New York’s Anti-Nuclear Agenda Foolish

Amidst a sea of bodies moving around a grassy field, a strange sight grabbed everyone’s attention: a thousand yellow hard hats hung on a chain-linked fence. Nuclear New York, a grassroots pro-nuclear energy organization, created this open-air art installation to depict the loss of a thousand jobs. These were well-paying jobs for a small town in an energy industry that emits no greenhouse gases from its activity, all attributes supposedly valued by the party in power in the Empire State. Beyond the fence sat Indian Point Energy Center, a nuclear-power plant in a scenic locale along the Hudson River that supplied the vast majority of downstate New York’s zero-emission electricity. That day was April 30, 2021 — the last day the facility remained in operation.

Nuclear power is the most scalable, reliable, efficient, land-conserving, material-conserving, zero-emission source of energy ever created. A refutation of a false dichotomy between “dirty” fossil fuels and “clean” renewables, it offers the best of both worlds, pairing reliability with the absence of airborne emissions. Any climate in the world (from Finland to Abu Dhabi) provides ample opportunity for its deployment. Today, virtually every industrialized country is pushing to dramatically increase zero-emission electricity as quickly as possible, and nuclear fission delivers this like no other source can. Its discovery in 1938 was as close to a miracle as has ever occurred in history. It generates nearly perpetual electricity on a grid without any air pollution and stands out as the only energy industry that accounts for all its waste products. In over 60 years of operation, nuclear waste (which adds up to a relatively small amount of spent fuel pellets incased in concrete) has never killed even one person.

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About the Author

Eric Scott Dawson

Eric Scott Dawson is a writer and nuclear energy advocate. He co-founded the advocacy group Nuclear New York in 2020.

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Amidst a sea of bodies moving around a grassy field, a strange sight grabbed everyone’s attention: a thousand yellow hard hats hung on a chain-linked fence. Nuclear New York, a grassroots pro-nuclear energy organization, created this open-air art installation to depict the loss of a thousand jobs. These were well-paying jobs for a small town in an energy industry that emits no greenhouse gases from its activity, all attributes supposedly valued by the party in power in the Empire State. Beyond the fence sat Indian Point Energy Center, a nuclear-power plant in a scenic locale along the Hudson River that supplied the vast majority of downstate New York’s zero-emission electricity. That day was April 30, 2021 — the last day the facility remained in operation.

Nuclear power is the most scalable, reliable, efficient, land-conserving, material-conserving, zero-emission source of energy ever created. A refutation of a false dichotomy between “dirty” fossil fuels and “clean” renewables, it offers the best of both worlds, pairing reliability with the absence of airborne emissions. Any climate in the world (from Finland to Abu Dhabi) provides ample opportunity for its deployment. Today, virtually every industrialized country is pushing to dramatically increase zero-emission electricity as quickly as possible, and nuclear fission delivers this like no other source can. Its discovery in 1938 was as close to a miracle as has ever occurred in history. It generates nearly perpetual electricity on a grid without any air pollution and stands out as the only energy industry that accounts for all its waste products. In over 60 years of operation, nuclear waste (which adds up to a relatively small amount of spent fuel pellets incased in concrete) has never killed even one person.