by Philip Gillemot
This is part two of a series reporting on a speaker's program about the risks, cost, and community impacts of a potential nuclear power plant in Schuyler County. The program took place in April 2026 at St. James Episcopal Church in Watkins Glen. The first article focused on the remarks by Yvonne Taylor, Vice-President of Seneca Lake Guardian, a local environmental protection group. This article will focus on the remarks by Tim Judson, Executive Director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service.
Judson initially described the risks of nuclear waste. Even before spent fuel and decommissioned reactor parts get isolated and stored, there is the issue of all the nuclear waste that is created by getting uranium from its source to the reactor. To get one pound of enriched uranium, more than 5,000 pounds of nuclear waste is unearthed. There are more than 15,000 abandoned uranium mines, and most of them are in areas where native people live. The uranium is brought to mills, which refine it to uranium ore (yellow cake). Finally, the uranium ore is converted to a gas, and the needed isotope of uranium (U-235) is concentrated. By the time one pound of uranium fuel is produced, thousands of pounds of radioactive waste polluting the environment is made before the fuel even gets used.
Once the nuclear fuel gets to the power plant, it leaks into the air and water. Employee uniforms get contaminated, then are laundered. Routine releases include liquid and gaseous radioactive effluents. Offsite nuclear plants, so-called low level radioactive waste disposal occurs, including reactor components, uniforms, and debris. Then there are leaks, spills, and fuel failures.
Then when a nuclear plant becomes too expensive or unsafe, it is decommissioned. This includes all reactor components, structures, and soil. According to Wikipedia, Nuclear decommissioning is the process leading to the irreversible complete or partial closure of a nuclear facility. The process usually runs according to a decommissioning plan, including the whole or partial dismantling and decontamination of the facility, ideally resulting in restoration of the environment up to greenfield status. The decommissioning plan is fulfilled when the approved end state of the facility has been reached. The process typically takes about 15 to 30 years, sometimes many decades more. Radioactive waste that remains after the decommissioning is either moved to an on-site storage facility where it is still under control of the owner or moved to a dry cask storage or disposal facility at another location. The "final" disposal of nuclear waste from past and future decommissioning is a growing, still unsolved, problem. The price to decommission a nuclear reactor is $1 billion. And a nuclear power plant may have multiple reactors. Spent nuclear fuel (fuel that no longer can sustain a nuclear reaction) is stored on-site for an indefinite period. Therefore, we are asked to host a nuclear waste storage site for each nuclear power plant that is constructed, for an indefinite time.
Mr. Judson then spoke of the surprising history of the nuclear industry in New York State. This industry was partially born here in the 1930s and 40s. New York has more nuclear sites than any other state: 79 from the Manhattan Project, two nuclear labs, and two reprocessing plants. A study done in the 1990s showed that radioactive contamination from the West Valley Nuclear Reprocessing Plant (in Western New York) was found as far east as the eastern edge of the Finger Lakes.
Mr. Judson detailed multiple extremely expensive bailouts of nuclear power plants. My research shows that so-called “small modular” commercial nuclear reactors have been touted in recent times to be a cheap, safe, carbon-free, and rapidly deployed source of electricity, but actually are unproven in real-world commercial settings and are still very expensive. For example, an article published in January 2023 by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis reported that the estimated price for electrical energy to be charged to utilities and ratepayers produced by the previously proposed NuScale “small modular” reactor nuclear power plant in Utah increased from $55 per megawatt hour in 2016 to $102 per megawatt hour in 2023. The project was shut down in 2024 due to the estimated high cost of producing power. Partnering towns in the state simply dropped out of the project. The estimated cost of construction of the plant had increased from $5.3 billion to $9.3 billion by 2023. The U.S. Department of Energy had already approved $1.35 billion for the plant, known as the Carbon Free Power Project. The Department had also provided NuScale and other proposed nuclear power plants about $600 million since 2014 to support commercialization of small reactor technologies.
And:
-The Ultra Safe Micro Modular Reactor project in Chalk River, Ontario, was paused due to the company’s bankruptcy in 2024.
-The cost of the BWRX-300 reactor under construction in Darlington, Ontario is estimated to be $6.5 billion Canadian; the cost of generating electricity from it would be as high as the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia (which is widely recognized as having the most expensive cost of electricity ever charged to utilities and ratepayers).
Judson then turned to the effect of the Nine Mile Point 1 and 2 nuclear reactors and the James A. Fitzpatrick reactor, all in Oswego County, a few miles northeast of Oswego on the shore of Lake Ontario. Shortly after these reactors went online, increased rates of birth defects, mortality, and cancer of cattle were reported by local farmers. The farmers asked Cornell Cooperative Extension to do a study to see if the nuclear power plants were the cause. The Oswego County Legislature refused to allow the study.
He noted that the term "advanced nuclear" is being bandied about by the pro-nuclear lobby and manufacturers, but there is no consistent definition of just what that term means. No matter what technology is used to cool reactors (i.e., water, molten salt, or sodium), small modular nuclear reactor designs will actually increase the volume of nuclear waste per unit of electricity produced by factors from two to 30. (per a 2022 study done by Stanford/University of British Columbia University).
Look for the final article in this series soon, featuring the comments of Dr. Robert Howarth.