On March 9, our email inbox for “reporting an error” received a note asking why we have included the anti-energy nonprofit Appalachian Voices on the InfluenceWatch page profiling the Opposition to Nuclear Energy movement. The email claimed the NGO had “never expressed opposition to nuclear power or held any such position” and challenged the citations used by InfluenceWatch to support the claim that Appalachian Voices was an opponent of nuclear power.
InfluenceWatch was also asked if opposition to “the siting of any nuclear facility anywhere qualifies as opposition to nuclear power?” and “to clarify what ‘opposition to nuclear power’ means. . .”
Happy to do so!
The major citation used to support the original InfluenceWatch assertion was “Proposals to put new nuclear reactors near coal mine sites ignore geological hazards,” a November 2023 report from Matt Wasson, the director of programs for Appalachian Voices. In this report, Wasson rejected not one, but SEVEN proposed sites for nuclear power plants on or near abandoned coal mines in Virginia. He also repeated the alarmist and highly misleading talking points of the anti-nuclear movement regarding the handling of spent nuclear fuel and the safety of civilian nuclear power.
Outside of the anti-nuclear community these claims really don’t need refuting. Nothing is perfectly safe, including solar panels and wind turbines, but the relative and thus exceptionally strong safety record of nuclear power is on par with both. These facts and sources are provided in our Opposition to Nuclear Energy page and (for brevity) have generally not been repeated in the individual profile pages of the anti-nuclear groups.
But since there is a now desire for clarification, that evidence has been added (with fresh citations) to the Appalachian Voices profile page.
Wasson’s report also claimed that Appalachian Voices “does not oppose research and development of [small modular nuclear reactors] in general…” But there is no obvious evidence of any support for placement of a new, emissions free nuclear facility, anywhere on the Appalachian Voices website. If they have ever supported the siting of a specific nuclear project anywhere in America (or anywhere else), then they are not making this fact plainly known nor easy to locate.
Supporting the creation of more nuclear power in theory is irrelevant if it is repeatedly and without known exception opposed in practice. That is the standard applied on the InfluenceWatch page.
Similarly, last year, we received a note from someone claiming to be a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists who asserted that the UCS supports nuclear energy and should not be on our anti-nuclear list. This was surprising, because UCS was not and (so far) never has been on that list. This is despite a wealth of evidence that the UCS is—in practice, if not in rhetoric—an anti-nuclear group.
I explained the reasoning for keeping them off the list in a blog response to the UCS member’s concern:
It’s still not difficult to find evidence that the Union of Concerned Scientists is opposed to nuclear energy. The difference today is that it’s now just a lot harder to find evidence that they’re as honest about it. As in a criminal trial, our reluctance as a jury to vote them guilty doesn’t prove they are innocent.
The line we’ve drawn means that UCS’s current behavior may yet earn them a spot on the InfluenceWatch list of anti-nuclear groups, not that the current behavior of Appalachian Voices will get them removed.
But… if Appalachian Voices or any of the groups listed in the Opposition to Nuclear Energy profile ever decide to overtly support the development of a specific civilian nuclear energy project, then we will update that group’s InfluenceWatch profile and cheerfully promote the NGO’s decision to support America’s largest source of clean, emissions free, electricity.
The new section on the Appalachian Voices InfluenceWatch profile regarding nuclear power now reads as follows:
Appalachian Voices has repeatedly opposed the use of nuclear power. In an October 2022 Appalachian Voices news release a representative of the nonprofit opposed a plan to place nuclear reactors in Virginia, claiming “well-documented social and environmental problems associated with nuclear energy.” 2
In November 2023 the director of programs for Appalachian Voices opposed seven different proposed sites for placement of a small modular reactor (SMR) at or near abandoned coal mines in Virginia. The report claimed that “Appalachian Voices does not oppose research and development of SMRs in general . . .” and then recounted the anti-nuclear movement’s conventional criticisms regarding spent nuclear fuel, claiming in the conclusion that the proposals risked “bringing profound new threats to the physical safety of residents . . .” The conclusion also stated the “recent focus on attracting nuclear SMRs is at best a distraction from building a regional solar industry . . .” 3
A 2020 analysis from Our World in Data reported that nuclear energy “results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas,” making it “just as safe” as wind and solar power production. 4
A March 2021 analysis posted on the U.S. Department of Energy’s web page concluded that “nuclear energy produces more electricity on less land than any other clean-air source” and that “you would need more than 3 million solar panels to produce the same amount of power as a typical commercial reactor or more than 430 wind turbines (capacity factor not included).” 5
The Department of Energy report also concluded that “Nuclear energy produces minimal waste” and provided the following evidence: 5
Nuclear fuel is extremely dense.
It’s about 1 million times greater than that of other traditional energy sources and because of this, the amount of used nuclear fuel is not as big as you might think.
All of the used nuclear fuel produced by the U.S. nuclear energy industry over the last 60 years could fit on a football field at a depth of less than 10 yards!
That waste can also be reprocessed and recycled, although the United States does not currently do this.
However, some advanced reactor designs being developed could operate on used fuel. 5
Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and as of 2021 accounted for 19 percent of American electricity production—the largest source of zero carbon electricity in the United States. 6 An October 2018 proposal from The Nature Conservancy noted that zero-carbon nuclear plants produced 7.8 percent of total world energy output and recommended reducing carbon emissions by increasing nuclear capacity to 33 percent of total world energy output. 7
