Clean Water Action's NJ State Director, Amy Goldsmith, issued the following statement in regards to Governor Mikie Sherrill's signing of the Power NJ Act (A 4881):
Governor Mikie Sherrill is on a mission – creating clean and reliable energy while ensuring rates are affordable for all New Jerseyans – residents and businesses alike.
She made progress on this front by placing a freeze on electric rates (E.O. 1) and protecting non-large load customers as well (A.796). But going nuclear would melt away any benefits the Governor might put in place to safeguard ratepayers in other policy arenas.
A state energy model that relies on a few sources of power and only one way to deliver it makes NJ less secure. This approach makes New Jersey more vulnerable to the storms, heat waves and floods ahead. The July 4th heat wave and wind storms tested our grid (took out my power for nearly a day) while putting our safety and health at risk.
Clean Water Action believes NJ should invest more in Class 1 renewables (solar, wind, geothermal) which creates a wider range of jobs, energy options faster and at a cheaper rate for ratepayers. Diversifying our energy sources, expanding battery storage and microgrid capacity will also make NJ more resilient to climate change.
Power NJ Act (A 4881) is touted as a bill to advance atomic power while also creating guardrails against nuclear rate shock over the 40-80 year life of a proposed Westinghouse AP1000 “advanced nuclear power reactor”. It is not possible to achieve both goals simultaneously.
When nuclear power plants were first put on line in the early 1970’s, they claimed it would be too cheap to meter and resolution to the waste problem as imminent. Over 50 years later, nuclear power is considered the most expensive form of electricity, highly radioactive nuclear waste is being stored on site all over the country even after power plants are retired (750 metric tons at Oyster Creek in Lacey Township, NJ) with no solution in hand.
The Power NJ Act refers to “the 2018 economic retirement of the Oyster Creek Generating Station…:” (Section 2.a.7.). Even then the utility could not sell Oyster Creek’s power at the energy auction because it was too expensive a price. The next generation of AP1000 facilities will be unbearably expensive due to inflation, borrowing, construction, supply chain and delay costs, etc.. But these are not the only costs to consider.
What types and number of waste casks will be needed for the reactors’ spent fuel rods at a new facility to contain existing and new volumes. While Holtec and NRC say their thin-walled casks are built to last 100 years, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued a red flag for casks stored in salt-humid environments like NJ due to concerns that they might pit and corrode after 20 years. As a result, the NRC has established an “Aging Management Program” requiring the inspection and relicensing of thin-walled casks at the 20 year mark. (We are at year 8 at Oyster Creek). Transferring spent fuel to new casks is both highly dangerous and costly. This requires extraordinary handling, protections against potential operational incidents and radioactive waste leakage, terrorist attack and future climate induced sea level rise and weather (e.g. flooding) that could inhibit operations, containment & emergency response.
Contrary to popular belief, nuclear generation is not a green, clean source of power – from extraction to waste disposal. It has public health ramifications and comes at a cost to family who are impacted. Nuclear plants emit 99 different radioactive isotopes, some of which are only created as a result of a nuclear reaction (e.g. plutonium). Recent study by the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health showed higher cancer rates in counties in proximity of nuclear plants.
Nuclear power has never been too cheap to meter, the dangers of nuclear waste and on-site storage are very real and essentially a forever cost that must be forever managed long after the facility is closed. The Governor should be hyper focusing our state agencies and Board of Public Utilities (BPU) on diversifying and investing in Class 1 renewables, battery storage and modernizing the grid as the best and cheapest option for ratepayers, creating more reliable sources of energy, putting more people to work and offering better protections for the environment and our health.
Even before the Governor took office, she promised to put affordability and putting ratepayers first. By signing the Power NJ Act into law, the Governor now has the responsibility of ensuring that the BPU embraces a robust process and that future decisions regarding nuclear power are made in the public, not corporate, interest. With new leadership at the BPU, we hope this will be the case.
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Since Clean Water Action’s founding during the campaign to pass the landmark Clean Water Act in 1972, Clean Water Action has worked to win strong health and environmental protections by bringing issue expertise, solution-oriented thinking and people power to the table. We have had an active presence in New Jersey since 1982 – working on water, waste, energy, air quality and toxics issues. www.cleanwater.org/nj