SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: Nuclear Power On Long Island

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Two decades after the defeat of the plans of the now defunct Long Island Lighting Company to build seven to eleven nuclear power plants in Suffolk County, safe-energy activists are concerned that we might again be targeted for nuclear power plants.

This comes amid the biggest push in years for nuclear power in New York State, in the United States, and internationally, as nuclear proponents try to latch on to climate change as a new reason for nuclear power with the claim that it is “carbon-free” or “emissions-free.”

This is untrue especially when the “nuclear fuel chain” is taken into account. 

“The dirty secret is that nuclear power makes a substantial contribution to global warming. Nuclear power is actually a chain of highly energy-intense industrial processes,” Michel Lee, an attorney and chair of the Council on Intelligent Energy & Conservation Policy, has said. “These include uranium mining, conversion, enrichment and fabrication of nuclear fuel; construction and deconstruction of the massive nuclear facility structures; and the disposition of high-level nuclear waste.”

In a two-page fact sheet that is online titled “How Nuclear Power Worsens Climate Change,” the Sierra Club Nuclear Free Campaign says: “Nuclear power has a big carbon footprint. At the front end of nuclear power, carbon energy is used for uranium mining, milling, processing, conversion, and enrichment, as well as for formation of [fuel] rods and construction of nuclear…power plants….All along the nuclear fuel chain, radioactive contamination of air, land and water occurs. Uranium mine and mill cleanup demands large amounts of fossil fuel. Each year 2,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste and twelve million cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste are generated in the U.S. alone. None of this will magically disappear. Vast amounts of energy will be needed to isolate these dangerous wastes for generations to come.”

The main release of carbon occurs during this nuclear fuel cycle; however, nuclear plants themselves also emit carbon, a radioactive form, Carbon 14.

Still, many politicians and much of media continue to use the words “carbon-free” or “emissions free” when it comes to nuclear-generated electricity. Consider the front-page story in the business section of The New York Times last week that began: “Technology companies are increasingly looking to nuclear power plants to provide the emissions-free electricity needed to run artificial intelligence and other businesses.” 

And there was an Associated Press article last week in Newsday which started: “Amazon on Wednesday said that it was investing in small nuclear reactors, coming just two days after a similar announcement by Google, as both tech giants seek new sources of carbon-free electricity to meet surging demand from data centers and artificial intelligence.”

Among the politicians buying into the climate change claim appears to be New York Governor Kathy Hochul who just organized a “summit” with a focus on nuclear power. At it, a “Draft Blueprint for Consideration of Advanced Nuclear Technologies” from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) was released. It asserted that “a growing and innovative group of advanced nuclear energy technologies has recently emerged as a potential source of carbon-free power.”

As the organization Food & Water Watch said online: “Governor Hochul’s latest bad idea is to build new nuclear power plants in New York. In September, she hosted an ‘Energy Future Summit’ in Syracuse where she wined and dined the nuclear industry, and now her administration has published a ‘blueprint’ for promoting the construction of new nuclear reactors.”

Long Island has been regarded as an advantageous area for nuclear power plants because of it being surrounded by vast amounts of water which can be tapped as coolant—a nuclear power plant needs up to a million gallons of water a minute as coolant.

Safe-energy activists—some veterans of the battle against LILCO’s plans for nuclear power—are readying a letter to the board of trustees of the Long Island Power Authority stating they “reaffirm the long-held consensus that nuclear power has no place on Long Island. We are also convinced that nuclear power has no place in planning New York’s energy future.”

“LIPA exists because the people of Long Island said no to nuclear power. Public safety, the impossibility of evacuation and ever-rising costs and electric rates were the reasons for this decision. Nuclear energy was neither necessary nor appropriate for Long Island.  This is still true,” it continues.

“A recent study by the Nature Conservancy found that ‘Long Island has enough low-impact solar PV siting potential to host nearly 19,500 megawatts (19.5 gigawatts) of solar capacity in the form of mid- to large-scale installations (250 kilowatts and larger).’ A gigawatt of energy can power 750,000 homes. These estimates, totaling almost three times more power than is currently required, do not even include the potential for residential solar. Additionally, solar is the most widely accepted and supported form of renewable energy in the nation. By contrast, nuclear power garnered the most public opposition.

