For almost half a century, New Jersey regulated new nuclear reactors to death. This is no exaggeration: In 1977, the state added requirements for such plants to dispose of nuclear waste in a permanent federal repository. No such repository has ever existed. So no new plants could be built.
That de-facto ban ended on Wednesday as Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) signed legislation allowing the Garden State to approve other waste storage systems. “It’s a textbook example of the kind of inefficient government I ran to change,” Sherrill said, noting that most other states have implemented storage strategies with “a 100% safety record.”
That makes New Jersey the second state to reverse its ban on nuclear energy this year, after Illinois reversed its moratorium in January. Now, only a handful states maintain a ban or require legislation to approve new reactors, and even these restrictions are starting to thaw. Rhode Island, for instance, allowed utilities to buy electricity from neighboring states’ nuclear plants last year, and Oregon lawmakers are moving forward with a “feasibility study” about new reactors.
New Jersey’s law represents an overdue correction to overhyped fears about radioactive waste, which some left-wing environmental groups have long portrayed as a problem without a solution.
In fact, commercial plant operators have developed safe storage strategies. First, they cool spent fuel rods in pools of water for five to 10 years and then transfer them to concrete dry-storage casks. Those structures remain on-site at power plants, posing no health risks to workers or nearby communities.
Congress developed its own solution to nuclear waste in 1987, designating Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a federal repository. But that project stalled due to local opposition. Eventually, President Barack Obama’s administration quashed the project, a decision the Government Accountability Office determined was motivated by political motives, not technical or safety concerns.
Nowadays, startups are eyeing those stockpiles of spent nuclear fuel as a means to meet the country’s burgeoning demand for power. For decades, France has recycled such waste, which retains more than 90 percent of its potential energy, to be used again in reactors. Why not do the same here?
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