Gmlfordian
Volume LXIV, No. 14
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Dr. Michio Kaku prepares for his Sternberger speech in which he
told of previously undisclosed nuclear accidents.
N.C. next?
By Paul Holcomb
News Editor
Dr. Michio Kaku, a visiting
nuclear physicist said here
Thursday that North Carolina
is a likely site of the next Three
Mile Island and that the Nuclear
Regulating Commssion has
ordered only "cosmetic changes
in the design and construction
of nuclear plants since Three
Mile Island."
Dr. Kaku sited documents
obtained from the U.S. govern
ment. He said that the Bruns
wick II reactor near Wilmington
had more accidents in 1976
that any reactor in the country.
The physicist said the reac
tors built by N.C utilities were
Loughlin expands
By Brian Carey
Editor
Guilford's biannual literary
magazine, The Piper, is enjoy
ing a pleasant revival, thanks to
editor Chip Loughlin.
Loughlin joined the magazine
as editor this fall, with the idea
of making it more of a literary
group, and so far has succeeded
with his goal.
"Sometimes you feel like
you've not done enough," says
Loughlin. But he has managed
to keep the group together,
infuse them with energy, and
put out a successful fall issue.
Loughlin's chores began
early in the fall when he
organized the group and began
soliciting contributions for The
Piper Byway of notices, signs,
and knocking on doors, he
collected enough material for
"at best lemons, at worst
another Three Mile Island." He
was most disdtressed because
several of the malfunctions at
Brunswick occurred in the reac
tor's Emergency Core Cooling
System (ECCS), the last de
fense against a meltdown in a
serious mishap.
Dr. Kaku quoted a recently
published best-seller by the
Harvard School of Business
called Energy Future. It said
nuclear power was not a feas
ible energy source for the years
ahead.
He said the "oil crisis" was
actually a "profit crisis," and
that "we certainly have enough
oil to last us for a transition to
alternative sources."
the issue
Then, with the aid of a few
other staff members, Loughlin
made the selections for publica
tions and laid out the magazine.
Coordinating the literary rea
dings and dinners occupies an
equal amount of Loughlin's
schedule. Last semester, the
group had a dinner with Rob
and Charlotte Williams, with
Rob reading an original short
story and Charlotte reading
translations of several Russian
poems.
"I hope that we are able to
talk sensibly about what is
being read," says Loughlin,
and this is usually the case.
Loughlin feels that financial
realities will force The Piper to
continue to use newsprint, and
wishes for more faculty feed
back and comments. But he's
Guilford College, Greensboro, N.C. 27410
We must denounce nuclear power
Kaku presentation energetic
By Gordon Palmer
Features Editor
Partial meltdowns, hydrogen
gas explosions, and fatal and
harmful accidents have been
going on at commercial nuclear
power plants since long before
the Three Mile Island accident.
And North Carlina could be
next.
These are the bold assertions
of Dr Michio Kaku, a nuclear
physics professor from City
College of New York, and they
form the main thrust of his
argument against nuclear
power in his press conference
and speech!
The message may be a big
jolt to some, but the youthful
looking Dr. Kaku exudes a very
calm manner as he delivers it.
As to why he thinks that North
Carolina may be the site of the
next Three Mile Island-scale
accident, he goes into very
precise technical detail, elucida
ting the factors visually for the
laymen in the audience.
Dr. Kaku refers to a reactor in
the vicinity, the Sharon Harris
plant. In particular, he is talking
about the testimony of a former
worker at the site of the plant,
Ron Shackleford.
This testimony includes
allegations of foremen who
couldn't read blueprints, shifts
of workers who okayed the use
of parts listed as defective by
the previous group, two workers
being killed by a falling crane,
and a wall being built without
steel reinforcement bars.
Also, says Dr. Kaku, two
foremen were fired at the
Sharon Harris plant for being
truthful about the shoddy, un
sage construction, and this
firing caused 140 workers to
positive about the student re
sponse to the Piper. "They
appreciate a place to talk about
writing, and that's important."
Loughlin plans to have read
ings every other week this
semester, and hopes to get
Carter Delafield and Jim Cut
sell to speak with the group.
| They're coming/^"!
i !
Forbert j
| and Mas
in, !
• February 19 j
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wildcat.
As he speaks, Dr. Kaku is
clad in a navy-blue suit and a tie
with small red dots. His trim
ness and long, coal-black hair
give him his appearance of
youth; several on lookers com
ment that he looks about 20.
"Actually," he says, "today
is my 33rd birthday. This image
that many people have of the
shaggy-white-haired physist
isn't true; by the time you're
that, you're usually a philoso
pher I started very young, and
physicists as a whole are quite
young. For a physicist, I'm
middle-aged."
Dr. Kaku himself has been
interested in nuclear physics
since his teens. He says that he
was pro-nuclear until the partial
meltdowm at the Fermi reactor
near Detroit in 1966.
"The American people... don't know about
the link between weapons and nuclear power."
At the time, he was an
undergraduate student at Har
vard, and his physics professors
were called in to deal with the
accident. Dr. Kaku says he
wondered why the government
was trying to hush things up,
since the prevailing notion
about nuclear power was that it
was "safe, clean, and too cheap
to meter."
For his Guilford College
appearance (sponsored by NC
PIRG), he is billed as "the
first physicist with a non
nuclear stance to visit Three
Mile Island," a feat which he
acomplished in September of
Chip Loughlin, Piper editor.
Serendipity
plans
See page 2
January 29, 1980
last year. How was this done?
Dr Kaku credits his access to
TMI to the fact that he is
tenured at CCNY, and gives the
story behind his tenure.
"About ten years ago, I was
finishing up my doctorate at
Berkeley. It was the Vietnam
War; many of us were marching
against the Livermore Weapons
Laboratory, and speaking about
the SL-1 accident just after
it happened "
"We were met at the Liver
more Laboratory with machine
guns and barbed wire; we were
the next generations of nuclear
physicists. At that point, we
realized, 'This is for keeps.'"
"There was a split in our
group at Berkeley. Half of us
said, 'We have to denounce
nulcear power now. The Ameri
can people. . don't know about
the link between weapons and
nuclear power.'"
"The other half said, 'You'r£
crazy you'll get fired. We'll
go underground for seven
years, and when we get tenure,
we'll come out."
"I got tenure a year and a
half ago, and my friends around
the country are now getting
tenure, and they're going to be
surfacing and denouncing
nuclear power."
There are more advantages to
this tenure than simply holding
a steady job. Dr. Kaku is able to
See 'Kaku,' page 5