Nuclear Energy: Rich Climate NGOs Have Nuked Clean Power
Trump wants to quadruple our use of carbon-free nuclear power output by 2050. Most American climate nonprofits claim nuclear power is dirty and dangerous. The facts say otherwise.
The Trump administration wants to quadruple American nuclear power output by 2050. There is no physical challenge to this goal, as France—now the world’s seventh largest economy—launched an aggressive buildout of nuclear power in 1974, based on American nuclear reactor designs. By 1985, France was already generating almost two-thirds of its electricity from uranium.
French nuclear is so successful that it powers other nations. According to the World Nuclear Association, “France is the world’s largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation.”
Nuclear power emits no carbon emissions. Of the planet’s 10 largest economies, France emits less carbon dioxide per unit of GDP than all of them.
Ironically, the biggest challenge to bringing this energy success to the United States is political. Nearly all of the largest American climate nonprofits oppose nuclear energy.1
For example, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) opposed the European Union’s 2021 proposal to add nuclear as an option within Europe’s carbon reduction goals. In a news release, the WWF lumped together and denounced “fossil fuels” and nuclear power as equally “unsustainable.”
The Sierra Club has logged decades of opposition to nuclear power. A “Nuclear Free Future” page on the Sierra Club website declares the group is “unequivocally opposed to nuclear energy” because it is “uniquely dangerous” and “no solution to climate change.”
Within the past decade, even nonprofits such as the California Teachers Association and the NAACP have co-signed or adopted statements opposing the use of nuclear energy.
The combined annual revenue of the hundreds of nonprofits known to be opposed to nuclear power exceeds $2.5 billion. This formidable opposition has 4,100 percent more annual revenue than the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry-sponsored nonprofit that promotes nuclear power development.
What Are They Opposed To? …
TO FIND OUT WHAT THEY OPPOSE AND WHY THEY’RE WRONG, PLEASE CONTINUE TO THE REST OF THIS REPORT (and its cool charts) AT THE CAPITAL RESEARCH CENTER (no fee, no sign up)…
Nuclear Energy: Rich Climate NGOs Have Nuked Clean Power
The anti-nuclear movement has left us with bad policies that put in place a lot of practical impediments in the way of an American nuclear renaissance. The “adamantly pro-nuclear”
recently spelled them out and what needs to change at his Substack: Five Reasons Why The US Won’t Quadruple Its Nuclear Capacity By 2050.