'I Oversaw America's Nuclear Power Industry. Now I Think It Should Be Banned.'

Friday the Washington Post published an essay by Gregory Jaczko, who served on America's Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2005 to 2009 and was its chairman from 2009 to 2012. He says he'd believed nuclear power was worth the reduction they produced in greenhouse emissions -- until Japan's 2011 nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima power plant.

'Despite working in the industry for more than a decade, I now believe that nuclear power's benefits are no longer enough to risk the welfare of people living near these plants...' [Non-paywalled version here]

The current and potential costs -- personal and economic -- are just too high.... The technology and the safety needs are just too complex and demanding to translate into a facility that is simple to design and build. No matter your views on nuclear power in principle, no one can afford to pay this much for two electricity plants. New nuclear is simply off the table in the United States....

Fewer than 10 of Japan's 50 reactors have resumed operations, yet the country's carbon emissions have dropped below their levels before the accident. How? Japan has made significant gains in energy efficiency and solar power.... What about the United States? Nuclear accounts for about 19 percent of U.S. electricity production and most of our carbon-free electricity. Could reactors be phased out here without increasing carbon emissions? If it were completely up to the free market, the answer would be yes, because nuclear is more expensive than almost any other source of electricity today. Renewables such as solar, wind and hydroelectric power generate electricity for less than the nuclear plants under construction in Georgia, and in most places, they produce cheaper electricity than existing nuclear plants that have paid off all their construction costs...
This tech is no longer a viable strategy for dealing with climate change, nor is it a competitive source of power. It is hazardous, expensive and unreliable, and abandoning it wouldn't bring on climate doom. The real choice now is between saving the planet or saving the dying nuclear industry. I vote for the planet.

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