New York To Build One of First US Nuclear-Power Plants in Generation (msn.com) 94
New York will construct the first major new U.S. nuclear power plant in more than 15 years, with Governor Kathy Hochul directing the state's public electric utility to add at least one gigawatt of nuclear generation capacity. The New York Power Authority will identify an upstate location and determine reactor design, either independently or through private partnerships.
The project tests President Trump's May executive orders aimed at accelerating nuclear development through regulatory overhaul, expedited licensing, and expanded use of federal lands for reactors. Only five new commercial reactors have come online since 1991, while nuclear capacity has declined more than 4% from its 2012 peak. Potential sites include grounds of New York's three existing plants owned by Constellation Energy. The state is already collaborating with Constellation on federal grant applications for reactor additions at the Nine Mile Point facility in Oswego and studying Ontario's small modular reactor initiatives.
The project tests President Trump's May executive orders aimed at accelerating nuclear development through regulatory overhaul, expedited licensing, and expanded use of federal lands for reactors. Only five new commercial reactors have come online since 1991, while nuclear capacity has declined more than 4% from its 2012 peak. Potential sites include grounds of New York's three existing plants owned by Constellation Energy. The state is already collaborating with Constellation on federal grant applications for reactor additions at the Nine Mile Point facility in Oswego and studying Ontario's small modular reactor initiatives.
Re:"New York To Build..." (Score:5, Insightful)
Until it's built and operating, I call BS.
Well, they have to start somewhere. It's not like they are going to build it in secret and then announce it when complete.
The new units at Vogtle took about 10 years to build. It took about 8 years to build each new unit at the Barakah nuclear power plant in UAE. The latest I heard is that Hinkley Point C should be done after 12 years of construction. That's just a few that came to mind, I recall the average build time is somewhere between 7 and 8 years. That should set some expectations on completion time.
With experienced gained in nuclear power construction in recent years then maybe we can expect completion at least in that average build time, than be delayed for years like so many others that make the news because the people running the show were inexperienced. But then I guess these failures make the news because it's not really news to see a construction project built on time, that's like reporting a passenger jet landed safely and on time today. We hear about the failures more than the successes, that that will skew perceptions.
The USA needs clean firm power, and nuclear fission can provide it. I have my doubts this will be completed too. The residents of the state of New York haven't exactly been fans of nuclear power in the past. I expect some shenanigans to try to hold this up.
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"The new units at Vogtle took about 10 years to build. It took about 8 years to build each new unit at the Barakah nuclear power plant in UAE."
Well, anti-nuke demonstrators in UAE get handled a leeeetle bit differently.
Not to mention the needed permits.
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"Build" is a misleading term in that it doesn't properly define the starting point. You got it right with Hinkley Point C when you used the word construction. Most of those time scales are from ground broken to criticality. Not from project Final Investment Decision to grid export. You're not accounting for several years of the process there.
The OP is right to be sceptical. Also when you compare projects it's also important to remember to compare the type of project execution you'd like to see. Quite a few
Re: "New York To Build..." (Score:2)
The federal government can expedite the federal permitting process (and they should), but the anti-nuclear activists haven't agreed to expedite their opposition...
Besides, to call this a 'plan' is a bit generous - they don't even have a location for this new plant...
This is a long, long way off.
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Until it's built and operating, I call BS.
Er ... until it's built, you're gonna call bs on plans to build something that hasn't been built, but is something they want to build?
Did I miss something, or is there a gas leak in here?
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Nuclear is simply too expensive. Not even South Korea and the UAE can build a plant on schedule and under budget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
No "greens" or protesters in that part of the world.
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Germany had to increase coal usage (Score:2)
How many countries or states have deep decarbonized with intermittent solar and wind? The answer is zero! Germany spent 500 billion euros trying and they failed! If they spent the same amount of new nuclear energy they would have succeeded. So stop with this "nUcLeAr Is tOo eXpEnSiVe" lie which only helps the fossil fuel industry.
Germany had to increase coal usage. Replacing nuclear with Putin's natural gas didn't work out as expected.
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That's a lie because in 2022, France imported 29.3 TWh of electricity from Belgium and Germany (and exported 1.9 TWh back). [rte-france.com]
You simply can't decarbonize with nuclear power alone without some kind of grid storage.
Re:Apologise, greens (Score:4, Informative)
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In fact, there were at least 2 months of every year from 2005-2022 where France was a net importer of electricity from Germany/Belgium. They tried and failed to decarbonize. They need grid storage, the same thing that will help Germany to decarbonize with solar and wind.
