Betrayed by the NRC…Again!

Once again the Nuclear Regulatory Commission proves that it places the interests of large utility companies and the nuclear reactor industry ahead of the public it supposedly protects.

With its chairman dissenting, the NRC voted to approve the first license for new reactor construction in more than 30 years: two reactors at the already-nuclearized Plant Vogtle site in Georgia, an alarmingly close 26 miles from Augusta. Several others are already on the docket.

This is a betrayal of the American people, once again.

32 years ago, my first book, on why nuclear power is a terrible idea, was published. Last year, in the wake of Fukushima, I was asked to update it for a new Japanese edition. Doing the research for the update, I saw nothing to make me change my mind, and a lot to reinforce my original conclusion that nuclear power is unsafe, uneconomical, and unnecessary.

Following Fukushjima, both Germany and Italy ended their reliance on nuclear power. But the US renews expired licenses and grants new ones. This is a stupid, short-sighted, and dangerous decision, and I hope it will be greeted by massive citizen action in Georgia in the courts and in the streets to overturn the license.

In the meanwhile, it has approved license renewal after license renewal for brittle, unsafe plants like Vermont Yankee that long ago exceeded their useful life.