Former Chair of U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission rejects nuclear energy as “not safe” and “not smart”
Nuclear heavy hitters
The four authors of the statement are all internationally recognized “heavy hitters” in the nuclear industry, including Gregory Jaczko, the former Chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulator Commission, Wolfgang Renneberg, the former head of Germany’s Federal Environment Ministry; Bernard Laponche, the former Director of the French Agency for Energy Management, and Paul Dorfman, the former Secretary of the United Kingdom’s Committee examining radiation risks.
According to the Statement the nuclear industry has been falsely portraying nuclear as a global warming solution: “The central message, repeated again and again, that a new generation of nuclear will be clean, safe, smart and cheap, is fiction. The reality is nuclear is neither clean, safe or smart …”
The story also lists ten reasons why nuclear energy is neither safe or smart:
1. Nuclear is too slow to tackle climate change.
2. Nuclear energy is too costly.
3. Nuclear is neither carbon-free nor non-polluting.
4. The problem of permanent disposal of nuclear waste remains technically unsolvable for the short or long term.
5. Nuclear is non-renewable.
6. Proposals for constructing “temporary” storage solutions are a false, short-term solution.
7. The nuclear waste dry storage canisters used throughout most of the United States are thin-walled (1/2 to 5/8 inch) and unsafe for storage or for off-site transport.
8. The nuclear meltdowns at Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island demonstrated there is no room for human error or natural disasters.
9. Nuclear plants are sitting ducks for terrorist attacks.
10. The idea that Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) can save the day is magical thinking.