Opinion by Kelly Lundeen
A few short years ago the nuclear renaissance was a dream crushed by the reality of Fukushima’s meltdown, the ever-rising costs of licensing and constructing an operational reactor, and the increasing availability of more affordable renewable energy sources. Yet, the clever nuclear establishment has finagled a way to assure its preservation despite all common sense. Against this well-connected, highly-subsidized industry, the forces of truth, environmental justice, science, ethics, and ecological sustainability have a bigger challenge than ever to confront. This year’s vast giveaways and unabashed promotion of nuclear power have been the culmination of its proponents’ effective campaign on Capitol Hill.
How did they get away with it? As the nuclear power industry was facing an existential threat, its lobby machine and a few extremely wealthy backers found a new way to present itself, this time in environmentally friendly, sustainable wrapping paper.
Let’s look at the most recent wave of welfare. In 2016 reactors started getting bailed out in the billions of dollars at the state level after the industry newly labelled itself as “green.” Then in 2021 the federal government stepped in with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), followed by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), both of which were touted as major climate bills. Nuclear Information and Resource Service analyzed the bills and revealed the quantity of funding dedicated to the promotion of nuclear energy. The IIJA provided a whopping $11 billion for nuclear. The IRA went fiscally berserk and lavished the industry with a $134 billion handout.
In March 2024, the perpetrators of radioactive violence were gifted once again with the reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act. This allows the nuclear industry to continue to freely produce the most toxic and dangerous catastrophes known to humankind without the burden of covering the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars per accident.
In June the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) expired after 34 years of providing necessary compensation for certain groups of people affected by radiation exposure. Extending Price-Anderson and ending RECA gave the industry a green light to continue poisoning air, water, and the food chain knowing there will be no consequences to the polluters and no compensation for the survivors.
Just when the industry thought it couldn’t get any better, they hit a grand slam with the passage of the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act in July. While the implications of this sweeping bill are yet to be tested, Congress is forcing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to rewrite its mission statement to include promoting nuclear power in addition to its current goal of protecting the health and safety of the public and the environment. The bill’s backers hope it further degrades NRC authority by fast-tracking reactor licensing and small modular nuclear reactor development and weakening safety and security oversight.
As nightmares of Fukushima have now faded, the nuclear industry’s dreams may come true: extending licenses of decrepit nuclear reactors to 80 years, reviving closed reactors, and starting up new reactors. If so, it will mean more uranium mining, more destruction of land, more radioactive transport, more radioactive releases and accidents along the entire fuel chain, more high-level radioactive waste, more money in the pockets of the already-rich, more energy consumption, and less renewable energy.
Which way will it go: common sense protection of the Earth and its inhabitants or a bottomless tax-payer charity for private industry with no questions asked? The answers remain partly with a new administration — eager to promote fossil fuels but in favor of all things nuclear and very inclined to deregulate — and partly with the resilience of our anti-nuclear movement.
⸺ NRC, July 2024; Beyond Nuclear, Mar. 2024; NIRS “Summary of New Federal Incentives for Nuclear Energy,” 2022
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