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Grid energy storage? Like the kind proposed for use with the Natrium nuclear reactor?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
What makes this kind of energy storage so efficient is that it is storing the heat directly off the reactor, no energy conversion until that heat is used to run a turbine. Because they produce such high temperatures they can be used to run turbines like the kind used for natural gas, they follow changes in electrical load very well.
Oh, and as a spinning mass they can act on stabilizing the
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You simply can't decarbonize with nuclear power alone without some kind of grid storage.
Please explain - if a country goes "balls to the walls" and goes 100% Nuclear, why do they need "some kind of grid storage"?
Nuclear is an example of decarbonized, right?
If you're thinking about down-time for repairs/maint, fine, you just over-build - if five nuclear facilities meets your needs, but you have no room for one to go down, just build six reactors, to handle taking one off-line for whatever reason.
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Because electrical demand is not constant 24/7 and it's uneconomical to run a nuclear reactor at less than 100% 24/7.
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Meanwhile, Denmark gets about 16% from biofuel, 12% from coal and 4% from gas, but has halved its carbon emissions from 2020 to 2023. And has several large offshore wind projects planned, in an attempt to reach 100% renewable energy by 2030.
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Nuclear is simply too expensive. Not even South Korea and the UAE can build a plant on schedule and under budget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
No "greens" or protesters in that part of the world.
No, but it was also their first big project and it took a little longer, so what?
Boston couldn't build a freaking tunnel on-time/on-budget.
California can't build a choo-choo train on-time/on-budget.
Big projects take time, as the wikipedia link explains:
The Barakah nuclear power plant (Arabic: ) (BNPP) is the United Arab Emirates' first nuclear power station, the first nuclear power station in the Arabian Peninsula and the first commercial nuclear power station in the Arab World.[2]
Maybe cut them a little slack?
Re: Apologise, greens (Score:1, Funny)
Just make sure their free palestine vest doesn't have a detonator before approaching.
Re:Apologise, greens (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time you meet a green, remind them of their movement's stupid actions which prevented the building of nuclear plants which could have been saving the planet RIGHT NOW.
Yup. They are every bit as culpable for climate change as the fossil fuel companies. Now they complain it will take too long. Well it has taken a long time for us to get to where we have 400 reactors and 12,000 thermal coal plants in the world, so it is indeed going to take a long time to fix. Best start now rather than whining about how long it will take, that's the reason we are where we are in the first place.
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We have long since been at the point where wind and solar can produce baseband power.
How many countries or states have deep decarbonized with intermittent solar and wind? The answer is zero! Making your statement a boldface lie. Germany spent 500 billion euros attempting to and failed!
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We don't need nuclear.
Did you inform Gov. Hochul of this? If so then how did she respond? If not then why not?
I have a suspicion that Gov. Hochul has subject matter experts advising her on the energy needs and capabilities in the state, advisors that know some things that you do not, and are aware of your concerns on cost and safety though maybe not your specific concerns but generally due to feedback from studies and public opinion surveys. They planned to build a new power plant anyway. Maybe with your insight they might c
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I think the point is that if those modifications to shore up against the earthquake and tsunami were known to be needed and yet they did not happen nor was the plant shut down and if that was for financial reasons then that is an issue people are and should be worried about.
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No one died, dude. Even after the earthquake, tsunami, and control systems fire, NO. ONE. DIED.
Just how safe do you think things need to be?
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It doesn't matter the outcome if my statement is true then it's a valid concern.
"I fired 12 bullets into a crowd. They all missed so firing bullets into crowds is safe enough"
Re:Apologise, greens (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
1) Magnitude 9 earthquake
2) Followed by massive tsunami
3) Followed by devastating fire resulting in loss of ALL control systems
4) No one died. Repeat: no one died.
It's hard to see how anything could be safer than that. Imagine a similar scenario occurring at (say) the Three Gorges Dam in China...shudder.
Nuclear power has been operating in the United States for 70 years without one fatality to a member of the general public. Zero. A few plant workers have been killed (generally by non-nuclear causes, such as falls, electrocution, or steam burns) but even if you take them into account, nuclear has a better safety record than ANY other power source, including solar and wind (people fall off roofs and towers, yo).
I'm an American (Score:1)
Also your for your first three points you are ignoring the most important thing.