“Long Island’s abundant energy resources also include offshore wind. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the full offshore wind potential in our region is 323,000 megawatts or 323 gigawatts of energy. LIPA has led the way with the South Fork Wind Farm. Clearly, there is no shortage of renewable energy potential on Long Island. Nuclear energy will not be needed here.”

Also, the letter points out, “LIPA’s enabling legislation clearly states that the ‘authority shall utilize to the fullest extent practicable, all economical means of conservation, and technologies that rely on renewable energy resources, cogeneration and improvements in energy efficiency which will benefit the interests of the ratepayers of the service area.’”

It calls for opposing “any effort” by the state Public Service Commission or NYSERDA to site nuclear power facilities on Long Island.

Food & Water Watch is asking people to relate their views by letter or email to Hochul and Doreen Harris, president of NYSERDA, both in Albany, before a November 8^th deadline set for comments. “Take action: Demand they stop this fast-track to danger and instead chart a path to the renewable energy future we need,” asks the group.

Meanwhile, while this is going on Long Island and in the state, headlines last week of online pieces about nuclear power included: “Japan’s top business lobby proposes maximum use of nuclear energy.” And, “European nations back nuclear power ahead of major climate summit.” And, “The super-rich are looking at nuclear power for emission-free yacht voyages.” And, “France plans to turn nuclear waste into forks, doorknobs and saucepans.”

Also last week, the U.S. Department of Energy released a report saying: “U.S. nuclear capacity has the potential to triple from 100 GW [gigawatts] in 2024 to 300 GW by 2050.” It went on, “In 2022, utilities were shutting down nuclear reactors; in 2024, they are extending reactor operations to 80 years, planning to uprate capacity [pushing nuclear power plants to run harder and generate more electricity]; and restarting formerly closed reactors.”

The nuclear power issue remains—indeed, is getting even more intense.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY at Old Westbury and the author of six books.

Suffolk Closeup: Wetlands A Vital Part Of Our Environment

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

What a difference several decades have made when it comes to wetlands.  

Photo credit Nissequogue River LI StudyAt long last, there’s been a change spurred by enlightened government leadership, action by environmental organizations and, amid the climate crisis, the realization of the importance of wetlands in providing coastal resiliency in the face of climate change.

Wetlands, where fish feed and breed—among other attributes—are a vital part of the environment. But for so long this was not recognized. Wetlands were dismissed as “marshes” to be filled and turned into property on which construction could take place. 

Studies have determined that half of the coastal wetlands in the United States, approximately 120 million acres, were filled in since 1900. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife study released in 2004 estimated that Suffolk County had lost 39% of its tidal wetlands and 51% of its freshwater wetlands.

This summer, Suffolk County received a $1.29 million Federal Emergency Management Agency grant for the first phase of a program to restore wetlands at the 80-acre Cupsogue Beach Marsh in Westhampton, the 25-acre Scully Marsh in Islip and the 35-acre Islip Preserve in East Islip. The total cost of the project will be $4.3 million. Commenting on it, Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine said the undertaking would seek to restore the areas to their “natural conditions.”

What a difference decades make, indeed. In 1970, as an investigative reporter for the daily Long Island Press, I exposed how the Suffolk County Department of Public Works utilized a huge county dredge to suck up bay bottom and deposit it as fill on wetlands in Southampton Town to provide a base for housing developments. 

My article was headlined: “PUBLIC Vs. PRIVATE. Suffolk DPW Boss OKs Own Side Jobs” and covered the front page of The Press. It began: “Suffolk Public Works Commissioner Rudolph M. Kammerer, while a public official, has ‘moonlighted’ as a private engineer on at least eleven substantial housing developments, many of which benefitted from his or his ‘partner’s’ public and political positions….The man he described as his ‘partner’—C. Marvin Raynor—was…president of Southampton’s powerful town trustees—empowered with the supervision of the town’s…waterfront.”

