however, is skeptical local workers would be the most economical choice, he said.

For instance, welders need to have special qualifications to work on nuclear projects, and I believe they are in short supply even in parts of the country where there is a workforce with nuclear experience, Lyman said in an email. And many of the jobs for plant operation would require professional training and skills, as well. Is TerraPower factoring in the time and resources needed for this retraining of the local workforce?

Barrasso, Gordon and the Wyoming Mining Association have all expressed enthusiasm at the prospect of using the states uranium for nuclear reactors in the U.S. Critics contend that prospect is exaggerated.

TerraPower and Rocky Mountain Power reached out to uranium operators in the state prior to the Natrium public announcement, Travis Deti, Wyoming Mining Association director told lawmakers June 25. For an industry in dreadful condition, Deti said it was welcome news.

And when the announcement was made we had representatives from all nine of our uranium companies in Wyoming it was met with applause, Deti said. Our guys are very excited about this.

Currently, theres little demand for uranium beyond that for existing reactors, and demand wont likely increase for decades, if at all, Macfarlane said.

The U.S. gets most of its uranium from imports, withdomestic supplydropping from a peak in 1980. Deti said Wyoming operators mined 27,000 pounds of uranium in 2020, comparing it to about 12 million pounds a year back in the 1970s.

Russia is the only realistic source of the large quantity of high-assay, low enriched uranium that the Natrium will need, Lyman said.

There is virtually no chance that U.S. uranium will be used if this reactor is to start up on schedule, Lyman said in an email.

Finally, Navin said Congress was clear it expected a seven-year timeframe. While he acknowledged that as very aggressive, he believes it could be done, he said.

Again, Lyman doubts this is achievable. Recent history, Lyman said, does not support the notion that new nuclear plants, even those based on proven technologies, can be built on time and on budget let alone on an accelerated schedule.

The Natrium demonstration projects cost will be split 50-50 between the Department of Energy and TerraPower with an overall cap of $4 billion. TerraPowers Navin said the company is assuming the risk of cost overruns, assuring lawmakers thats not going to be something thats going to be put either on the state of Wyoming or on Rocky Mountain Powers ratepayers.

So even with Wyoming not on the hook financially, what do residents of the Equality State stand to lose with the Natrium project?

For a community struggling economically, Lyman said he can see why the Natrium proposal would appear to have merits for Wyoming.

If it employs some people for some period of time, its better than nothing. But there are also the larger considerations, as well, he said. From a national perspective, not every pork barrel project that gives people employment is going to be a worthwhile expenditure of taxpayer money.

Wyoming could be left with a complicated cleanup from a project that doesnt go anywhere, and if the plant is operational for a period of time, there would be radioactive waste.A bottleneck in Congressis holding up a permanent geological solution for permanent spent nuclear waste disposal Theres no clear answer for where the waste is supposed to go.

The plan, Navin said, is to store nuclear waste on the plant site until there is a federal determination as to where it will be permanently stored.

The issue of waste is concerning whether the plant is commercially successful or not, Noah Miterko, Health Environmental Alliance of Utah policy associate, said.

If this plant ends up outside of Kemmerer [for example], then the downside for them is they have thousands of pounds of radioactive waste in their backyard, and if the time comes to move it, they have hundreds of trucks moving through their town with high-level radioactive waste, Miterko said. Theres been no innovation on how to deal with radioactive waste.

Miterko is closely following theNuScale project, apotential 720-megawatt nuclear power plant being developed by the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems for Idaho Falls, Idaho. The Department of Energy in October approved a $1.3 billion award for the NuScale project.

Miterko, whose organization advocates nuclear abolition, said Wyoming should proceed with caution in approaching the Natrium project.

I have a lot of empathy for these communities in Wyoming that are losing their economic engines in fossil fuels, Miterko said. Communities have been through this before and it doesnt always have a happy ending.

One of the key risks, Macfarlane said, is that humans are running out of time to address climate change in a meaningful way. The resources being funneled to nuclear energy could go elsewhere in the climate crisis fight, she said.

We cant pin our hopes on [nuclear] as the thing thats going to get us out of the next 20 years, and the next 20 years are absolutely crucial, Macfarlane said. And so we absolutely have to just throw what we have behind renewables because we know that technology works.

Despite assurances that TerraPower would assume any potential cost overruns, Lyman said he could picture a scenario where the company is back lobbying Congress to try to raise the $4 billion cap.

Were just speculating here, but unless they make a solemn pledge to the people of the state and the country that theyre not going to accept another dime of public money, anything goes, he said.

This story is supported by a grant through Wyomings Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and the National Science Foundation.