None of what happened was that outside the ordinary, the engineers repeatedly warned that a tsunami and earthquake of that magnitude was due, and the CEOs ignor
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If I lost all of my property I would want to die. I don't say that lightly.
OK.
Our country does not take good care of people without property
Gee, I wonder if the millions of people that streamed across the border with nothing feel the same way you do - you can find them in many hotels in NYC, Chicago, etc, behind a mountain of old take-out containers, doing anything but working because the government won't let them work...
and I am not so wealthy that I can afford to replace what I have.
Well, of course not - look at the start of your comment "If I lost all my property..." - how can you replace what you lost if you lost everything?
Nor do I trust the insurance that I carry on that property.
Then find a new insurance company, honestly, why pay for insurance you don't t
You're right about one thing (Score:2)
My entire point is that when required maintenance comes up CEOs with tight profit margins are going to skip the maintenance and put everyone at risk.
it doesn't matter what the maintenance is when you skip it you put everyone at risk. Upstate New York can get hit with brutal snowstorms for example. I can come up with scenarios where a poorly maintained reactor can't function properly when it's covered in six feet of snow and nobod
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My entire point is that when required maintenance comes up CEOs with tight profit margins are going to skip the maintenance and put everyone at risk.
What? Yes, Captain Obvious, if people don't take care of their things, bad things might happen - perhaps we don't leave maintenance decisions up to a CEO?
Your dislike of CEOs is obvious, you can probably find a way to trash CEOs no matter what the topic is - CEO Derangement Syndrome?
Nuclear displaces petroleum, not renewables (Score:5, Interesting)
We have long since been at the point where wind and solar can produce baseband power. We don't need nuclear.
Absolutely false. And every usage of petroleum proves you wrong. Nuclear displaces petroleum, not renewables.
Your sort of thinking forced Germany to increase coal usage when their policy to replaced nuclear with Putin's natural gas didn't work out as planned.
The reason we stopped building nuclear is because it's extremely expensive, highly risky due to social and political problems, and better replaced with wind and solar.
A lot of that cost is the political harassment, nuisance lawsuits. Wind projects have faced such harassment too, delayed decades, costs skyrocketing as a result. One ma the Massachusetts offshore projects for example. We have a solar farm project in California facing such harassment.
Old nerds grew up with nuclear and America is a nation of 12-year-olds so we're not going to let anything go. When we were 12 nuclear was super cool and we never grow out of anything anymore. We never did really...
LOL, the psychological project here is amazing.
Perhaps those old nerds are better informed? As the San Onofre example below shows. Also some old nerds on the other side who bought the green politics and not the science learned over the decades that they were mistaken, and were intellectually honest enough to admit their mistake. As a Greenpeace founder has. Who now believes nuclear is part of the "all of the above" carbon free energy sources necessary to solve the climate crisis.
Nuclear was downplayed by the US government due to politics. It was literally a political payback to green political supporters, not a technological based decision.
If you want to go solve the political problems that make nuclear a risky thing ala Fukushima you go do that. But I have never once seen a nuclear power fan make a serious effort to solve those political problems.
Nuclear technology was not the problem at Fukushima. Operations management was. San Onofre in California is on the coast, water cooled, in earthquake country, and loss of power would be a problem. Better operations management solved the problem. San Onofre stored backup power generators inland. On the United State Marine Corps base Camp Pendleton. Should an emergency occur the Marine Corps heavy lift helicopters would deliver the generators.
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Absolutely false. And every usage of petroleum proves you wrong. Nuclear displaces petroleum, not renewables.
What a load of trip. The existence of petroleum power doesn't discredit renewables, shit takes time to build. That is a completely non-sequitur argument. Nuclear doesn't displace any specific thing. It's a competitive product in the energy production market and not targeted to any single source. It also happens to be the single most expensive source of energy we have.
Also milestone from last month is that batteries are now cheap enough that in the sunniest part of the world solar power is now the cheapest f
Re: Apologise, greens (Score:2)
You should google/chatgpt "ELCC", and how it relates to wind, solar, and batteries. Anymore it's a multisurface calculation of what a type of resource is "worth" to the grid from a reliability perspective, both in isolation and in conjunction with multiple other intermittent technologies. ELCC values for small penetrations of wind/solar/batteries can be "ok", say 60% of rated capacity, but rapidly drop with increased build out. We're talking low single digits %. Versus nuclear, thats rock solid at 90+% by a
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We have long since been at the point where wind and solar can produce baseband power. We don't need nuclear.
