2013 marked the 35th anniversary of Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS). We were founded to be the national information and networking center for citizens and environmental activists concerned about nuclear power, radioactive waste, radiation and sustainable energy issues. We still fulfill that core function, but have expanded both programatically and geographically. We initiate large-scale…
Exelon has long been the nation’s largest nuclear power utility. Now it is the nation’s largest electric utility, period. Yesterday, the Washington, D.C. Public Service Commission, which had twice rejected the proposed merger of Exelon and D.C.’s local utility Pepco, voted 2-1 to approve the merger. Within hours, Exelon and Pepco had filed the necessary…
NIRS is launching a new campaign today, called #NuclearIsDirty. Over the next twelve weeks, we will be rolling it out through a series of online events, publications, and social media forums. #NuclearIsDirty is a forum to inform the public of the real environmental impacts of nuclear power, from the mining of uranium and production of…
I have been in this job at NIRS for 25 years (03-03-1991—now). I can hear: “Mary, 50 women is not a meaningful sample size!” (I reply: Correct; for a study). And: “Those women you met at Mama Tea Parties are self-selected activists—so they are a completely biased sample!” (Me: Correct, but this is not a…
Some who read yesterday’s post from Temporary Housing near Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture are probably still unhappy with me! The idea that small reductions in radiation exposure are any kind of “solution” flies in the face of what we know: there is no safe dose of radiation. We say: “No cure, only prevention!” The women that…
On Friday, the District of Columbia’s utility regulators dealt what may end up being a fatal blow to Exelon’s bid to buy local utility Pepco and become the largest utility in the country. Or maybe not. In a complex decision that almost literally gave those of us in the room whiplash, the Public Service Commission:…
This is a short piece about a much longer piece that you will want to take a bit of time to read. Actually, it is unfair to describe it as a “piece.” It’s a study, by Mark Cooper, who for years has been writing extensively about the transition to a clean energy future from an…
We continue to hear the same old arguments over and over again–in comments in these pages, in blogs and newspaper op-eds, in press releases and out of the mouths of those utility execs trying to hold on to the 20th century model of electricity generation and distribution, and, most depressingly, in the U.S. Senate which…
Paris and Onward: the Path Forward to a Nuclear-Free, Carbon-Free energy future. NIRS telebriefing with Dr. Mark Jacobson, Stanford University; The Solutions Project (http://thesolutionsproject.org/) and Dr. Arjun Makhijani Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER.org). Moderated By: Tim Judson, Executive Director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service. MP3 recording.
If 2015 was the year that the ongoing global energy transition away from nuclear power and fossil fuels and toward a clean energy system based on renewables gained public notice, then 2016 naturally should be the year that the transition takes visible and meaningful steps forward. Two critical steps that occurred in December ensure that…