The piece noted that Raynor, also at the time mayor of Quogue, laid out plans for bulkheading to make the filling possible, and as a trustee voted for the projects.

Kammerer, of Westhampton Beach, first denied his connection to the developments but then I found his sworn signature as a private engineer for them on statements on their waste plans in files of the county Health Department in Riverhead.  

Raynor’s defense was: “I voted for these projects because I thought they were right. Just because I worked on them doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t have voted for them.” He resigned as president of the trustees before my piece ran. 

Kammerer said he saw “absolutely no conflict of interest” in his private and official positions. He said: “The cops moonlight.”

Suffolk County Executive John V.N. Klein would subsequently order the sale of the county dredge that did the work. 

Efforts to save the county wetlands also involve major damage done to them by the Suffolk County Mosquito Control Commission which for many decades dug ditches through wetlands to dry them up and so ostensibly to kill mosquitoes. This “misguided science” not only failed to decrease the mosquito population but damaged the health of the wetlands, says Enrico Nardone, executive director of the Islip-based Seatuck Environmental Association, among the environmental organizations active in striving to preserve and restore wetlands.

Part of the grant Suffolk County is receiving provides for using in the wetlands what FEMA calls its Integrated Marsh Management Method to eliminate these ditches. This is seen as improving tidal flow and improving growing conditions for grasses.

Here. in the current Peconic Estuary Partnership Habitat Restoration Plan, completed in 2020, and to which Nardone was a contributor, is a description of tidal wetlands:

“Tidal wetlands, also known as salt marshes, are vegetated areas around the edge of the estuary that are inundated by seawater brought in by the tides twice daily. The low marsh is dominated by salt marsh cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora), a plant that is specially adapted to living in this unique environment. The high marsh, which is only inundated by seawater during the highest spring tides or storm surges, is usually dominated by salt meadow grass (Spartina patens), but a variety of other plants may be found in this area too. Wetlands provide numerous ecosystem services and are some of the most productive habitats on Earth. They are ideal habitats for juvenile fish and shellfish to grow and reproduce. Three-fourths of the fish and shellfish we eat rely on the marsh environment at some point during their life. They are also important areas for waterfowl and shorebirds and the diamondback terrapin, an exclusively estuarine reptile. Beyond serving as important habitat for a number of species, wetlands help to slow shoreline erosion and provide a critical buffer between estuarine waters and the terrestrial environment. These habitats are capable of filtering a large amount of surface runoff from land, buffering estuarine waters from excess nutrients and contaminants that might be contained in surf ace runoff. Conversely, wetlands can absorb a large amount of floodwater from the estuary, providing protection to coastal communities during large storms.”

What a statement: wetlands “are some of the most productive habitats on Earth.”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY at Old Westbury and the author of six books.

Suffolk Closeup: County Executive Romaine Brings Money And Attention To Wetlands

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

What a difference several decades have made when it comes to wetlands.  

Peconic EstuaryAt long last, there’s been a change spurred by enlightened government leadership, action by environmental organizations and, amid the climate crisis, the realization of the importance of wetlands in providing coastal resiliency in the face of climate change.

Wetlands, where fish feed and breed—among other attributes—are a vital part of the environment. But for so long this was not recognized. Wetlands were dismissed as “marshes” to be filled and turned into property on which construction could take place. 

Studies have determined that half of the coastal wetlands in the United States, approximately 120 million acres, were filled in since 1900. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife study released in 2004 estimated that Suffolk County had lost 39% of its tidal wetlands and 51% of its freshwater wetlands.

This summer, Suffolk County received a $1.29 million Federal Emergency Management Agency grant for the first phase of a program to restore wetlands at the 80-acre Cupsogue Beach Marsh in Westhampton, the 25-acre Scully Marsh in Islip and the 35-acre Islip Preserve in East Islip. The total cost of the project will be $4.3 million. Commenting on it, Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine said the undertaking would seek to restore the areas to their “natural conditions.”

