u/lyndalovon

In the recent Trump v. Slaughter ruling, SCOTUS gave the president sole authority to remove commissioners from what are supposed to be independent agencies like the NRC—setting a dangerous precedent, handing him power even the English Crown never had. Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent, joined by Kagan and Jackson, names the NRC directly as one of the agencies losing its independence as a result.

"For most of this Nation's history, Congress and the President together have decided that some Government functions should operate at a distance from partisan politics. Those include the management of nuclear energy; the security of the monetary supply; and the safety of American workplaces, consumer products, and chemical hazards."

"Dozens of independent commissions are now likely to become purely executive agencies, shifting tremendous power over broad swaths of American life into the President's hands: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, with responsibility for managing the Nation's energy supply… the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which protects Americans against harms caused by dangerous goods… the Chemical Safety Board, tasked with investigating chemical disasters… the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, responsible for the regulation of nuclear power… and the Merit Systems Protection Board."

"the Court gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once-coequal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws."

"with the most extreme exercises of at-will removal, the multimember structure itself could be eliminated, by executive fiat, with sufficient arbitrary firings to winnow a commission down to a sole remaining chair."

"Ordinary Americans and regulated firms alike have organized their affairs understanding that some Government decisions will depend not on political favoritism or partisan advantage... but on expertise, adherence to law, judgment, and the public good."

"In granting the President this unbridled authority, the Court upends its precedent, misconstrues our history, and sheds any pretense of judicial modesty. I respectfully dissent."

Now apply this to what the corporate nuclear in industry wants to do with automating the production of small reactors and having them controlled by AI. You cannot recall a nuclear reactor after it started up. It just goes to show how absolutely insane the new NRC rules for part 53 and part 57 that allow automated control of reactors.

Nuclear power is climate dependent. It is not resilient in climate chaos. Nuclear power is not the solution to climate change or energy needs.

Nuclear reactors taken offline in France, as extreme heat pushes river temperatures into danger zone

The DOE is about to make the biggest single subsidy to a private energy industry in US history — and nobody’s talking about it.
DOE is handing ~20 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium to five nuclear startups (Oklo, Flibe, SHINE, Exodys, Standard Nuclear). It was manufactured for Cold War weapons at an estimated $10–20 billion per ton — roughly $200–400 billion in taxpayer value.

One of the largest peer-reviewed studies of nuclear workers found that long-term occupational exposure to even relatively low-dose ionizing radiation was associated with increased cancer risk. Researchers followed 309,932 nuclear industry workers in the U.S., UK, and France over 10.7 million person-years and found that solid cancer mortality increased with cumulative radiation dose. The study concluded that cancer risk from chronic low-dose exposure may be higher than previously assumed.
Study: Cancer mortality after low dose exposure to ionising radiation in workers in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States (INWORKS)
Journal: BMJ (2023)
URL:
https://www.bmj.com/content/382/bmj-2022-074520

As the climate crisis grows more urgent and calls for energy expansion increase, the Trump administration is going all-in on nuclear power, and Big Tech is investing heavily. But nuclear power is still a bad idea.

Fatal meltdowns aside, nuclear power is generally dangerous, dirty, and expensive. From the uranium mine to the toxic waste pit, nuclear power puts our health, environment, and climate at risk at every point in its lifecycle. Nuclear plants require large quantities of water, construction is slow and expensive, and radioactive waste poses a giant threat because there are no good disposal options. These are not the markers of a renewable energy source.

Join us for this virtual event to discuss the history and current research on nuclear power, what the current state of play is in the national political context, our strategy to fight back, and what you can do to join us in the fight.

Featured speakers:

Tim Judson, Executive Director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS)

Amanda Starbuck, Research Director, Food & Water Watch

Laura Shindell, New York State Director, Food & Water Watch