Illinois reverses new nuclear moratorium

On this week’s Nuclear Hotseat, Libbe HaLevy talks to Dave Kraft (pictured), executive director of the Chicago-based Nuclear Energy Information Service, about efforts in Illinois to repeal the 1987 Illinois nuclear construction moratorium (SB76). Kraft’s organization has been working hard to get Governor Pritzker to veto the repeal. The impetus to lift the ban is largely driven by the nuclear industry’s desperate last stand to grab subsidies for the construction of small modular reactors, which are still on the drawing board, have no proven safety records and would get in the way of addressing the climate crisis with faster, cheaper, and safer alternatives including prioritizing wind and solar energy.

And on this week’s Hot Story, Beyond Nuclear’s Linda Pentz Gunter reveals that effort by Japan to fast track the discharge of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean from casks stored at the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is part of a broader strategy to erase the nuclear accident altogether and minimize and normalize the very real and serious consequences to health and the environment.

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