Letter | Nuclear isn’t perfect, but climate not waiting - Santa Cruz Sentinel

Letter | Nuclear isn’t perfect, but climate not waiting - Santa Cruz Sentinel

Once again, “environmentalists” tried shutting a nuclear plant. While their organizations sound green, they are not. Many members might not know that money is donated to Friends of the Earth from Big Oil. Indeed, in 1969 David Brower left the Sierra Club over nuclear, and accepted $500,000 (2019 dollars) from the founder of ARCO (Big Oil) to start FOE.

Groups opposing nuclear (e.g., FOE, Sierra Club, Greenpeace), do the fossil fuel industry’s bidding, stymieing our work to slow the increases in climate-induced crises. Big Oil correctly sees nuclear threatening their profits. They know we can’t succeed against climate change without strong, reliable, and reasonably safe nuclear energy. They’ll support wind and solar because these aren’t threats. (Nuclear is imperfect but it hasn’t killed anyone in decades whereas thousands die almost every year from heat waves that are hotter and moving slower than they used to.)

Fossil fuel uses must be converted: Industrial (mining and refining metals), EVs (mostly charged at night without solar), and making synthetic, carbon-free fuels. Nuclear isn’t perfect but climate isn’t waiting.

— Edgar Ross, Scotts Valley

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