Sierra Club Nuclear Free Campaign 

TELL EPA: NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT PART OF THE 

CLIMATE SOLUTION! 

On June 2, 2014, the US. Environmental Protection Agency announced its proposed rule for reducing carbon 

dioxide (C02 ) emissions from existing electrical generation units. This is an important and historic step toward 

addressing climate change. But EPA's support~~ nuclear power and underplaying of the importance of renewables 

and efficiency is of serious concern. 

•,• The EPA Clean Power Plan Proposed Rule supports building new nuclear reactors (power plants) and 

maintaining existing reactors as an alternative to burning fossil fuels. 

·~· The rule encourages states to prevent even the most uncompetitive nuclear reactors from closing. 

•,• The rule underestimates the advantages of renewable energy and energy efficiency as the best alternatives 

for reducing carbon emissions. The proposed rule should acknowledge that renewable energy and energy 

efficiency can produce the power we need without the use of fossil fuels or nuclear power. Numerous studies have 

shown that this transition needs only the political will to make it happen. 

•:: New nuclear reactors cost billions of dollars and take many years to bring on line. Renewable energy, and 

especially energy efficiency, are much cheaper and their development is already underway. 

•,• EPA incorrectly claims that nuclear power is reliable. This ignores the many times nuclear reactors had to 

shut for years due to warm water temperatures, flooding, and extreme weather events, all of which will worsen as 

the climate warms. 

~· Nuclear power is far from carbon-free. Fossil fuels are used for uranium mining. milling, processing, 

conversion, enrichment, transportation and construction of reactors. Huge amounts of energy will be needed to 

isolate nuclear waste for millennia-a task which science has so far not been able to address. Large amounts of 

water are also used to operate and cool the reactors . 

.,_. EPA seriously minimizes the problem of radioactive waste. In fact, they erroneously contend that radioactive 

waste avoids the problem of waste from coal-fired generation! Waste from coal is a serious problem but 

radioactive waste is extremely dangerous and remains so for millions of years. EPA also ignores the routine 

radioactive releases at all reactors and the several U.S. close calls to nuclear meltdowns. The Sierra Club maintains 

that the first step toward dealing with nuclear waste and radioactive pollution is to stop generating it. 

•,• The proposed rule improperly calls for reductions in C02 from 2005 levels. The problem is that C02 levels in 

2005 were the highest ever. In fact, current levels of C02 are 15% less than in 2005. The proposed rule should at 

least use current levels, or more appropriately, 1990 levels. 

EPA is accepting comments through Oct 16, 2014. The Sierra Club Nuclear Free Campaign strongly supports 

EPA's move toward reducing C02 emissions, but their inclusion of nuclear reactors as a reliable source C?.f 

electricity is a mistake. Ask EPA to support closing nuclear reactors in favor ofrenewables and energy efficiency. 

Comments can be made online at www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetaii;D~EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602-0001. 

Reference Docket ID EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602. Alternatively. fax to 202-566-9744 or mail to EPA Docket 

Center, Mailcode 28221T, Attn; Docket OAR-2013-0602, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20460. 

EPA will hold four public hearings on the proposed Clean Power Plan the week of July 28,2014 in Atlanta, GA; 

Denver, CO; Pittsburgh, PA; and Washington, DC. Speaking slots are filled but we encourage as many people as 

possible to attend. Location information can be found here. 
NUCLEAR POWER MAKES CLIMATE CHANGE WORSE 

The nuclear industry has been selling the world a story that nuclear power is a solution to climate change because it 

does not generate carbon dioxide (C02), a major greenhouse gas. While this is true of the nuclear chain reaction 

itself, the front and back ends of nuclear power generate a large volume of C02 and leave a trail of endlessly 

dangerous radioactivity along the way. 

• Nuclear power has a big carbon footprint. At the front end of nuclear power, carbon energy is used for 

uranium mining, milling, processing, conversion, and enrichment, as well as for transportation, formulation of 

rods and construction of nuclear reactors (power plants). At the back end, there is the task of isolation of highly 

radioactive nuclear waste for millennia-a task which science has so far not been able to address. 

All along the nuclear fuel chain, radioactive contamination of air, land and water occurs. Uranium mine and 

mill cleanup demands large amounts of fossil fuel. Each year 2.000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste 

and twelve million cubic-feet of low-level radioactive waste are generated in the U.S. alone. None of this will 

magically disappear. Vast amounts of energy will be needed to isolate these dangerous wastes for generations to 

come. 

