Why closing Nuclear power is a gut punch

Alan Rosenblatt Jesse Jenkins Thanks Jesse

Alisha Fowler Very well said. I also like when you said to me once: “I’m not pro-nuclear power, but I am pro-math.” As in, how it adds up for clean energy. A sticky talking point.

Tyler Norris The small community of people who are fighting right now to save the U.S. and world nuclear fleet, and expand it where feasible, are, at best, among the least thanked members of the climate and environmental community. At worst, they are regularly accused of being misguided shills (or even in bed with a nefarious nuclear industry). Some of us are grateful – and future generations will be as well. Thank you for speaking up, my friend.

Jesse Jenkins Replacing these nuclear plants, which are generally located relatively close to demand centers (like Indian Point near New York City or Pilgrim near Boston), with new renewable energy often requires expansion of long-distance transmission lines. For example, both Massachusetts and New York would love to import more hydropower from Canada to replace Indian Point and Pilgrim. But that requires building new long-distance transmission lines across New York state or through not just Massachusetts but neighboring New Hampshire, Vermont, and/or Maine, and that has proven really difficult to get done.

So building new transmission to help replace nuclear plants also has its own impacts, costs, and in particular, very real challenges in overcoming NIMBY opposition (not in my backyard!). These challenges frequently go hand in hand with nuclear retirements in many cases—and in practice, have often prevented replacing retiring reactors with new renewable energy from further away.

Instead, we often just turn to natural gas plants (usually increasing use of existing gas plants located near cities, but sometimes also building new ones, as in the case of Southern California after the San Onofre nuclear plant closed). That means more greenhouse gas emissions (and air pollution near to cities).

No bueno.

Anne Harms Dobson Very interesting, thanks for sharing this. It’s important for us to understand the reasons behind supporting one or another of the many energy options.

John Hall Andrew Revkin, your efforts and opinion are always valued and spark important discussion. As one who believes that climate change is the most urgent issue we have to deal with, I still have problems with expanding or continuing nuclear power production. First, it is not emission free: it is carbon emission free (not counting heavy diesel equipment used to mine and transport uranium ore, milling and refining energy requirements, trucks used to bring pellets to the factory where they are inserted in fuel rods and taken to the plant where they will be used). The emissions are airborne and waterborne contamination with radioactive isotopes that can cause cancer and other diseases. Fukashima is currently the worst example of this kind of emission, hundreds of barrels of contaminated water still leaking into the Pacific six years after the tsunami and meltdowns, loading tuna and other fish caught on our west coast with cesium. Chernobyl is still a contender for worst emissions, with the new sarcophagus yet to be rolled into place over the old one. Even “normal” operation of IP or any nuclear plant involves emissions of radioactive steam within “allowable limits. If this were our only non-fossil fuel choice, perhaps it would be a good one. Fortunately wind and solar are growing exponentially, tidal power and wave power have been explored but not yet deployed to my knowledge. Conservation through LED lighting and smart appliances, more efficient vehicles and buildings, not to mention education, is still the low hanging fruit. If the massive subsidies that have propped up nukes for sixty years (like the Price-Anderson Act which makes the taxpayer the insurance provider for a worst case accident at any nuclear plant), could be withdrawn so a more level playing field existed, nuclear would lose as a matter of economics alone. I grew up as a science whiz, believing that any problem could be solved by science and engineering. Now after watching Tepco and the Japanese government fail to come up with a believable plan for stabilizing Fukashima, I think there might be some exceptions. Now if one thinks that the Trump administration is going to restart the nuclear industry anyway, and that it’s a trade off we will have to accept to get any help speeding adoption of renewables, that may change the equation. It just feels like surrender, when our European allies are moving so fast into wind and solar, when China has bought half the solar panel manufacturing capacity in the world, for us to go back to a failed technology that can’t stand and compete after half a century since it promised “electricity too cheap to meter.”