Carte Blanche: John Kerry and Government's War on Nuclear Energy
REHMAN ASAD
During a 2019 trip to Iceland to accept an award for climate leadership, a local reporter asked John Kerry if flying there by private jet was an “environmental way to travel.” Kerry, who now serves as Joe Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (unofficially dubbed “climate czar”), responded, “it's the only choice for somebody like me who is traveling the world to win this battle.”
This elitist response is nothing surprising for John Kerry, although pomposity alone isn’t reason enough to disqualify him to serve as climate czar. You probably shouldn’t fly by private jet to receive an environmental stewardship award in another country, or continue to fly private as climate czar, but I can move past that. The real problem is his historically dismal record of adhering to the unwritten rule “practice what you preach” – a standard to which we should hold our public officials.
Kerry’s record of hypocrisy on climate change is particularly alarming. I’m not saying this because his private jet emitted twenty-five times more carbon dioxide than the typical passenger vehicle in 2020. Nor am I so concerned that he’s able to fly private because his wife is Teresa Heinz of the ketchup conglomerate that recently received a D- grade in 2020 for its plastic waste impact on the environment. The reason that Kerry’s appointment to climate czar is so perplexing is that he was an instrumental figure in the government’s condemnable war on the nuclear energy industry. The damage that he caused should disqualify him from making environmental policy decisions. He has consistently picked political agenda over facts backed by expertise, and his knack for conjecture thwarted nuclear energy progress that would have saved lives.
The Infancy and Death of Nuclear Energy
Nuclear energy was supposed to be the path to world peace. Its unofficial commencement was President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech to the United Nations (UN) in 1953. An almost remorseful Eisenhower offered that nuclear energy technology would be the United States’ gift to the world to turn the negative of Hiroshima and Nagasaki into a positive. While admitting the unfortunate new reality of a nuclear arms race, he inspired optimism that the technology could lift millions out of poverty. This idea was met with global enthusiasm and ignited the nuclear energy industry.
By the 1970s, a strong and well-funded resistance to nuclear energy had emerged. Anti-nuclear sentiment had permeated environmental advocacy organizations like Sierra Club and Greenpeace, who united with actors, musicians, politicians, and other so-called “experts” to spread baseless claims regarding the safety of nuclear energy. They portrayed themselves as anti-establishment hippies, yet received major funding from Hollywood and K Street lobbyists to fight nuclear energy corporations. They succeeded in large part. From 1962 to 1966, only 12 percent of nuclear plant applications were rejected. By the early 1970s, that jumped to 73 percent.
You might assume this success was the result of strong evidence, but that wasn’t the case. Opponents made unsubstantiated claims that inevitable plant meltdowns would wipe out entire city populations, that nuclear waste could be easily targeted by terrorists, and that radiation from a nuclear accident would cause widespread cancer deaths. These were powerful accusations, especially in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But history has proven these claims to be fallacies.
The most catastrophic nuclear accident in history was the 1986 Chernobyl plant meltdown in which twenty-eight firefighters initially died, and nineteen first responders died in the next twenty-five years due to various reasons unrelated to radiation. According to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), a total of 43 deaths have been conclusively attributed to radiation from Chernobyl. UNSCEAR also estimates that Chernobyl evacuees were exposed to approximately 30 millisieverts of radiation. For comparison, a full-body CT scan delivers between 10-30 millisieverts. The World Health Organization (WHO) backs the UNSCEAR findings. However, Ralph Nader still peddles the fiction that the number of deaths attributed to radiation at Chernobyl is in the millions.
The worst nuclear accident in the U.S. was the 1979 Three Mile Island incident in Pennsylvania – it resulted in zero deaths, injuries, or adverse health effects. That includes radiation-induced cancer. Nobody has ever died from nuclear energy in America. Regarding the 2011 meltdown at Fukushima in Japan, the UN reported, “no discernible increased incidence of radiation–related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants.” The only deaths at Fukushima were the result of stress caused by the (mostly unnecessary) evacuations, given the nuclear meltdown was instigated by a tsunami, which was initiated by an earthquake.
The Three Mile Island incident came at the perfect time for fear-mongering anti-nuclear activists. Enough of the public was already skeptical of nuclear power, and greenhouse gas emissions weren’t as much of a concern at that time. The fact that nuclear waste couldn’t be used as a weapon was distorted enough to effectively kill any public support. According to Gallup polls, 45% of Americans were against the construction of nuclear plants in their community in 1976. That number increased to 60% in 1979, and 73% in 1986. As a result, only one new nuclear plant has started construction in the U.S. since then – the Vogtle plant in Georgia – and that was initiated in 2009.
