If you would like to send a letter to your senators urging them not to support funding for nuclear energy click here. Here’s what I sent.
As you consider climate and energy legislation, please ensure the “clean energy bank” does not give unlimited loan guarantees to the nuclear energy industry.
The fiscal equation does not add up when it comes to nuclear. As a Climate Project Presenter I have heard numerous experts state that it is virtually impossible to acurately project the construction costs of new nuclear plants. If left to the private sector investment will not happen. This is because these cost overruns make the investment too risky. It is unfair to spend taxpayer dollars on a loosing bet.
Additionally, while it is true that nuclear energy does not emit CO2, which is a good thing, it is also true that:
- We have not resolved the issue of waste management
- We send a message to the rest of the world that we encourage the development of nuclear energy. This message might be fine to send to our allies but what of other nations with whom our relations are not so cordial like North Korea? We have lived through nuclear standoffs before but we certainly do not want to foster an environment that gives rise to these dangerous diplomatic/military conflicts.
The Senate’s proposed Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA) could end up costing taxpayers like me hundreds of billions of dollars in losses because it would provide unlimited financial assistance to expensive, non-renewable energy industries with high risks of default, like nuclear power. We cannot afford to shift more financial risk away from big business onto U.S. taxpayers by forcing us to underwrite unlimited loans to an irrational pursuit.
