Downwind author Sarah Fox recently joined RadioWest’s Doug Fabrizio to discuss the complex legacies of nuclear technology in Utah and the surrounding region in light of new proposals to build nuclear power plants in the state. You can listen here.
a note from Sarah:
I always enjoy chatting with Doug about nuclear issues relevant to the good folks in Utah. I want to stress there’s a lot more to my concerns about nuclear power than made it into the radio program. A few of these areas of concern:
Trump Executive Order (EO) 14300 Section 5(b), which pushes the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to abandon the LNT or Linear No Threshold model of risk assessment, which has been the standard since the early 1970s. The goal of this EO is to make it easier to build and operate nuclear power plants which would likely be permitted release larger amounts of radiation than permitted under LNT modelling. The LNT model is based on the understanding that radiation damage can occur no matter how small the dose (that’s why we don’t knowingly give x-rays to pregnant people!), and that the dose increases with increases in exposure. It’s true there is controversy around radiation exposure standards, but LNT is more in line with the preventative principle, which is what I believe should guide our approach to nuclear tech. [Learn more here: https://beyondnuclear.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/US-NRC-Consultation-4-1.pdf] We know even low amounts of radiation exposure can cause harm in some, so the ideal is to avoid exposures and prevent this harm, rather than let larger exposures occur and wait for the data in the form of illnesses and deaths.
The nuclear power industry has always exerted tremendous influence over its own regulation, making workers and communities near nuclear sites less safe. Under the current administration, this problem of regulatory capture will certainly worsen. This four-part AP study on the NRC is worth taking a look at. (Notably, conducted during the Obama admin.) https://www.ap.org/media-center/press-releases/2012/aging-nukes-a-four-part-investigative-series-by-jeff-donn/
The effects of uranium mining to fuel nuclear power plants (yes even "modern SMRS”) and nuclear weapons are disproportionately experienced by Indigenous and low income communities, who deal with birth defects, cancers, and contaminated water for generations after the industry has operated on their land. This is a situation of clear environmental injustice and nuclear colonialism, and it is abhorrent. A large percentage of infants tested in the Navajo Birth Cohort Study have been found to have uranium in their bodies, despite the fact that the Navajo nation banned the uranium industry TWO DECADES ago due to its devastating environmental and health impacts. This is not “green” technology. Learn more:
Nuclear power plants have been sold to us as peaceful technology, separate from nuclear weapons. This has never been the case. Click here to learn more about the vexed history of nuclear power from historian Robert Jacobs, who argues nuclear power was “born violent.” M.V. Ramana, a physicist and scholar of Disarmament, Global and Human Security reminds us that nuclear power technology increases the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, + makes a compelling case that modern SMR technology is economically unfeasible, unlikely to meet electricity needs, and still extremely dangerous.
Even ostensibly “peaceful” nuclear power plants can become wildly volatile if destabilized by an earthquake, climate event, or military attack (IE, Israel’s recent targeting of Iranian nuclear sites). The International Atomic Energy Agency reminded us recently that “Armed attacks on nuclear facilities should never take place and could result in radioactive releases with grave consequences within and beyond the boundaries of the State which has been attacked”- IAEA chief Mr. Grossi to the agency’s Board of Governors on Monday. “Even well-fortified facilities are not immune from structural or systemic failure when subjected to extreme external force, such as missile strikes, the UN nuclear watchdog has said…. The potential consequences include localised chemical exposure and far-reaching radioactive contamination, depending on the nature of the site and the strength of its defensive barriers. Read more here.
The notion that modern nuclear tech can prevent accidents is as much of a fairy tale as it was 30 or 50 years ago. Like all human technology even the newest forms of nuclear tech remain vulnerable to phenomena like mechanical errors, human errors, wildfire, and disruptions to the power grid. I’ll get into this in my new book… stay tuned.
Nuclear power creates nuclear waste that is dangerous for thousands of years. The United States STILL does not have a high-level nuclear waste repository, which means nuclear waste is usually stored on-site where it is created, vulnerable to poor management, leaking barrels, wildfires, and other events which can introduce it into the surrounding environment, whether slowly or with catastrophic suddenness.
This is not green technology.