Charles Komanoff has been an expert witness to antinuclear groups for decades, and his criticism is fiery and to the point, winning a place on the podium when thousands of protesters poured into Washington in 1979 over the Three Mile Island meltdown. Komanoff later went on to stand firm in his opposition to the Deablo Canyon nuclear power plant, the sprawling 37-year-old nuclear facility on a pristine stretch of California’s central coast that was once a focal point of U.S. antinuclear activity. But the last letter he wrote to California Governor Gavin Newsom in February was probably unexpected. He implored Newsom to drop plans to close the coastal nuclear power plant. “If we’re going to deal with climate, we’re going to have to let go of some of our long-held beliefs,” Komanoff said in an interview. “I’m still optimistic about solar and wind. But I’m pessimistic about climate. Climate is failing. “
Komanoff’s turnaround is a sign of the rapidly changing politics of nuclear energy . The long-controversial energy source has long been controversial as governments race to end their reliance on fossil fuels and the war in Ukraine has fueled concerns about energy security and costs, with fears that closing U.S. nuclear power plants, which produce barely any emissions, would make no sense. Getting support. Much of the momentum has been driven by longtime nuclear skeptics who remain uneasy about the technology but are now pushing to keep existing reactors running amid increasingly worrisome climate news.
The world is so behind on climate action that the key goal of keeping warming to a manageable level could be breached within a decade, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in its latest report in April. Emissions analysts have increasingly criticized the practice of decommissioning existing nuclear reactors because it strips the grid of a lot of low-emission electricity and undermines the gains from bringing wind and solar power online. Despite concerns about toxic waste and just a decade after the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, there is a movement to keep these reactors running. The growing public acceptance of nuclear power has propelled its growth and fostered an otherwise unlikely coalition of industry players, erstwhile antinuclear activists and a slew of young grassroots environmental activists worried Climate change, more than nuclear accident.
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