by Philip Gillemot

This is part three 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 final speaker in this program was Dr. Robert Howarth, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University and cited by the New Yorker as, "one of the world's premier methane scientists". Wikipedia states that his research influenced the decision of US President Joe Biden to temporarily halt any further approvals to export liquefied natural gas in January 2024. 

Dr. Howarth opened by stating that if he thought nuclear power was necessary to solve the climate crisis, he would be for it-but it's not! He quoted from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2022 Report that, "The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human well-being and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a livable future." Howarth stated that we must move away from all fossil fuels as soon as possible and that nuclear power is a distraction and an opportunity cost, not a climate solution. 

He cited a 2013 paper co-written by him and Dr. Mark Jacobsen of Stanford University that advocated for a move to a completely fossil-free future in New York State over 30 years. It also advised weaning off fossil fuels and substituting wind, solar, and hydropower means of electrical generation. He noted that these sources were cost effective then and are more so now. The above paper provided some of the basis for New York's 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). The Act set several goals to protect our environment, including cutting greenhouse gas emissions across all economic sectors by 40% as of 2030 and by 85% as of 2050. The CLCPA didn't state how New York should do so, but it did set up a Climate Action Council (CAC) of 22 members (including Dr. Howarth) and set a date of December 2022 to have the CAC produce a detailed plan of how to achieve its climate goals. The CAC had scores of meetings and public hearings, with input from over 25,000 people. The CAC reported directly to the Governor in 2022. The co-chair of the CAC, Doreen Harris, President of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) voted for the plan, but unfortunately since has backed away from it.

Dr. Howarth stated that the plan did not recommend nuclear power, as being too expensive, too slow to deploy, and having environmental and public health concerns. Implementation of the plan had been slow, and Governor Hochul has recently re-defined the law to delay its target dates. Meanwhile, the Governor has been working to rewrite the state energy plan, along with the President of NYSERDA. The new plan calls for nuclear power. The Governor wants it and the people around her decided to support it to keep their jobs. That plan calls for traditional large and also smaller reactors. 

A detailed paper on the unaffordability of nuclear power by Joseph Romm, PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, entitled, "New York's Nuclear Anti-Affordability Fiasco: Why the State's Deeply Flawed Energy Plan Would Explode Electricity Rates" is available by clicking this link: NY-Nuclear-Report-1-8-26-FINAL.pdf

Basically, Dr. Howarth revealed that the paper shows that:

-The documentation behind the new energy plan is terrible and that the government has not followed the law of the CLCPA.

-The only economic analysis of nuclear power in the new plan was written by an industry group, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and it is light on details and documentation. 

-EPRI had a disclaimer stating that their analysis might not be accurate; also, the State's new energy plan had a similar disclaimer.

-There was a separate and more detailed analysis written by NYSERDA, but it has never been shared publicly despite freedom of information requests.

Another paper that discusses the myths about small modular nuclear reactors is available through the Union of Concerned Scientists, entitled, "Five Things the Nuclear Brothers Don't Want You to Know About Small Modular Reactors". It is available by clicking on: Five Things the “Nuclear Bros” Don’t Want You to Know About Small Modular Reactors - Union of Concerned Scientists

Then Dr. Howarth discussed a leading nuclear power company specializing in small modular nuclear reactors, NuScale. It is the only company in the US that currently has the regulatory approval to build small modular nuclear reactors. However, it has never actually built any plants. According to Wikipedia, 

NuScale had an agreement to build reactors in Idaho by 2030, but the plan was canceled in 2023 due to the estimated cost having increased from $3.6 billion to $9.3 billion for the original VOYGR power plant. Note that NuScale has lost 71% of its market value over the last year as of this writing. Also note that only two commercial small modular nuclear reactors are currently operating in the world, in China and Russia. 

Small modular nuclear reactors also produce more nuclear waste per unit of electricity produced than traditional nuclear reactors. New Scientist reported a peer‑reviewed analysis from Stanford University that assessed nuclear waste production from SMR nuclear reactors and concluded that "SMR performed worse on nearly all of our metrics compared to standard commercial reactors".