• Nuclear power takes too long to deploy. Construction of the 1500 new reactors that the nuclear industry 

claims are needed to address global warming would mean opening a new reactor once every 2 weeks for the 

next 60 years. Reactors can take 10-15 years to build with an estimated cost of $12-15 billion each. In the past. 

cost and time needed for construction have each more than doubled from original estimates. We need to supply 

low-carbon energy sources NOW. 

• Nuclear power is not suited (or warming climates. Nuclear reactors need enormous amounts of cool 

water to continually remove heat from their cores. Reactors have been forced to close during heat waves due to 

warmth of sea, lake or river water- just when electricity is being used most. Low water levels during heat and 

drought have also forced reactors to shut down. In addition, cooling causes serious damage to aquatic life, 

killing millions offish and untold numbers ofmacroinvertebrates and fish fry. 

• Benjamin Sovacool fi"om the Institute 

Energy and Environment at Vermont Law School averaged the high and low estimates of carbon 

pollution from nuclear power. His study revealed that nuclear power's carbon emissions are well 

below scrubbed coal-fired plants. natural gas-fired plants and oil. However, nuclear emits twice 

as much carbon as solar photovoltaic and six times as much as onshore wind farms. Energy 

efficiency and some of the cheaper renewables also beat nuclear by sixfold or more. 

• Nuclear power is not flexible. Nuclear is ali-or-nothing power. A reactor 

can't be geared to produce less power as electricity from renewables (like wind and 

solar) increases. This can make it challenging to increase renewables past a certain 

point. 

When a reactor shuts down due to accident. planned upgrade or permanent closure, a 

large amount of power has to be found elsewhere. And nuclear plants are being closed. not opened- some because 

they no longer are making a profit. (over) 
• Nuclear subsidies rob research on renewables. Nuclear power has been subsidized throughout most of its 

fuel chain. In 2011 the Union of Concerned Scientists published Nuclear Power, Still Not Viable without 

Subsidies. This report shows that in some cases subsidies were greater than the value of the electricity produced. 

Subsidies are supposed to be for new innovations- not for propping up outdated technologies like fossil fuels 

and nuclear. Nuclear power could also be called a fossil fuel. because like coal, oil and gas, nuclear depends on a 

limited supply of natural resources in the ground. 

If some of the tens of billions spent on nuclear were funneled to national- and state-planned programs for 

clean energy and efficiency, we could achieve a fully renewable energy supply, a more democratized energy grid 

and energy independence much sooner. 

• Cost of nuclear is going up. while cost o(renewable~· i~· going down. Estimates for new reactors are, on 

average, four times higher than estimates from just eight years ago. Estimates for new reactors are invariably far 

less than the final cost, with the final cost often doubling. Costs ofrenewables continue down while their 

efficiency increases. Sometimes, as in the case of the Columbia Generating Station, Cherokee, and Perry, billions 

were spent for reactors that were never finished. 

RENEW ABLES ARE THE REAL ANSWER! 

Mitigating climate disruption demands sound investment in 

economical. expedient, clean and. most of all, safe 

technologies. 

Wind and solar are getting cheaper and more efficient by 

leaps and bounds. Advances are being made in energy 

storage. Geothermal energy is being tapped extensively. 

Wind farms added about 13 gigawatts of new power in the 

U.S. in 2012. Solar photovoltaic (PV) plants added 4.2 

gigawatts of electricity in 2013. And that's just solar PV. 

Solar water heaters have become very economic and 

popular. There are also concentrated solar power plants that generate electricity directly from the sun's heat. so the total 

amount of solar power is actually higher than the PV number alone. 

Back in 2007, nuclear engineer Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research wrote the book 

Carbon Free and Nuclear Free: A Roadmap.for U.S. Energy Policy. In the book he outlined how the United States, with 

the political will, could generate its energy needs with renewables by the year 2040. The phasing out of nuclear power 

and coal is now well underway, and the switch to wind, solar and efficiency is quickly gaining momentum. 

Check out the Nuclear Free Campaign of the Sierra Club Facebook Group. 

Follow @NuclearFreeSC on Twitter. 

SIERRA CLUB NUCLEAR FREE CAMPAIGN 

85 Second Street, Second Floor 

San Francisco, California, 94105