“Illinois Just Got ‘Nuked’”
This afternoon the Illinois House passed legislation to strip away a long-standing and effective means of protecting Illinois from excessive radiation hazard and abuse when it repealed the 1987 Illinois nuclear construction moratorium. Read more
“Nuclear war” has broken out in Illinois – one that could result in the devastation of our economy and sabotaging of the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA) renewable energy goals of 100% renewable energy by 2050. Read more
PRESS STATEMENT:
ON INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE STRIKE DAY – NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT A VIABLE CLIMATE CRISIS SOLUTION
September 23, 2022
Today’s Fridays for the Future Climate Strike called out tens of thousands of people worldwide – over 300 in downtown Chicago — to protest the inadequate governmental response to the Climate Code Red, and identify the many corporate criminals who are responsible for the bulk of the crisis. Read more
With the nuclear reactor crisis emerging in Ukraine as a backdrop, a bill – HB 5589 — has been introduced in the Illinois Legislature that would remove a decades-old moratorium on constructing new nuclear reactors in Illinois. Read more
2022 has been quite a year so far. No sooner do we begin recovering from the gut-punching reminder of “Don’t Look Up!” that we have a potentially civilization ending Climate Code Red to contend with, and fast, when along comes – Russia. Read more
PRESS STATEMENT: NATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST AGAINST NUCLEAR POWER BAILOUTS
Monday, September 13, 2021
Chicago – Today, hundreds of citizens around the country are contacting their elected representatives to Congress to urge them to remove any funding for nuclear power plant bailouts from the Reconciliation and Infrastructure bills, expected to be voted upon later this week. Read more
An otherwise excellent Chicago Tribune summary of the proposed Comprehensive Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CCEJA) was marred by the oversimplified one-line explanation for critics’ opposition to continued Exelon nuclear plant bailouts. While legitimate to question and oppose bailing out a profitable corporate welfare queen like Exelon, the real reasons are more numerous and complex.
The $694 million Exelon bailout proposed in CCEJA is nearly twice the amount found financially defensible by Governor Pritzker’s $250,000 independent audit commissioned earlier this year. What’s the justification for increasing ratepayer abuse? Read more
THE CORROSIVE EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR BAILOUTS
David Kraft, Director, Nuclear Energy Information Service
July 15, 2021
Nuclear bailouts represent the government’s way of turning people into utility ATM machines. At the state level, that would be ratepayers. At the federal level, that would be the U.S. taxpayers. It’s always easier to spend somebody else’s money, especially when trying to score political points with voters and donors.
Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the states of Illinois and Ohio, characterized by not only outrageous nuclear bailouts imposed on ratepayers, but also horrendous amounts of political corruption essential and intrinsic to sealing the deals. Read more
Illinois Legislators should oppose Exelon’s current $700 million nuclear ransom demand. You can’t build an energy future by bailing out the past.
Recent revelations [1] that Exelon’s business partner EDF is curbing its enthusiasm for the creation of Exelon’s spin-off company “SpinCo” should warn Illinois legislators about the danger of granting the recently proposed nuclear bailout [4].
Earlier this year Exelon announced it would be splitting off and segregating its money-losing, unprofitable nuclear reactors into a separate entity called “SpinCo.” Read more
STATEMENT ON ILLINOIS LEGISLATIVE INACTION
ON ENERGY LEGISLATION
Tick…tick…tick…
Everything in its own time. Or so the old saying goes. The Illinois Legislature demonstrated that old maxim once again by failing to vote before the end of Spring session on a critical piece of energy legislation designed to create Illinois’ energy future.
The Planet has its own schedule, too. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) frantically warned in October 2018 that we humans have at best 10 years left – until 2028 – to totally revamp our energy and economic systems, or risk an irreversible climate crisis that could threaten the very functioning of civilization as we have come to know it. In this regard it’s important to recall another old maxim: Nature bats last.
Like the grasshoppers in Aesop’s Fable, we, the Governor, and the Legislature ignore this imminent peril, and instead, content ourselves to “Count the victories,” as House Speaker Chris Welch, D-Hillside, advised yesterday as the clock stroked midnight. Well, looks like it will now be easier to get to-go cocktails. Come 2029 and beyond, we will need them, and much more. Read more