I'm glad the problem is solved so I can continue not caring. Why do people keep whining about climate?
Re:Apologise, greens (Score:4)
Or to paraphrase a well-known saying: "The best time to build a nuclear power plant was twenty years ago. The second-best time is today."
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There is an international standard for calculating the cost called the Levelized Cost of Electricity, or LCOE, which is used as a comparison.
LCOE takes into account much more than just the cost of building the plant.
But the problem with wind and solar power is dealing with the variable amount of wind and sun.
Hydropower and nuclear power work well for that, although battery storage is
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Best start now
What's your goal though? What are you trying to achieve. Are you planning for future long term grid stability in a world of continuous energy demands? Great, more power to you (pun intended) because that's a great job for nuclear. On the other hand if for a moment you think of uttering climate change or CO2 then you can forget it. Yes it *will* take too long and all the while produce a shitton of more CO2 in the process. Nuclear simply cannot be the answer to climate change because that ship has sailed. It
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USA nuclear good. Iran nuclear bad.
Untrue. Civil nuclear power generation is fine. It was all worked out, UN inspectors ready to observe fuel and waste, etc. There is currently a Russian operated reactor where Russia handles all fuel and waste.
However Iran decided to have a weapons program and to keep some sites off limits to UN inspectors.
Re: Apologise, greens (Score:1)
When's the last time Congress came to order with a chant of "Death to X?" Just askin'
Cuz there's some people I wouldn't trust with a butter knife. And just because those people are out there doesn't mean no one gets butter knives.
Coal release more radiation (Score:2)
BUT RADIATION SCEEERRRYY!=
The US coal industry has release more radiation into the environment than the US nuclear industry.
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Nuclear energy is often sold as reliable baseload power, but in reality, it’s increasingly vulnerable to the very climate chaos it's meant to fight. Heatwaves raise river temperatures, forcing plants to shut down because the water is too hot to cool reactors without exceeding safety limits. Droughts reduce water levels so much that there's simply not enough to run the cooling systems. Freezing conditions can block intakes entirely. These aren't rare events anymore.
Maintenance and refueling take reacto
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[citation needed]
Re:Apologise, greens (Score:5, Interesting)
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Fly Palestinian flags
Fly Mexican flags
Fly American flags
Fly Iranian flags -- You are here
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I already knew nucleartards had questionnable morality and ethics, but conflating those opposed to uranium/plutonium fission reactors with other groups usually despised by right-wingers hits new lows and really shows your true colors: homophobe, racist pieces of shit. You're almost overshadowing trumptards.
I could have used my 15 mod points to downmod all of you all to hell, but unlike you, I have some ethics and I never downmod anyone simply because I disagree with them, although your tone alone, regardles
Only 1 GW? (Score:1)
What's the point then? New York ISO peaks at like 25GW, that's a drop in the bucket.
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And frankly that should terrify everybody. You have the skeeziest people outside of crypto wanting to quickly spin up power with the technology that while safe when heavily regulated and subsidized can be astonishingly dangerous when you start cutting corners.
There's a reason why the US Navy and American research insti
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What's the point then? New York ISO peaks at like 25GW, that's a drop in the bucket.
Well, they have to start somewhere to replace fossil fuels with something less polluting.
If I'm reading the numbers I found from the US EIA New York current gets 40% of their electricity from natural gas, and 20% from nuclear fission. This isn't just 1 GW, it's adding to the many GW of nuclear power already existing. This could just be the start to more nuclear power plants. Maybe we could see a total of 10 GW of new nuclear power capacity planned out before long, would that make you happy? With that mu
Re: Who's Footing the Nuclear Waste Bill? (Score:1)
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https://www.world-nuclear-news... [world-nuclear-news.org]
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nuclear waste
Used fuel (aka nuclear waste from a nuclear power plant) is not a real problem. It just isn't. You can keep fearmongering but what we are currently doing(cool in water for 10 years followed by cask storage) is working extremely well.
The actual bill for cask storage is insignificant. It's not even a rounding error.
Used fuel has never killed a single human being.
There isn't a lot of it. We could put all of it a building the size of a walmart.
It is a solid metal meaning it can never leak.
It decays exponentia
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NY State nor any state by themselves should not have to assume responsibility for this, there should be a federal plan and system for dealing with waste.
We tried with Yucca mountain but if the admin or any future admin is serious about nuclear power expansion this should be a part of it, either a centralized long term repository with a standardized system for transport and/or a federally operated re-processing system similar to how France handles it.