What a difference decades make, indeed. In 1970, as an investigative reporter for the daily Long Island Press, I exposed how the Suffolk County Department of Public Works utilized a huge county dredge to suck up bay bottom and deposit it as fill on wetlands in Southampton Town to provide a base for housing developments. 

My article was headlined: “PUBLIC Vs. PRIVATE. Suffolk DPW Boss OKs Own Side Jobs” and covered the front page of The Press. It began: “Suffolk Public Works Commissioner Rudolph M. Kammerer, while a public official, has ‘moonlighted’ as a private engineer on at least eleven substantial housing developments, many of which benefitted from his or his ‘partner’s’ public and political positions….The man he described as his ‘partner’—C. Marvin Raynor—was…president of Southampton’s powerful town trustees—empowered with the supervision of the town’s…waterfront.”

The piece noted that Raynor, also at the time mayor of Quogue, laid out plans for bulkheading to make the filling possible, and as a trustee voted for the projects.

Kammerer, of Westhampton Beach, first denied his connection to the developments but then I found his sworn signature as a private engineer for them on statements on their waste plans in files of the county Health Department in Riverhead.  

Raynor’s defense was: “I voted for these projects because I thought they were right. Just because I worked on them doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t have voted for them.” He resigned as president of the trustees before my piece ran. 

Kammerer said he saw “absolutely no conflict of interest” in his private and official positions. He said: “The cops moonlight.”

Suffolk County Executive John V.N. Klein would subsequently order the sale of the county dredge that did the work. 

Efforts to save the county wetlands also involve major damage done to them by the Suffolk County Mosquito Control Commission which for many decades dug ditches through wetlands to dry them up and so ostensibly to kill mosquitoes. This “misguided science” not only failed to decrease the mosquito population but damaged the health of the wetlands, says Enrico Nardone, executive director of the Islip-based Seatuck Environmental Association, among the environmental organizations active in striving to preserve and restore wetlands.

Part of the grant Suffolk County is receiving provides for using in the wetlands what FEMA calls its Integrated Marsh Management Method to eliminate these ditches. This is seen as improving tidal flow and improving growing conditions for grasses.

Here. in the current Peconic Estuary Partnership Habitat Restoration Plan, completed in 2020, and to which Nardone was a contributor, is a description of tidal wetlands:

“Tidal wetlands, also known as salt marshes, are vegetated areas around the edge of the estuary that are inundated by seawater brought in by the tides twice daily. The low marsh is dominated by salt marsh cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora), a plant that is specially adapted to living in this unique environment. The high marsh, which is only inundated by seawater during the highest spring tides or storm surges, is usually dominated by salt meadow grass (Spartina patens), but a variety of other plants may be found in this area too. Wetlands provide numerous ecosystem services and are some of the most productive habitats on Earth. They are ideal habitats for juvenile fish and shellfish to grow and reproduce. Three-fourths of the fish and shellfish we eat rely on the marsh environment at some point during their life. They are also important areas for waterfowl and shorebirds and the diamondback terrapin, an exclusively estuarine reptile. Beyond serving as important habitat for a number of species, wetlands help to slow shoreline erosion and provide a critical buffer between estuarine waters and the terrestrial environment. These habitats are capable of filtering a large amount of surface runoff from land, buffering estuarine waters from excess nutrients and contaminants that might be contained in surf ace runoff. Conversely, wetlands can absorb a large amount of floodwater from the estuary, providing protection to coastal communities during large storms.”

What a statement: wetlands “are some of the most productive habitats on Earth.”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY at Old Westbury and the author of six books.

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: 206 Sunny Days A Year Makes LI A Hotspot For Solar

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“I still get the same thrill as when I did my first solar installation in 1980,” Dean Hapshe was saying the other day. The sign that the energy being harvested by sunlight is exceeding what the electric grid is providing—“the utility meter going backwards”—is something that “screams independence.”

Hapshe is the veritable dean of solar power on Long Island. This has included teaching how it’s done to solar installers here—including at the State University of New York at Farmingdale and at Long Island Power Authority seminars. 

He headed his own company, Majestic Son and Sons, based in Medford, for many years. The firm is now merged with 70-employee Harvest Power in Islip Terrace. Hapshe is project manager at Harvest Power.

