In 2017, BINJ took on one of our biggest projects to date, a book-length oral history of activism around nuclear energy in New England. Titled Pilgrims: 50 Years of Anti-Nuclear Mass, it was thoroughly reported by Miriam Wasser, and in addition to a robust online presentation with dozens of photos and sidebars, we also published a large-format newspaper edition to distribute on the Cape and at libraries around Massachusetts.
While our reporting on the subject mostly ended with Pilgrims, the work of its subjects has continued through the years, morphing in its needs and goals but never getting any easier. Below, you will find a guest editorial penned by four members of the Cape Downwinders, the group at the center of our epic oral history, about their current battle on Beacon Hill. -BINJ Editors
As members of Cape Downwinders and the Commonwealth Coalition for Democracy and Safe Energy, we are committed to advancing clean and renewable energy, combatting climate change, and making energy affordable. We invite our legislators and the public to an educational event about state energy policy around nuclear power on Nov. 12 at 10am.
Gov. Maura Healey’s energy bill, H.4144, contains many valuable ideas. However, Section 45 creates an undemocratic route back to nuclear power, a dirty, dangerous, and extremely expensive method for generating electricity, and it should be removed. Specifically, Section 45 repeals a law created by a 1982 citizen-initiated ballot measure that won by a two-thirds majority in every county and said that new nuclear power plants can only be constructed if: (1) a majority of voters approve in a statewide general election, and (2) there is an operational, federally licensed facility for the permanent disposal of high-level radioactive waste. No such facility exists.
The governor views that 1982 law as a “major barrier” to promoting her agenda of using untested small modular reactors [SMRs] to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and power AI centers in the state. The as-yet experimental SMRs promoted by the governor, the nuclear industry, and some Massachusetts academic institutions are still on the drawing board and have no proven cost parameters. Some designs use highly enriched fuel that poses a proliferation risk. They all create more high-level radioactive waste with nowhere to go.
Nuclear power may improve our carbon footprint, but at what cost? It pollutes and causes cancer and birth defects at every step of its fuel chain, and accidents can be catastrophic. There are far less expensive, cleaner, safer, and more sustainable sources of energy, including solar, wind, and geothermal. That is where the state’s investment should focus.
Massachusetts voters have the right to a voice in setting state energy policy on something this significant. The effort to scrap a public referendum law with the stroke of the legislative pen is a direct challenge to democracy in Massachusetts at a time when democracy is being stripped away at every level, at every turn.
In support of public education as a tool for democracy, Cape Downwinders and the Commonwealth Coalition for Democracy and Safe Energy invited Dr. Edwin Lyman, the nuclear safety director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, to speak at the Massachusetts State House. Dr. Lyman will address the risks of small modular nuclear reactors and critical misconceptions about them. The public’s input and perspectives are essential as we work together to shape a clean, sustainable, and safe energy future.
The briefing will be held in Room 222 of the State House from 10 am to noon on Wednesday, Nov. 12.
Written by Ann Darling, Diane Turco, Deb Katz, and Jo-Anne Wison-Keenan
