No nukes

The second in a series of “Forums for a Nuclear-Free New York” was just held to counter the drive by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) to make New York the “center” of a nuclear power revival in the United States.

Hochul’s Public Service Commission has ordered a $33 billion bailout of four old upstate nuclear power plants. And she’s pushing for five gigawatts of new nuclear power, the equivalent of five large nuclear power plants.

The $33 billion is to be paid by all electric ratepayers in New York over 20 years.This session countering the governor’s proposal was titled: “Why Nuclear Power is Neither Low-Carbon nor Emissions-Free.”

It followed an initial session on “Safe and Affordable Energy” featuring Mark Z. Jacobson, Ph.D., professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and author of “No Miracles Needed,” a book about how existing green power sources led by solar and wind could provide all the energy the

U.S. and world require.

Also featured was Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, who presented research linking nuclear power plants to cancer and other illnesses in communities near them.

Introducing the session was Doug Wood, associate director of Grassroots Environmental Education, based in Port Washington. Wood said: “We are proud to be part of the coalition of groups and individuals working to bring some science, some sanity and some common sense to the discussion of nuclear power in New York.”

The moderator was Lance Gould, former executive editor of The Huffington Post and deputy managing editor of the New York Daily News, and now CEO of Brooklyn Story Lab. The webinar featured Susan Shapiro, an environmental attorney whose cases included stopping the discharge of heated water into the Hudson River in violation of the Clean Water Act from the now-shut-down Indian Point nuclear plants 25 miles from New York City.

Also featured was Marvin Resnikoff, Ph.D. a nuclear physicist who has worked on radioactive issues in th e U.S. and internationally for five decades.

A main Hochul claim is that nuclear power is “zero-emission” and thus needed, she says, as an answer to climate change.

“What I am going to be focusing on today is the nuclear spin, the greenwashing of nuclear energy,” said Shapiro. “I want to make it really clear to everyone here that it is patently untrue that nuclear energy is zero-emissions or a carbon-free source of energy. Nuclear reactors emit a whole host of pollutants …. ionizing radiation, thermal waste carbon, Carbon-14, “as radioactive CO2 and methane.” Also, they release “radioactive water vapor as tritium.”

To claim nuclear is emissions-free “is a fraud on the public,” said Shapiro. “Nuclear energy does not deserve one cent of zero emissions credits … New York State and other states have been diverting billions in public funds under the guise of zero-emissions credits to nuclear, even though the legislatures have earmarked these funds to build a clean, renewable energy future.”

“Also, the life cycle of nuclear energy has a very large carbon footprint,” she said. This includes uranium “mining, milling, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, transportation, decommissioning and nuclear waste storage in perpetuity.”

“Now,” she said, “Gov. Hochul and the PSC have approved $33 billion from the Zero Emissions Energy Credit Fund to keep the [four] nuclear reactors going. And they did this without conducting any type of cost-benefit analysis or environmental impact study.”

Meanwhile, Hochul is calling for the five gigawatts of new nuclear power in New York.

“And now,” said Shapiro, “there’s a proposal for another $100 billion to fund the fantasy of experimental, untested, non-existent SMRs (small modular reactors) to be placed all over the state.”

Giving funds for nuclear power, she said, is “throwing our good money after bad, nuclear subsidies … locking us into a dirty future … of extractive, unsustainable energy … We must educate the public and the politicians that nuclear is not zero emissions, not carbon free, and not part of a solution to climate change. The fraud on the public that nuclear is zero emissions has to be stopped. It has handicapped the implementation of cost-effective and sustainable clean energy.”

Shapiro said: “We don’t need nuclear or fossil fuels. One is heroin and one is meth. We have a solution. We have solar, wind, geothermal, all the renewable energy solutions which working together, complementing each other, will solve our energy future in a clean way as Mark Jacobson discussed.”

Resnikoff, whose research on radioactivity began in 1974 investigating leaks and safety issues at the subsequently closed nuclear reprocessing center in upstate West Valley, said it is false “that nuclear power does not heat up the planet, does not produce harmful carbons, and is the solution to our energy needs.”

He detailed emissions from nuclear power including Carbon-14. Emitted during the “60 years that a reactor would operate” with “400 reactors in the world, I’ve calculated the total amount of Carbon-14 produced in terms of curies” would be “1.63 million curies,” a huge and hazardous amount of radioactivity.

Resnikoff said: “It’s far less expensive and faster [in dealing with climate change] to save energy and to use solar panels and wind.”

To see videos of the webinars, visit grassrootsinfo.org/forums

Hochul has declared “I embrace” nuclear power, and her Republican opponent in the gubernatorial election this year, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, supports it.