As Gov. Kathy Hochul pushes to make New York the “center” of a revival of nuclear power in the United States, the third in a series of “Forums for a Nuclear-Free New York” was held last week to counter her drive.
Meanwhile, more than 100 organizations—including Sag Harbor-based Coalition Against Nukes, founded by Priscilla Star, its director, and Huntington-based Healthy Planet, its executive director Bob DiBenedetto—sent an “open letter” to Governor Hochul, with copies to other state officials, pushing back on what it called New York’s “failing energy vision.”
It charged there now is an “increasingly likely failure…of will if not the targets themselves…to meet” the climate goals set by a 2019 state law which emphasizes solar and other renewable energy sources.
The “Forums for a Nuclear-Free New York” have been organized by a coalition of environmental organizations. The first was titled “Safe and Affordable Energy,” featuring Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson, 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.
The second forum was titled “Why Nuclear Power is Neither Low-Carbon nor Emissions-Free,” and it featured Susan Shapiro, an environmental attorney, and Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, a nuclear physicist who has worked on radioactive issues in the 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. They countered that the nuclear fuel cycle was heavily carbon-intensive and nuclear power plants themselves emit a radioactive form of carbon, Carbon-14. To claim nuclear is emissions-free “is a fraud on the public,” said Shapiro.
The third forum featured Dr. Gordon Edwards and was titled: “Debunking Nuclear Hopium—Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, Advanced Nuclear Reactors, and Fusion.” Gordon is president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. He refuted Hochul’s claim that nuclear power plants are of new “safe” designs, detailing how they continue to be dangerous and expensive.
The forum was again introduced by Doug Wood, associate director of Grassroots Environmental Education, based in Port Washington.
“We are here today at a critical moment and right here in New York,” said Wood. “Major decisions are being made that will shape our energy system, our environment, and our public health for generations. These decisions are being framed as pragmatic, necessary, even inevitable. But are they?”
He noted that “here in New York, Governor Kathy Hochul has announced plans to pursue new nuclear facilities, citing what is described as a growing electricity demand” which “could be met more safely and affordably through increased efficiency and the rapid deployment of renewables.”
“Nuclear power is one of the most expensive forms of electricity ever invented,” he continued. “New nuclear projects routinely run billions of dollars over budget and take far longer to construct than wind, solar, or energy storage systems, often a decade or more. At a time when we urgently need rapid climate action, can we afford to wait that long? And then there are the risks from uranium mining and radioactive waste to the long-term contamination and residential proximity exposure. Nuclear power carries environmental and human health consequences that can be devastating. The legacy of accidents at places like Chernobyl and Fukushima remind us that while catastrophic failures may be rare, their impacts are profound and long lasting.”
Wood described Edwards as “one of North America’s leading experts on nuclear power and radioactive waste. For decades, Dr. Edwards has worked to educate the public about the scientific, environmental, and ethical dimensions of nuclear energy. He brings a deep understanding of both the technical realities and the broader societal implications of nuclear policy.”
Edwards began about how “I did not choose this title…‘Debunking Nuclear Hopium,’ but it reminded me of when I was in high school, when nuclear power was presented to me as a high school student as clean, safe, inexhaustible and affordable. And I thought, wow, that sounds great. And I was very much in favor of it.” Then he learned the true facts. And he finds Hopium “accurate.” Its play on the word opium reflects nuclear power being “a combination of blind faith based on partial information and addiction,” he said.
Edwards first discussed “the idea of small modular reactors,” one kind of nuclear power plant Hochul is advocating. Their acronym, “SMR,” could also be called “spending money recklessly,” which I believe is a true statement because the small modular reactors are going to be very, very expensive…. “Also, you have more concentrated fission products and activation products” and “that means the structural materials are much closer to the core of the reactor. The materials that are close to the core get very radioactive…. Public money is needed because private funding is very hard to find…. These are big problems.”
He told the story of the proposed Nuscale small modular reactors, but “when the project’s costs rose sharply, the clients down in Utah…backed out of it. And so that project was cancelled in 2023.”
Edwards continued detailing design after design, and failures and faults. And a stagnant industry.
“In 1996, there were 438 reactors in operation in the world. By 2019, there were 442, only four more reactors. And meanwhile, the share of nuclear as a share of global electricity use had declined from 17% to 10%, and now it’s gone down to 9%. It’s still going down and nobody expects it to reverse itself anytime soon…. The International Atomic Energy Agency, looking ahead to 2050, sees the most optimistic global electricity market share for nuclear as only about 5%,” Edwards said. “And in the United States and Europe, it steadily declines to between 3% and 5% of the market, constituting a potential for market failure.”
To see and hear the illuminating presentations at the forums, visit: www.grassrootsinfo.org/forums