It is unreasonable and frankly irresponsible for the state
Re: Who's Footing the Nuclear Waste Bill? (Score:1)
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Not that they couldn't handle it but having 50 repositories is just way more risk, is going to always still involve the Federal agencies still at every point and is overall just a big waste of resources. There was a lot of still valid reasons that the concept of Yucca mountain was a thing, this is dangerous stuff on the timescale of hundreds to thousands of years, the release of which could absolutely cross state lines.
To be fair for my opinion is that the states should not be building or operating nuclear
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A gigawatt facility will generate substantial radioactive waste over its operational lifetime, requiring secure storage for decades and costing billions
Aaaaannd there it is.
The anti-nuclear bullshit F.U.D. to scare the plebes into fearing something that you and they both know nothing about.
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And in actual reality, that waste needs to be stored securely for centuries and that will cost a bit more. You are so deranged you do not even understand the very basics of nuclear power. It is a use-now-pay-later technology.
Reactors can consume high level waste as fuel (Score:4, Informative)
A gigawatt facility will generate substantial radioactive waste over its operational lifetime, requiring secure storage for decades and costing billions.
Depending on the reactor design. Some modern reactor designs can consume high level was as fuel, turning it into low level waste. Building these sort of reactors could go a long way to cleaning up the current waste storage problem from legacy reactors. Such reactors could offer a large costs saving regarding current waste storage.
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That has never worked. The lie that this would be possible has been pushed for > 40 years now though, so you are in good, if despicable and repulsive company.
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That has never worked. The lie that this would be possible has been pushed for > 40 years now though, so you are in good, if despicable and repulsive company.
Sorry, but you are conflating what was not built for political reasons and what "does not work". Various research reactors were shutdown as rewards to greens for political support, their designs not pursued much farther as a result.
However reality is:
"Spent nuclear fuel can be recycled to make new fuel and byproducts. More than 90% of its potential energy still remains in the fuel, even after fiveyears of operation in a reactor. The United States does not currently recycle spent nuclear fuel but forei
I'm torn (Score:3)
I'm torn on this. I believe nuclear is an import part of clean energy and should be used. At the same time, I know in the US energy companies are generally private companies, meaning they care about profits more than anything else. Nuclear power plants can be run safely, but I have no faith the an American company WILL run them safely. When the choice is saving some money or raising risk by 1%, most companies will take the small amount of risk to save the money. With a nuclear plant, that should never happen.
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There's 400 civil nuclear power reactors currently operating in the world today, many by private companies. Why are you concerned of the safety?
I'm not concerned of the safety because of the history of safety, and in knowing there's no profit in killing your customer base, having your reactor blow up into a cloud of radioactive dust, or seeing your plant break down and no longer produce energy.
We make safety vs. profit decisions all the time. Is it safe to have fires burning in your home? Well, there's r
Fiasco (Score:2)
Don't believe it (Score:2)
I'm pro-nuclear, but nowadays a new nuclear plant costs roughly 5-10 billion dollars. That'll buy a LOT of solar panels and enough batteries to make the system stable. The whole "storage means renewables won't work" argument i
Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
It was a mistake to shutdown Indian Point which was replaced with 3 methane plants. This will go part way in fixing that mistake
Remember that the single largest cost of a nuclear power plant is interest. Almost 2/3 of recent builds are interest. Public financing or 1% loans will almost entirely cut that cost.
Climate change is real. Air pollution is real. Energy poverty is real. Nuclear power is are best chance at eliminating all three of those!
Aren't ALL Nuclear Power Plants (Score:2)
in generation? I mean, that's what they're *for*.
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I love how the environmentalists are finally cheering for Nuclear generation after having fought it tooth and nail for 60 years. Had they just embraced it in the 50s and 60s and allowed it to flourish, we would have solved the GHG problem by the 80s and wouldn't be in a climate crisis.
Americans loved nuclear power in the 1950s, 1960s, and a bit into the 1970s. It was in popular culture with Thunderbirds and Star Trek, they were visions of a nuclear powered future. This changed in the 1970s with Space: 1999 and The China Syndrome, then nuclear power was something to be feared.
I remember seeing a video from what I surmised from the video quality and style of dress to be in the 1970s. In it was a politician that spoke in favor of nuclear power and natural gas to clean up the air and redu
NYSEG? (Score:2)
15 years is a generation now? (Score:2)
Maybe in Arkansas or whatever, but not in New York