Some 26 years ago, he and his workers installed 38 photovoltaic panels on the roof of our century-old classic saltbox house in Noyac. Our cost for electricity since has a been a small fraction of the cost it had been pre-solar.

These days, a Long Island Power Authority rebate for a solar installation no longer exists. However, that has been offset by a huge drop in the price of panels and other material. That “cost has dropped 50% from what it was 20 years ago,” notes Hapshe. Moreover, there is a federal tax credit of 30% of the total installation price, and there’s also a New York State credit of 25% for up to $5,000 back.

Further, the efficiency of solar panels—the percentage of sunlight converted into electricity—has nearly doubled from two decades ago to now 20% and more.

Solar is quite affordable,” says Hapshe. An average residential solar installation producing 10,000 watts of electricity would cost $30,000 before tax credits and have a “payback” of seven years for the cost of a solar investment to being recouped.

“Long Island is a real hotspot for solar,” he says.

The area has favorable climate conditions for solar—an average of 206 sunny days a year. A factor, too, is the otherwise high cost of electricity here.

In Suffolk, its new top county official, County Executive Ed Romaine, is a big supporter of solar power. Earlier this year, he announced a “Solar-Up Suffolk” program to encourage solar power use by Suffolk residents and businesses. This included a Suffolk County Solar Fair held on Earth Day in April featuring numerous solar vendors and exhibits of local research institutions including the Advanced Energy Center at Stony Brook University, environmental organizations and county government departments.

And on other local levels, solar is being promoted.

For example, near where we live is what had been the Southampton Town landfill in North Sea. Not only was it on its way to becoming a garbage mountain—like the even bigger landfill in North Bellport. On TV and in print five decades ago I exposed how it was the site at which trucks came to dump cesspool waste. The town supervisor then, Martin Lang, was incensed by how this cesspool waste was being dumped on among the purest portions of the underground water table of Southampton.

That has long stopped. The site is now called a “transfer station.” And the town has embarked on constructing an array of 12,000 solar panels on top of the former now capped landfill through which 500 Southampton residents—selected in a lottery—will get electric bill discounts for using solar energy as part of a “community distributed generation” initiative. “This will be the first CDG municipality-led program on Long Island,” says Lynn Arthur, the energy subcommittee chair for the Sustainable Southampton Green Advisory Committee. 

It’s a far cry from being a site for dumping cesspool waste. 

The Nature Conservancy and Defenders of Wildlife have published a “Long Island Solar Roadmap” which says that solar power has “the potential to generate more electricity than Long Island uses each year.” Participating in drafting the “Roadmap” was a “consortium” of “38 stakeholders” that included people from: Sierra Club; Renewable Energy Long Island; Long Island Regional Planning Council; Suffolk County Legislature; Peconic Land Trust; Clean Energy of New York; Sustainability Institute of Molloy College; Long Island Power Authority; New York State Power Authority; Suffolk Community College; Land Trust Alliance; and individual towns.

It not only covers what can be done but recommends strategies for implementation. It’s available online. Its 127 pages are literally a roadmap to a sunny energy future for this area. The link is: /solarroadmap.org/ 

It begins by noting “the solar carport at the H. Lee Dennison Building in Hauppauge” and how it “twinkles in the sun” and how “the solar canopies there, laid out in rows above the parking spaces, have generated…carbon-free electricity all year round…” 

Solar power is critical in dealing with climate change. “The threat of climate change is not in the future,” said Romaine in announcing “Solar-Up Suffolk.” “We are experiencing it right now with more intense storms, worse and worse flooding events, and extreme heat in summer”—and this was before this record-hot summer. “There is no silver bullet, but I believe that solar energy is one key of the puzzle.”

Dean Hapshe went directly into the solar field after graduating from Boston University. His lifelong commitment, he says, “comes from years of realizing how beautiful this planet is.”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY at Old Westbury and the author of six books.

