On June 10, billionaire Bill Gates told the New York Times he is building a nuclear power plant in Wyoming. In 2014, the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor closed permanently because thousands of people marched in Brattleboro, and because hundreds of people were arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience in Brattleboro and outside the reactor three miles from Massachusetts and a stone's throw from New Hampshire. Deb Katz was one of the main organizers of these protests.

Last year, Katz told the Valley Post her reaction to an article in the August 12, 2023 edition of the New York Times. The article was headlined, “The Clean Energy Future Is Roiling Both Friends and Foes: Resistance to wind and solar projects from environmentalists is among an array of impediments to widespread conversion to renewables.”

The Times article said, in part, "Many nuclear power companies are seeking to develop a new generation of smaller, safer reactors, but outdated regulations could make approval difficult, experts warn."

Katz told the Valley Post, “The nuclear industry complains about 'outdated regulations.' These regulations protect people and the environment from the dangers of nuclear power and its waste. The industry is hyping small modular reactors as safer, smaller and less polluting -- a nifty answer to climate disruption. It wants less regulation but lots of federal money to resurrect itself. This is a bad idea. The industry has yet to create any viable, scientifically sound, or environmentally just, solution for the toxic contamination from the present generation of nukes. The 'new generation of smaller, safer reactors' potentially produce more waste (per unit of electricity generated, than Vermont Yankee did) not less. Ed Lyman said not only will it create more waste than older models, but also more deadly waste.”

Lyman's bio is at:

www.ucsusa.org/about/people/edwin-lyman

Nuclear waste is the deadliest material on earth and will still be toxic 1 million years after it is created, according to a federal study of the proposed Yucca mountain dump in Nevada. Thanks to Native American protesters, the Yucca dump will not open in the foreseeable future. Vermont Yankee's “high level” waste will stay where it was created, on the bank of the Connecticut river, for the foreseeable future.

Nuclear power plants are so dangerous that the insurance industry will not cover them. The federal government gives them free insurance, paid for by the USA's taxpayers.

Katz lives in the Pioneer Valley and runs a group that has a web site at www.NukeBusters.org.

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In 2021, about 9 million people died of starvation, according to:

https://www.wfp.org/news/world-wealth-9-million-people-die-every-year-hu....

One of the best ways to stop starvation is to help people from poor nations move to rich nations. The Northampton-based Pioneer Valley Workers Center helps immigrants build power. According to a June 11 email from the group, it recently held a rally outside the Massachusetts statehouse. The goal was to win passage of the “Fairness for Farmworkers Act... that will eliminate the sub-minimum wage for farmworkers, guarantee overtime pay after 55 hours” and make other changes. The state's minimum wage for farmworkers is now $8 an hour.