Related Stories from Oil City News:

See more here:

Weve been here before: Wyoming nuclear project echoes of past - Oil City News

Today is Emancipation Day, and millions of Afro-Caribbean people within the Region and across the diaspora will be celebrating the abolition of slavery across the British Empire. We have come a far way since this first Emancipation Day, but there are still many ingrained colonialist systems and thought processes that we are battling to overcome today.

While there are many books, both fiction and non-fiction, that detail the horrors of slavery, I wanted to focus on a post-emancipation narrative from within the Region for this months review. Emancipation was not clean and easy, and many of the newly liberated found themselves facing entirely new struggles, or systems that were just thinly disguised plantation throwbacks.

So, for my August reading, I have chosen The Rainmakers Mistake by Erna Brodber. Although this is a slim volume, Brodbers use of speculative elements makes this story richly dense, and in an abstract way she shows how the emancipated struggle to uncover the truth of their histories, while simultaneously trying to hold onto their individual and communal identities as the world changes rapidly around them.

Founders Day is our day to celebrate [Mr Charlie] lifting us from beneath the earth and placing us on top of the earth to realise our creativity. Look at what I have brought you here to build, he adds. Clearly, this section of the programme is about appreciation and not just of Woodville, but also of us. With our new cloth rolled up like mats, we dig into the animals prepared in appreciation of us. -p.6

The Rainmakers Mistake opens with a story within a story, recounted by a five-year-old girl named Queenie. In the beginning, she says, plantation owner Mr Charlie was granted a patent on a thousand acres of land. He tried and failed to work the land by himself and decided that he needed labour. He makes himself a workforce by ejaculating into holes in the earth. These holes grow yams, which he reaps at various stages to create babies, children, teenagers, and adults, all of whom are assigned various tasks throughout the plantation according to their age set. He also has an overseer, called Woodville, who helps him to manage the plantation.

However, when Queenie and her age mates are just one year shy of entering the pickney gang, one of the adults a woman named I-sis gives birth to a pale-skinned, non-yam baby named Sallywater, which seems to upset Woodville. Soon after, Mr Charlie summons the pre-pickney gang children and declares that it is 1834 and they are free. Confused, they wait under Mr Charlies veranda for further instructions. Later, Mr Charlie returns, summons those who are over six, and makes a similar declaration: its 1838 and everyone on the plantation is now free. Emancipation and the non-yam baby reveal enrage Woodville. While the plantation workers struggle to find out what free means and how it will affect their yearly routine, Woodville starts yelling accusations at Mr Charlie, which no one seems to understand. When he overhears one of the final questions, he starts to laugh so hard, that he makes a tornado that uproots Mr Charlies great house and sends it flying away with him still inside.

In the confusion that follows, the group of plantation workers splits and so does the land. I-sis and her non-yam baby go one way and Woodville goes another. The rest of the population settles between them on a newly formed island they call Cabarita. The Future and The Norm lie in front of Cabarita island, and The Past lays behind it. The adults take land from The Past to extend the island and to make homes and farms to sustain themselves, and to trade with people from The Future. Life is peaceful for them, and they are thriving in their independence, even though they still maintain a plantation like work segregation and organisation, and still long for Mr Charlies return.

Then things start to go wrong. Queenie goes over to I-sis plot of land and discovers a startling truth: an entire century has passed on the island and neither she nor the other islanders have aged, while I-sis is long dead, and Sallywater is now an old woman on deaths door. Things escalate further when a decrepit Woodville washes up on the island, and begins digging into the islanders time, forcing them to age and grow in ways they had never before.

Curious about why this is happening, Queenie sets off to the Future to study and find answers, while her brothers Essex and Little Congo set up farms in The Past and on Woodvilles place to help support the community. Together, these three start to uncover the truth about themselves, Mr Charlie, and the Cabarita islanders, while also navigating resistance from their elders.

Post-Emancipation Stagnation

It is a fact of life that hardworking people become their work.- p. 40

There are so many themes that Brodber explores throughout this novella, but one of the most important is the way the plantation system conditions the older inhabitants of Cabarita island, leading to a century-long stagnation. Mr Charlies plantation system rigidly divided labour according to ones age-set. Since the people on the island dont age, they may have been doing the same task for well over a century by the time they were finally freed. After their emancipation, because of this robotic, infinite repetition of tasks, all they can do is keep on maintaining a plantation-like system of living and thinking, even when confronted with other problems. In doing so, Brodber shows how dehumanising the plantation system really was. She doesnt focus on the brutality of it, but rather on the way continued repetitive tasks with no space for personal creativity helps to stagnate generations of the newly emancipated.

