“Why Nuclear Energy Is Suddenly Making a Comeback”–NOT!

[“Burning Money” image by Gene Case/Avenging Angels. It graced the cover of The Nation magazine in 2003, accompanying an article about the Bush/Cheney administration’s ill-fated nuclear power relapse efforts.]

On December 27, Bloomberg TV published a very largely pro-nuclear power report. Of the 12 minute 16 second-long report, only a very short section, beginning at the 9 minute 15 second mark, provides any rebuttal to the puff piece. Beyond Nuclear’s radioactive waste specialist, Kevin Kamps, was interviewed during the very brief anti-nuclear section. (Kevin’s interview was conducted in early November 2024, in the immediate aftermath of Election Day.)

Bloomberg TV’s report, even though it referred to the Vogtle 3 & 4 new build reactors in Georgia, said little to nothing about the $12 billion (with a B) in nuclear loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy ($8.3 billion from the Obama administration — for which Energy Secretary Moniz was rewarded with a seat on the Southern Nuclear board of directors — and $3.7 billion from the first Trump administration). Nor did it mention the large Vogtle 3 & 4 surcharges on ratepayers’ electricity bills in the service area: some low-income, African American residents of the metro Atlanta area are paying 30%, or more, of their entire income on their electric bills, Georgia WAND reports!

Likewise, the massive federal and even state subsidies now being funneled into the so-called “Small Modular Reactor” new build frenzy go largely to entirely unreported by Bloomberg TV.

Another zinger in the Bloomberg TV report was the claim that nuclear power results in no carbon (greenhouse gas) emissions. This is of course false. Nuclear power has significantly more greenhouse gas emissions than renewables like wind and solar power. This is comprehensively documented in Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson of Stanford University’s expert witness declaration, on behalf of Beyond Nuclear and a coalition of environmental group allies, in our legal intervention against the unprecedented, unneeded, insanely expensive for the public, and extremely high risk for health, safety, security, and the environment, Palisades “zombie” reactor restart scheme.

The generation of forever deadly and hazardous highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel also got short shrift in the Bloomberg TV report. For example, it ignored the warning by President Obama’s U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board and Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairs — Drs. Rodney Ewing and Allison Macfarlane, respectively — that SMRs, due to loss of economy of scale, will generate 2 to 30 times more radioactive waste than do current reactors, per unit of electricity generated.

Similar inefficiencies related to cost, thermal wastewater discharge, greenhouse gas emissions, etc., could have been reported, but Bloomberg TV chose to hype SMRs instead.