Forums for a
Nuclear-Free New York
First in the Series:
“Symposium for Safe and Affordable Energy”
Thursday, January 15th - 2:00 PM
Real Clean Energy Doesn’t Cause Cancer. Expanding New York’s Nuclear Industry Will.
WHAT? An interactive Zoom webinar on the impacts of expanding the nuclear industry in New York, featuring leading experts, moderated by Alec Baldwin. It will present new research on elevated cancer and mortality rates near US nuclear plants, and evidence that New York's energy needs can't be met by expanding nuclear power, but can be met with renewables.
It’s the first in a series of several expert briefings, Forums for a Nuclear-Free New York, presenting leading expert sources with sourced, credible information on the impacts of nuclear expansion on New York’s health, safety, costs, and climate. The series is co-sponsored by the Alliance to Prevent Nuclear in New York, Grassroots Environmental Education, National Radioactive Waste Coalition, and Sierra Club Nuclear Free Team.
Journalists will be able to ask questions and get answers in real time.
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WHO? The following experts will speak and answer questions at the webinar:
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Joseph Mangano, executive director of Radiation and Public Health Project, author/co-author of 33 peer-reviewed medical journal articles and several books on radiation health including Radioactive Baby Teeth: The Cancer Link
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Mark Z. Jacobson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director, Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University, focusing on climate change and clean energy solutions on which he has published 190 peer-reviewed journal articles and seven books, most recently Still No Miracles Needed
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Alec Baldwin, moderator
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WHY? A new Harvard study shows that living near a nuclear power plant "significantly increase(s) cancer incidence." It found residents in zip codes within a 30 kilometer radius of a nuclear power plant had much higher cancer rates, while outside 30 kilometers those rates “declined sharply.” Radiation and Public Health Project is working with the same team at Harvard on a new study, currently under review, of mortality rates near nuclear power plants nationally.
Read The Report
"Nuclear Power:
Fact vs. Fiction"
Indian Point’s reactors in downstate New York are shut down. But Holtec, the current owner in charge of decommissioning it, soon going public and issuing an initial public offering, has proposed renuclearizing the site to boost its perceived value. This would entail misusing Holtec’s current licenses to install and operate small modular reactors on it to power a data center, and/or to restart Indian Point’s shuttered reactors, as Holtec is doing at other nuclear sites it owns. While Governor Hochul issued a statement saying New York State does not support renuclearizing Indian Point, that hasn’t stopped nuclear booster groups from pushing for it and spreading misinformation about the feasibility and impacts of doing so.
Meanwhile, Hochul strongly supports expanding nuclear in upstate New York. She arranged a $33 billion ratepayer subsidy to keep four aging reactors in Oswego and Wayne Counties, already well beyond their designed lifespan (including the oldest and second oldest reactors in the US) operating for another 20 years. She has championed building one or more new nuclear power facilities in upstate New York, and recently signed an agreement with Ontario Power Generation to develop SMRs in New York.
The U.S. federal government, not New York State, has jurisdiction over radiological health and safety issues. Nuclear expansion in New York would be taking place against a backdrop of unprecedented dismantling of federal nuclear regulation, rubber-stamping and fast-tracking new nuclear projects, and dumbing down radiation exposure standards. As such, it poses threats to New Yorkers’ health and safety that need independent scrutiny.