However, the people who break away from this stagnation are the youngest of the Cabarita islanders: Queenie and her agemates. Queenie, Essex, Little Congo, and Jupiter break away from their elders and journey into The Future, The Norm and The Past. Using their childhood curiosity, they begin to learn about the world and to bring back both knowledge and remittances in food and money. Queenie notably gets medical and archaeological degrees so that she could investigate their living bodies, and the bodies and artifacts left behind by their few dead to figure out the truth of their bodies and their history.

Sadly, we see that some of her elders resist her probing, particularly one man named London. London seems upset that Queenie refuses to stop investigating the mystery of their immortality. He is upset with Jupiter as well once he goes off to have his own experiences in the future to solve his own personal problems. According to him, he was satisfied with not thinking and having to make decisions for himself or anyone else, and he thinks that others should be happy with the simplicity of the by-gone systems. It is truly uncomfortable to see London seeming to revel in his own stagnation.

Catching up with the world or foreign interference?

Another fascinating issue in the book is the effect Woodvilles return has on the islanders. Woodville acts as a catalyst for two things. Firstly, he forces the islanders into a future that they are not ready for. Secondly, he starts a wave of migration and remigration among the youth.

Woodvilles presence mysteriously forces the islanders to age, and in turn nudges them into a maturity they are not prepared for and forces them to acknowledge the existence of systems they cannot properly navigate. London is the person responsible for selling the islanders surplus goods in The Future. Once, he came back and reported that children go to school in The Future, and therefore he says that the Cabarita islanders have to go to school, too. But, to enter school, you need a birth certificate. To get a birth certificate, you need Mr Charlies signature, since he is the Father of all the islanders. But Mr Charlie is gone, so the children must sit and stagnate on the island. In summary, they are educationally disadvantaged by a legal and record-keeping system that they do not understand because of their isolation and immortality.

The elders try to navigate these systems on the island themselves, but the youngest islanders feel the need to migrate and go investigate The Past, The Future and The Norm. In doing so, they learn how to navigate these systems better than their elders and can support their fellow islanders with their remittances. Queenie and Essex even collaborate in one of these foreign spaces to piece together the truth of their bodies and their past to solve the mystery of their immortality.

Criticism

While I loved this book and its portrayal of how the legacy of the plantation system led to stagnation in the Caribbean, I have one criticism. I was very confused by the final two chapters of the book and had to do some external research to understand it. On Episode 4 of the SF Crossing the Gulf podcast, hosted by Karen Lord and Karen Burnham, I made a surprising discovery. The Rainmakers Mistake was more than a Caribbean post-emancipation narrative. It was actually science fiction. This book is Brodbers way of mocking the re-write of history that has been floating around by people who deny the brutality of slavery and the plantation system. She shows that even if there were an ideal and kind plantation environment, where slaves are apparently happy and content and cared for by benevolent masters and overseers, they are still a commodity for someone else and their conditioning ultimately denies the part of their humanity steeped in culture and community.

While this revelation helped me understand and love the book more, the ending still felt rushed and jumbled, and I do believe that it could have been a bit smoother. However, if it was Brodbers intention was to force her readers to do several re-reads, then she was very successful indeed.

Conclusion

I enjoyed The Rainmakers Mistake. It made me hungry for more of these post-emancipation narratives that show that the abolition of slavery wasnt an automatic cultural and social reset. While I initially felt some dissonance and felt personally uncomfortable reading the portrayal of the Cabarita islanders and their social and economic stagnation, by the end of the book I understood Brodbers message. The plantation systems conditioning was an insidious way of decimating peoples cultures, personalities and creativity, and those who champion the belief that it could be somehow humane and safe completely overlook how it obliterates peoples dignity and humanity.

Freed Black people still had to struggle hard to break out of the plantation-like system that they were conditioned into, both physically and mentally. Generations later, we are still not completely free of slaverys legacy. But, as Brodber shows, there is hope in young people, particularly those who are both curious enough to find out their personal and communal truths, and who are willing to continuously challenge the systems trying to keep them in that plantation state of mind. This, I think, is an ongoing form of post-emancipation resistance that will follow us into many future Emancipation Days.

My rating:

I want to give special thanks to Karen Lord, who pointed me toward Episode 4 of the SF Crossing the Gulf Podcast. This review would not have been possible without the analyses and explanations presented in her joint analysis with Karen Burnham.

Want to read more books about slavery, emancipation and thereafter? Try

Read more here:

Overcoming post-Emancipation stagnation in Erna Brodbers The Rainmakers Mistake - Stabroek News