Ohfergawdsakes. First, PJ Wendel and now Kathy Hochul want to build a ‘mini’ nuclear power plant in Dunkirk or someplace else in New York. I have three questions concerning the wisdom of jumping on the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) bandwagon:

1. Where are there SMRs installed and operating in the US or the world?

2. What is the expected cost of the electricity from a nuclear plant?

3. What will you do with the highly radioactive spent fuel?

The answer to question 1 is nowhere. There are no operating SMRs anywhere in the US, and it will likely be 10 years or longer before any will generate electricity real people can use. The first land-based SMR, Longlin-1 in China, started construction in 2021 after the design was approved in 2016. It is expected to be operational in 2026. Yes, it took 10 years. China has only two more SMRs in production along with 56 conventional nuclear plants.

The answer to question 2 is unknown. However, recent history gives us a clue. The only SMR design licensed in the US is by NuScale. They had planned to be building our first SMR in Idaho this year. Unfortunately, the costs of building this ‘advanced’ design priced the electricity generated so high, they could not find enough buyers to proceed. This is even with billions in Federal subsidies. The most recent conventional nuclear plant commissioned in the US, Vogtle, produces electricity that is 3 times higher than that generated by renewables or fossil gas generators.

The answer to question 3 is easy: leave it sitting right next to Lake Erie until somebody figures out what to do with it. A problem no one has solved since nuclear reactors started being built 70 years ago.

Here are some interesting insights provided by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Backgrounder on Radioactive Waste:

“High-level wastes are hazardous because they produce fatal radiation doses during short periods of direct exposure. For example, 10 years after removal from a reactor, the surface dose rate for a typical spent fuel assembly exceeds 10,000 rem/hour – far greater than the fatal whole-body dose for humans of about 500 rem received all at once. If isotopes from these high-level wastes get into groundwater or rivers, they may enter food chains.”

“These atoms form heavier elements such as plutonium. These heavier-than-uranium, or “transuranic,” elements do not produce nearly the amount of heat or penetrating radiation that fission products do, but they take much longer to decay. Transuranic wastes, sometimes called TRU, account for most of the radioactive hazard remaining in high-level waste after 1,000 years.

“Radioactive isotopes eventually decay, or disintegrate, to harmless materials. Some isotopes decay in hours or even minutes, but others decay very slowly. Strontium-90 and cesium-137 have half-lives of about 30 years (half the radioactivity will decay in 30 years). Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years.”

“Spent fuel storage at power plant sites is considered temporary, with the ultimate goal being permanent disposal. At this time, there is no facility available for permanent disposal of high-level waste. The NRC believes spent fuel pools and dry casks both provide adequate protection for public health and safety and the environment.”

Adequate and temporary are not words you want to hear regarding the safety of waste products that remain highly toxic for thousands of years. One only has to look next door to West Valley in Cattaraugus County to see what problems nuclear waste can cause.

This is the ‘experiment’ our elected officials want to park in our backyard for an unknown cost. We should, at least, see if these things work and what they cost before jumping in. We take the risk, we pay the price, who gets the benefits? Who do you think?

Tom Meara is a Jamestown resident.