The 1020-page Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability (CRGA) Act was a must-pass piece of legislation, and will go a long way to meet concerns over electric system reliability and power availability. It was a much-needed investment in a safe-energy future for Illinois. However, a small but deadly 1-page piece of political and environmental poison was slipped into the bill. Nuclear power proponents achieved the repeal of the 1987 Illinois Nuclear Construction Moratorium.
The original intent of the Moratorium was to both 1.) prevent Illinois from becoming a de facto dumping ground for high-level radioactive waste (HLRW); and 2.) behave like responsible adults by requiring nuclear advocates to clean up the radioactive mess and legacy they’ve created before they’d be allowed to make more of it.
These simple yet critical policies are now being ignored by Gov. Pritzker and nuclear cheerleaders in a rush for “more power,” the need for which is based on incomplete, ill-informed, and highly suspect appraisal of the alleged power needs of data centers. Allowing construction of more hugely expensive and agonizingly slow-to-construct nuclear plants BEFORE a better and much more thorough understanding of real energy needs could easily leave Illinois ratepayers on the hook for future rate hikes and nuclear bailouts for nuclear plants that weren’t needed.
Illinois’ 14 reactors have already generated 11,000+ tons of HLRW, with no place for permanent disposal – as law requires – and no prospects for a federal permanent disposal facility seen before 2050. Moratorium repeal resulting in more reactors will only produce more toxic HLRW, stored indefinitely next to Illinois rivers, communities and Lake Michigan. This is simply irresponsible governance.
The obvious-to-a-child observation about moratorium repeal is that it does NOTHING in either the near or long term to actually address the legitimate and critical issues of system reliability and power availability, as was again corroborated in Senate hearing testimony before the votes. Renewables, storage and improved transmission can all be implemented faster and cheaper before the first shovel goes into the ground for a new nuclear plant. Moratorium repeal was simply another political machination that slipped one page of vested-interest into a 1020-page energy bill that required passage. What can’t be gained by fair (or rational thinking) was gained by subterfuge.
Wise governance and environmental stewardship require the Governor to remove nuclear moratorium repeal before signing CRGA.
David A. Kraft, Director
Nuclear Energy Information Service
