Minnesota Legislature Considers Repeal of Nuclear Moratorium

By Lindsay Potter

Bills are circulating in the Minnesota legislature to repeal the state’s 31-year-old moratorium on building new nuclear reactors. Members of the Nukewatch and the Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Mississippi River testified before committees in the House and Senate and are collaborating with the Rise and Repair Alliance to oppose the repeal. Now is the time for Minnesota residents to write, email, and call state legislators: urge them to oppose the repeal. As the Nukewatch Quarterly has emphasized again and again, nuclear power cannot aid in confronting the climate crisis — it is simply too costly and too slow. (See Welcome to Planet Vogtle: The Lessons of Georgia’s Nuclear Boondoggle and Seven Reasons Why Nuclear Energy is Not the Answer to Solve Climate Change.)

Nuclear electricity costs about 3-14 times that of onshore wind, takes 7 to 21 years longer between planning and operation than wind, and produces 9 to 37 times the emissions as wind. Nuclear creates risk and cost associated with nuclear weapons proliferation, meltdowns and accidents, the uranium fuel chain, radiation health risks, radioactive waste, threats to vital water sources, and environmental racism.

Nuclear power has received four times more federal funding for research and development over the last 70 years than renewables and is still the most expensive energy option. The U.S. Energy Information Agency’s 2024 comparison of energy sources calculated that nuclear power costs three to four times more than the combination of renewable wind and solar power plus back-up batteries. This does not include the cost of meltdowns or accidents, or the cost of packaging and storing radioactive waste, which must be isolated from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years.

So far, the only U.S. long-term waste storage project, at Yucca Mountain, Nev., had a projected total cost of $96 billion, took 18 years and wasted $8 billion before being cancelled as scientifically unviable. Canada has proposed a waste site 90 miles northeast of Minnesota’s Voyageurs National Park and 150 miles north of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Prospective small modular reactor (SMR) technology has yet to produce a single commercial reactor in the U.S., and the first licensed project folded after costs soared. Like large reactors, SMRs produce radioactive waste and suffer the same climate-worsening construction times and cost overruns.

Leading experts have shown we do not need nuclear to reach 100% renewable energy in Minnesota — this can be done with wind, solar, and battery storage. Research has shown batteries can meet demand fluctuations more effectively than nuclear.

Visit nukewatchinfo.org/protect-minnesotas-nuclear-moratorium/ to find template letters and how to contact legislators.