No New Nukes in New York’s Climate Action Plan!

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No New Nukes in New York’s Climate Action Plan!

Call to Action! Tell Gov. Hochul: Do NOT Allow the Climate Action Council to put New Nuclear into New York's Climate Action Plan

New York is days away from finalizing its plan for implementing the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. At the last minute, New York officials are attempting to shoehorn an endorsement of new nuclear plants like Small Modular Reactors and "advanced" nuclear into the plan.

This latest move ignores recommendations from the Climate Justice Working Group earlier this year that "a lifecycle analysis of the environmental, health, safety, emissions, and environmental justice impacts of nuclear fuel be conducted and the State proactively plan for the scheduled shutdown of the four reactors upstate.” The CAC members will receive a pretty much final draft on Dec 12 and vote on the final plan on December 19. While the CAC is who votes on the plan, all of this is influenced by the Governor.

Take action today! Tell Governor Hochul that we want renewable energy, not dangerous, expensive, and unjust nukes.

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Make a call!

ACTION: Call Governor Hochul's office at 518-474-8390. Press 3, then 1 to leave a VM. You can choose to try to speak to a staffer, but sometimes the hold time to speak to staff is ridiculous. (Then if you feel like it, call 212-681-4580 to leave a 2nd VM.)

SAMPLE SCRIPT
“I am calling today to ask that Governor Hochul NOT allow the Climate Action Council to put new nuclear into New York's final climate action plan. New nuclear plants are more expensive than renewable energy, create radioactive waste, and will take too long to build to meet our climate targets in time. I want New York to go all in on renewable energy instead. Thank you!"

More Information

Why including nuclear in the Scoping Plan is a bad idea:

Enormous lead time: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that there must be a drastic global reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. With almost no Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) under construction in the world, we cannot count on SMRs for much help with carbon emissions reduction by 2030. The SMR project in China is already taking 2x as long as anticipated. Planned SMR projects in France, India, and the US are well beyond originally predicted dates of operation with no construction underway yet.
Cost: SMRs will be expensive. NextEra Energy, which owns US nuclear power plants, predicted costs of $105-135/MWh for SMRs compared to “near-firm” (i.e. with four-hour battery storage) costs of $25-32/MWh for wind and $32-37/MWh for solar. While producing less power than a current conventional size reactor, the cost of constructing an SMR is not proportionately reduced. SMRs will therefore cost more than large reactors for each unit (MW) of generation capacity. On average, nuclear projects have final costs that exceed the initial budget by 117%. The actual costs of SMRs are likely to be far higher than estimated because most designs are still quite preliminary.
Safety: All reactors, including SMRs, can undergo accidents resulting in widespread environmental radioactive contamination. There are dozens of designs for “advanced” and “small” reactors. None of these designs are new and none have solved all of the many longstanding safety challenges. SMR proposals typically envision multiple reactors at a single site, lowering costs by sharing infrastructure. However, multiple small reactors would hold the same collective radioactive inventory as a large reactor.
Waste: SMRs would not only produce highly radioactive waste that remains hazardous for tens of thousands of years, but would produce far more waste per unit of electricity generated than current full-size reactors. Despite decades of research, no satisfactory long-term solution has been found to reliably isolate and manage the hazards presented by these wastes.
Environmental Injustice: All nuclear plants routinely release radiation into our water and air. It remains in our environment, food, and bodies for centuries. 38 out of 55 (69%) nuclear plants in the U.S. have had leaks or spills of tritium greater than 20,000 pCi/L. Radiation causes health issues such as cancers, genetic mutations, programmed cell death, leukemia, birth defects, and reproductive, immune, and endocrine system disorders. No amount of radiation is safe for workers or for the communities near nuclear fuel cycle facilities. Indigenous communities and poor communities are disproportionately targeted with location of uranium mining, transportation, and nuclear waste storage sites, and are also poisoned with uranium, arsenic, copper, lead, tritium, radium, and more.

Gov. Hochul

Subject: Do NOT Allow the Climate Action Council to put New Nuclear into New York's Climate Action Plan

Message:

I am writing to ask that you NOT allow the Climate Action Council to put new nuclear into New York's final climate action plan. New nuclear plants are more expensive than renewable energy, create radioactive waste, and will take too long to build to meet our climate targets in time. I want New York to go all in on renewable energy instead. Thank you. Including nuclear in the Scoping Plan is a bad idea for the following reasons: 1. Lead time: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that there must be a drastic global reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. With almost no Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) under construction in the world, we cannot count on SMRs for much help with carbon emissions reduction by 2030. 						 2. Cost: SMRs will be expensive. NextEra Energy, which owns US nuclear power plants, predicted costs of $105-135/MWh for SMRs compared to “near-firm” (i.e. with four-hour battery storage) costs of $25-32/MWh for wind and $32-37/MWh for solar. While producing less power than a current conventional size reactor, the cost of constructing an SMR is not proportionately reduced. SMRs will therefore cost more than large reactors for each unit (MW) of generation capacity. The actual costs of SMRs are likely to be far higher than estimated because most designs are still quite preliminary.							 3. Safety: All reactors, including SMRs, can undergo accidents resulting in widespread environmental radioactive contamination. There are dozens of designs for “advanced” and “small” reactors. None of these designs are new and none have solved all of the many longstanding safety challenges. SMR proposals typically envision multiple reactors at a single site, lowering costs by sharing infrastructure. However, multiple small reactors would hold the same collective radioactive inventory as a large reactor. 							 4. Waste: SMRs would not only produce highly radioactive waste that remains hazardous for tens of thousands of years, but would produce far more waste per unit of electricity generated than current full-size reactors. Despite decades of research, no satisfactory long-term solution has been found to reliably isolate and manage the hazards presented by these wastes.					 5. Environmental Injustice: All nuclear plants routinely release radiation into our water and air. It remains in our environment, food, and bodies for centuries. Radiation causes health issues such as cancers, genetic mutations, programmed cell death, leukemia, birth defects, and reproductive, immune, and endocrine system disorders. No amount of radiation is safe for workers or for the communities near nuclear fuel cycle facilities. Indigenous communities and poor communities are disproportionately targeted with location of uranium mining, transportation, and nuclear waste storage sites, and are also poisoned with uranium, arsenic, copper, lead, tritium, radium, and more.

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