Stopping construction wasn’t enough for the anti-nuclear activists. Death by regulation was implemented to shut down existing nuclear facilities. In 1976, three years before the Three Mile Island accident, the Sierra Club’s executive director clearly stated the organization's goal:
“We should try to tighten up regulation of the [nuclear] industry with the expectation that this will add to the cost of the industry and render it economically less attractive.”
Three Mile Island made this strategy a whole lot easier. It led to successful campaigns to influence lawmakers to tighten regulations, drive up prices of nuclear, and force the closing of nuclear facilities across the country.
Pouring (Fossil) Fuel onto the Fire
When the zero-carbon gift of nuclear energy was suppressed, polluting fossil fuels filled in the gaps. Coal, oil, and natural gas were the only replacements that could meet the increasing global energy demand. And that was a good thing, according to the environmentalists like Ralph Nader, who asserted,
“We do not need nuclear power… We have far great amount of fossil fuels in this country than we’re owning up to… the tar sands… oil out of shale… methane in coal beds.”
Fossil fuels, especially coal, are the main factors contributing to global warming. According to NASA, up to 1.8 million lives could have been saved if nuclear power had completely replaced fossil fuels between 1971-2009. Despite recent growth in the solar and wind energy sectors, they still provide only a minimal amount of global energy. Solar produced just 2% of global electricity in 2020, while wind produced 5%. Nuclear produced about 10%, while the rest came from natural gas, oil, and coal.
Even if wind and solar companies’ lofty claim that the U.S. energy mix can reach 50% renewable by 2030 came true, the other half of the equation is left unsolved. Beyond that, there are serious concerns about the negative impacts from renewables, specifically regarding mineral sourcing, the amount of land required, and waste disposal. For example, rare earth mining is required, and China, which is notorious for ignoring environmental and labor standards, controls that industry. Due to this mining, solar energy emits 40 times more radiation per unit of energy than nuclear, according to UNSCEAR. Per Environmental Progress, solar panels generate approximately 300 times more waste over its life cycle than nuclear when providing the same amount of energy. And according to International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) data, nuclear power’s life cycle carbon emissions are the lowest of any major energy source. Put simply, nuclear is the cleanest form of energy. It is also the safest.
If the U.S. is going to do its part in reducing emissions, it’s clear that nuclear needs to become a much larger part of the equation. The greatest impediments to that progress are anti-nuclear activists and fossil fuel interests, often working together. The Sierra Club, which claims to be opposed to fracking, was caught red-handed collecting $26 million in donations from the country’s largest natural gas company between 2007 and 2010. American Petroleum Institute, the country’s most influential largest oil and gas lobby, openly campaigns against subsidizing nuclear energy. Fossil fuel monoliths have even started to advocate for renewable energy, painting themselves as compassionate allies in the fight against climate change. BP recently tweeted, “our natural gas is a smart partner to renewable energy.”
Government’s Alliance of Nuclear Assassins
Ultimately, you can only blame competing industries and advocacy groups so much. They aren’t the ones actually enacting the energy policy - that power lays in the hands of politicians. And to no libertarian’s surprise, the government has been ruthless in this war.
In 2017, John Kerry held a press conference with Governors Jerry Brown of California and Andrew Cuomo of New York to announce the formation of the U.S. Climate Alliance, a network of governors formed in response to President Trump’s decision to withdraw from The Paris Agreement. They pledged to keep meeting the emissions goals set out in the agreement in each of their respective states. That promise was commendable, but their true commitment to minimizing emissions is questionable.
A closer look at this alliance reveals an implicit disdain for nuclear energy. If you go to its website, you’ll find endless self-congratulatory reports and videos, “fact sheets” for each represented state, a 32-page guide on how to deploy solar panels, and a plethora of press releases condemning Donald Trump. What you won’t find is any information on the alliance’s plans for nuclear. There are two results when you enter “nuclear” on the website’s internal search function, and they link to external sites. That can be explained by its founders’ involvement in the war on nuclear.
Jerry Brown served four terms as Governor of California, and has arguably been nuclear energy’s biggest nemesis since first being elected in 1975. That year, he made an impassioned speech in front of a crowd of 300,000 people at a “No Nukes” concert to make it clear he would fight the industry. As Governor he did so, but his true motivations appear to stem from his connections to the oil industry. His father, who was also Governor in the 1950s, owned a highly profitable Indonesian oil import company that donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Jerry Brown’s campaign. Additionally, the FBI investigated Brown for not reporting campaign donations from Mexican oil tycoon Carlos Bustamante, a friend who Brown was trying to help expand in California. Brown unapologetically tightened California’s nuclear regulations, blocked proposed construction of nuclear plants, successfully decommissioned existing plants, and promoted expansion of fossil fuels as a replacement. The last nuclear plant in California, Diablo Canyon, was refused an extension of its licensing by Brown and will be decommissioned by 2024.
