Friday, June 30, 2017

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: 'I love James Hansen, but he is wrong on [the nuclear power issue]' | EnviroNews

WATCH

“…I love James Hansen, but he is wrong on this issue; he’s been wrong on nuke for a while,” Kennedy responded when asked. “He doesn’t understand the cost advantage that solar and wind now have over the incumbents, including nukes.”
According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, there are 449 nuclear power reactors currently operating in 30 countries, with 60 more under construction. In the U.S., 99 reactors produced 805.3 billion kilowatt-hours of electric power in 2016. The new Watts Bar 2 unit came online last year in Tennessee – a project of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a corporation owned by the federal government. The reactor 2 unit at that plant is already in shutdown due to equipment failures. 
Kennedy also questions the industry’s financial viability. “If you remove the subsidies from nuclear power there’s not a single utility in the world who would build a nuclear power plant,” he said. 
According to a 2011 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, “Government subsidies to the nuclear power industry over the past fifty years have been so large in proportion to the value of the energy produced that in some cases it would have cost taxpayers less to simply buy kilowatts on the open market and give them away…” 


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