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: Has Hochul Been "Hoodwinked In The Hothouse"

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

It took decades to stop the plan of the now defunct Long Island Lighting Company to build seven to eleven nuclear power plants in Suffolk County. Then New York Governor Mario Cuomo allied himself with grassroots anti-nuclear organizations and the Suffolk County Legislature in the battle.

But now New York has a different governor, Kathy Hochul.

The national journal Politico signaled Hochul’s interest in nuclear power in an article in May headlined “New York policymakers thaw on nuclear energy.” The piece started: “Gov. Kathy Hochul has cracked the door open to the potential for new, small nuclear power plants as a way for the state to try to meet its ambitious climate goals.” It told of this happening “at a private dinner with environmentalists April 29, according to two attendees who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the private conversations.”

This month, at what Hochul organized as a “Future Energy Economy Summit” held in Syracuse, this state push for nuclear power in New York more than thawed.

As the headline at syracuse.com, the website of Syracuse’s Post-Standard newspaper, said in its coverage of the conference: “Hochul’s energy team opens the door to a long dismissed option: new nukes.”

At the conference, Hochul spoke of “splitting the atom” as an energy source.

Released was a 29-page “Draft Blueprint for Consideration of Advanced Nuclear Technologies” done by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. It asserted that “a growing and innovative group of advanced nuclear energy technologies has recently emerged as a potential source of carbon-free power.”

In the wake of the disasters at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, the nuclear industry has been trying to latch on to climate change as a new reason for nuclear power with the claim that it is “carbon-free.” In fact, it isn’t. The nuclear fuel chain including mining, milling and fuel enrichment is carbon-intensive, and nuclear power plants themselves emit carbon, Carbon-14, a radioactive form of carbon.

And the nuclear industry is claiming “advanced” versions of nuclear plants have arrived, “new and improved” plants—words commonly used to peddle “new and improved” detergents and similar products.

As explains Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, these plants, notably what are being called “small modular reactors,” are not new and not improved but were “things that were tried 50 and 60 years ago” and didn’t succeed then. Now, he says, with governments prepared to spend “bundles of money…trillions of dollars” to combat climate change, the nuclear industry is wheeling out these old designs to “try to rescue itself from a very rapid decline.” 

These plants “are just as prone to failure as large reactors,” says Dr. Edwards. “Any nuclear power plant is “a warehouse of radioactive poisons and anything that blows these poisons out into the environment constitutes a disastrous accident.” That can happen “if you’re small, that can happen when you’re big.” Meanwhile, he says, safe, clean, green renewable energy is here with its costs having plummeted. “Renewables are now about four times cheaper than nuclear” with solar and wind systems far quicker to build, thus having a “rapid payback” to challenge climate change and swiftly. 

Or as physicist Dr. M.V. Ramana, formerly at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security, in his new book Nuclear Is Not The Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change, writes: “The world has neither the financial resources nor the luxury to expand nuclear power. Meanwhile, even a limited expansion would aggravate a range of environmental and ecological risks. Further, nuclear energy is deeply” involved in “creating the conditions for nuclear annihilation. Expanding nuclear power would leave us in the worst of both worlds.”

And as says Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson, instrumental in development in New York of plans to expand renewable energy and the state reaching a goal of 70% of its electricity from  renewables by 2030—which Hochul is doubting so purportedly nuclear is needed—achieving that goal “is a matter of social and political willpower. It is not a question of technology or economics.”  He is director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program and professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University and author of the 2023 book No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air.

Or as Tim Judson, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, in a chapter he writes in Hoodwinked in the Hothouse: Resist False Solutions to Climate Change, says: “Dirty energy companies want people to believe that nuclear power is necessary to reduce greenhouse gases and avert the climate crisis. This could not be further from the truth. Nuclear power is not a climate solution: it is too dirty, too dangerous, too expensive and too slow….The uranium fuel chain and nuclear disasters make the dangers of climate change worse, and the nuclear industry actively blocks renewable energy and other solutions to end fossil fuels. We can and must phase out nuclear power along with fossil fuels, to repair environmental injustices and protect generations to come.”

But Hochul has been “hoodwinked in the hothouse.”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY at Old Westbury and the author of six books.