Andrew Cuomo has been New York’s Governor since 2010, but his distaste for nuclear goes much further back. Like Brown, Cuomo’s father was New York’s Governor before him and shut down the Shoreham nuclear plant in 1989. The younger Cuomo has been at war with the Indian Point nuclear plant since 2001, calling it a “catastrophe waiting to happen” due to the threat of terrorist attacks. Yet, nuclear plants are some of the most guarded facilities in the U.S. and are required to pass response testing for disaster scenarios. Nuclear waste isn’t enriched enough to blow up like a nuclear weapon, and the waste is stored in thick cement containers designed to withstand a plane crash. Twenty years later, Cuomo has won his war with Indian Point and the plant’s last reactor will shut down later this month. Up until last year, Indian Point supplied a quarter of New York City’s electricity. So far, the entirety of this lost output has been replaced by power generated by natural gas.
As for John Kerry, his shining anti-nuclear moment came in 1994 when he led the Senate Democrats’ charge to discontinue the Department of Energy’s Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) program. The IFR program was launched in 1984 with the goal of improving nuclear reactor technology to make it safer, cheaper, less wasteful, and less susceptible to nuclear weapon proliferation. The product of the program did all of these things, but most importantly it was constructed so that a meltdown like Chernobyl or Fukushima was virtually impossible.
Unfortunately, politics got in the way and in 1994 the Clinton Administration made it a priority to close the program by eliminating it from its budget proposal. Republicans were pro-nuclear and put up a fight, but with full control of the House and Senate, the Democrats upheld the decision to not extend funding, essentially killing the IFR program. Kerry was the floor manager and principal speaker for the anti-IFR brigade. It is undeniable that Kerry is a gifted orator and can sound convincing. But, the opposition in the IFR hearings had the facts on its side. It was led by Democrat Bennet Johnston, who was head of the committee that oversaw the IFR program. He actually knew the science, while Kerry testified based on editorials from biased newspapers. The most compelling testimony came from the head of MIT’s nuclear development program, along with other professors, who refuted the proliferation arguments that Kerry relied on and pointed out, “the progress made to-date in the advanced nuclear energy will be difficult to replicate if it is discarded.” This is exactly what happened after the Democrats voted along party lines to disband the IFR program. The greatest advancement in nuclear reactor technology was abandoned, and the industry has suffered ever since.
Conclusion
The decisions that politicians make often have immense consequences. A decision to go to war affects every person in the countries that participate. Mandates to shut down businesses in response to the COVID-19 outbreak affected every American in some capacity. These significant decisions surely aren’t taken lightly by those who make them. For that reason, politicians must listen to experts who are (hopefully) not influenced by political motivations, take in as much information as they can, and make wise decisions for the sake of humanity.
It is impossible to predict with certainty how extreme the consequences of climate change ultimately will be. But it is safe to assume that ecosystems are evolving as a result of rising temperatures, and that emissions from energy production are accelerating that process. Nuclear energy is undeniably unique in that it’s the only energy resource we’ve discovered that produces zero emissions on such a massive scale.
There is legitimate justification for public apprehension in response to meltdowns like Chernobyl and Fukushima. That is why global authorities like the WHO, UNSCEAR, and IPCC have performed extensive research on the effects of those incidents – so we can get a clearer understanding of the truth. What these experts all agree on is that the actual radiation effects were minuscule compared to what many feared. Additional studies have shown that advances in safety protocols have made nuclear plants in the U.S. much less susceptible to failure.
Thankfully, with the Democratic party platform is embracing nuclear for the first time since 1972, it seems that there is bi-partisan agreement that nuclear is not only safe, but necessary to meet emissions reduction goals. Even John Kerry has belatedly reversed his position. That doesn’t diminish the reality that if nuclear energy hadn’t been politicized by anti-nuclear interests with dubious motivations, and if politicians like Kerry and Brown hadn’t waged war on the industry, then we would be much less dependent on fossil fuels today, and lives would have been saved.
Humanity suffered greatly because politicians ignored experts and were wrong. Say, for example, if twenty years from now, there is irrefutable consensus that Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis took the wrong approach to the Coronavirus pandemic by keeping Florida open in defiance of the CDC, and many people died as a result. In that scenario, would it make sense to appoint DeSantis as U.S. Health Secretary? Absolutely not (although I currently believe he took the correct approach).
This is exactly why John Kerry is a terrible choice for climate czar. If he had just listened to the experts in 1994, nuclear would be a much larger part of the energy mix today. That would have saved millions of lives that were lost to fossil fuel pollution. Then, maybe he wouldn’t be traveling the world lecturing other countries on emissions standards. In his private jet, of course.
