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THIRD THURSDAY NEWSLETTER

MARCH 2023

April 7: Join webinar with Brian Toon and Paul Dorfman

University of Colorado Boulder Professor Brian Toon will confront the unimaginable consequences of nuclear war during our First Friday webinar 11:30 a.m. PST April 7.

Moderating the online event is Dr. Paul Dorfman, Associate Fellow of the Science Policy Research Unit at the Sussex Business School, University of Sussex. 

In a nuclear war between Russia and its allies against NATO, Toon estimates 300 million people would die as a direct result of the explosions. But that number would spiral to more than 5 billion after fires send smoke to the stratosphere, causing temperatures to plummet, agriculture to fail and, as a result, massive numbers of people to die of starvation.

"Politicians and military planners need to be aware of the global destruction that would follow a nuclear conflict," Toon writes.

We agree.

First Friday webinars are always free and open to the public. The series is made possible by the generosity of our donors and partners.

Watch our talk with Mark Z. Jacobson and Ken Cook

Stanford University Professor Mark Z. Jacobson blasted nuclear energy as overpriced and dangerous during our First Friday presentation March 3.

Jacobson, whose just-published book, “No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air,” joined Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook during a 90-minute webinar that focused on renewable energy and the political and social challenges it faces.

Nuclear energy, Jacobson said, is not the answer to our energy and climate problems.

Two reactors are being built in Georgia but will require 18 years of planning and construction before they can operate, and the electricity will be 8 times more expensive to generate than that which new solar or wind facilities could produce.

Across the pond, a nuclear plant proposed in Europe needs 17 to 21 years of planning and construction to open.

“We can’t wait until 2040,” Jacobson said. “It’s useless.”

Building the plant would require enough concrete to build a sidewalk from Miami to Seattle. That’s a lot of carbon that never gets recovered. During construction, running the grid would continue to generate greenhouse gases.

So would the mining and refining of uranium — processes fraught with risks and assaults upon the environment. Refining uranium opens the door to weapons proliferation, meltdown risks and 200,000 years’ worth of radioactive waste.

On the topic of small modular reactors, there’s no evidence to support that they would solve any of these problems, despite their endorsement by some federal officials. If anything, costs and delays will keep SMRs uncompetitive. In addition, their need for uranium to be refined at a higher level— to almost weapons-grade — introduces higher security risks.

“Why not spend money on wind and solar right now instead of subsidizing continued nuclear operations?” Jacobson said.

In California, regulators’ extension of licensing for the Diablo Canyon Power Plant has hamstrung the advancement of offshore wind generation because the nuclear plant, which is operating on a $1.4 billion subsidy, also is hogging a major transmission line that wind facilities would need.



“California has the potential to go all-renewables,” Jacobson said. “Keeping Diablo open is slowing that down.”

March 11 marked the 12-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that killed 19,000 people and triggered a catastrophic meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. More than a decade later, global outrage persists as the Japanese government has proposed releasing one million tons of contaminated water into the ocean.

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