July 16, 2025: The Water Cost of Electricity on the Susquehanna River

May 15, 2025: Data Centers and Nuclear Power on the Susquehanna River: More Questions than Answers

Sep 29, 2024: The case against restarting Three Mile Island’s Unit-1

Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island

Did you catch "The Meltdown: Three Mile Island" on Netflix?
TMI remains a danger and TMIA is working hard to ensure the safety of our communities and the surrounding areas.
Learn more on this site and support our efforts. Join TMIA. To contact the TMIA office, call 717-233-7897.

    

Joseph Romm oped NY's $100 bn nuclear plan worsen affordability crisis (Jan 23, 2026)

January 2026
 

New York’s $100 billion nuclear plan would worsen its affordability crisis

By Joseph Romm
 
The last nuclear plant New York State built was completed in 1988. As the New York Times reported in 1984, “The Nine Mile Point 2 nuclear reactor under construction here is a decade behind schedule, is almost three years from operation, and has a price tag 12 times the original estimate.”
 
Yet, at her Tuesday State of the State speech, Governor Hochul announced her plan to build five new large reactors.
 
The only U.S. commercial reactors built this century—the only ones the state modeled in its deeply flawed new Energy Plan—are the twin 1100-Megawatt AP1000 reactors at Georgia’s Vogtle plant. 
 
Vogtle was “the most expensive power plant ever built on earth,” one analysis noted, with an “astoundingly high” electricity cost. The final Vogtle cost was upwards of $40 billion.
 
As a result, Georgia ratepayer bills are rising over $220 a year. South Carolina consumers still pay for two never-completed AP1000s.
 
Hochul has asserted nuclear power will help “make energy more affordable.” But the reverse is true. The Energy Plan says the recent “surge in large load interconnection requests” is “driven primarily by data center development.” While Hochul has been in office, data center energy demand has helped triple Buffalo’s wholesale electricity prices, raising the state’s residential rates 40%.
 
Nuclear can’t be built fast enough to matter for new data centers or semiconductor plants. Five new reactors could cost the state $100 billion and still not deliver much, if any, power before 2035. 
 
New York’s Plan is built around the notion that the next reactor built will inevitably be much cheaper per Megawatt than the Georgia plants because of “learning.” But the electricity price from new reactors just keeps increasing, soaring 60% in the previous decade alone.
 
In contrast, there have been decades of price drops in batteries, solar and wind power. Battery prices fell 40% in 2024, a December study noted. “The economics for batteries are unrecognizable,” the lead author explained. “Solar is no longer just cheap daytime electricity, solar is now anytime dispatchable electricity.”
 
These technologies should be the focus of a genuine energy affordability plan.
 
 
Joseph Romm is a former acting assistant secretary of energy and author of the Penn Cemter for Science, Sustainability and the Media report, “New York’s Nuclear Anti-Affordability Fiasco.”
 
 
 
Michel 
By admin at Sat, 01/24/2026 - 15:44

SUN DAY Campaign: U.S. Solar Growth Dominates for the 26th Consecutive Month; Total Utility-Scale Solar Capacity Has Now Surpassed Wind

SUN DAY CAMPAIGN  

8606 Greenwood Avenue, Suite #2; Takoma Park, MD 20912-6656  
   
   
Brief News Update & Analysis  
   
UTILITY-SCALE SOLAR GENERATING CAPACITY
SURPASSES WIND FOR THE FIRST TIME
 
FOR 26 MONTHS STRAIGHT, SOLAR HAS PROVIDED
MORE NEW GENERATING CAPACITY
THAN ANY OTHER ENERGY SOURCE
 
OVER THE NEXT THREE YEARS,
SOLAR PROJECTED TO ADD ANOTHER 90-GW
 
 
For Release:  Wednesday, January 21, 2026
 
Contact:         Ken Bossong, 301-588-4741
 
Washington DC – A review by the SUN DAY Campaign of data belatedly released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) reveals that solar accounted for 72% of U.S. electrical generating capacity added during the first ten months of 2025. Solar continues to dominate new capacity additions and has held the lead among all energy sources for 26 consecutive months. As a consequence, for the first time, installed utility-scale solar capacity now exceeds that of wind. Further, FERC foresees solar adding another 90 gigawatts (GW) over the next three years by which time solar capacity will be greater than that of either nuclear power or coal.
 
 
Solar was 60% of new generating capacity in October and 72% year-to-date:
 
In its latest monthly “Energy Infrastructure Update” report (with data through October 31, 2025), FERC says 66 “units” of solar totaling 1,082 megawatts (MW) were placed into service in October, accounting for 59.8% of all new generating capacity added during the month. Natural gas provided the balance (727-MW) plus 1-MW of new oil capacity.
 
The newest facilities include the 153.0-MW Felina Project in El Paso, TX; the 150.0-MW Ratts 1 Solar Project in Pike County, IN; and the 145-MW Axial Basin Solar Project in Moffat County, CO.
 
The 649 units of utility-scale (i.e., >1-MW) solar added during the first ten months of 2025 total 22,457-MW - slightly less than the 22,618-MW added during the same period in 2024 - and were 72.0% of the total new capacity placed into service by all sources.
 
Solar has now been the largest source of new generating capacity added each month for 26 months straight: September 2023 - October 2025. During that period, total utility-scale solar capacity grew from 91.82-GW to 160.56-GW. No other energy source added anything close to that amount of new capacity. Wind, for example, expanded by 12.39-GW while natural gas’ net increase was just 6.55-GW. [1]
 
As a consequence, for the first time ever, the installed generating capacity of utility-scale solar has now surpassed that of wind (160.09-GW).
 
 
Wind capacity additions through October exceed those of natural gas:
 
Between January and October, new wind provided 4,746-MW of capacity additions – an increase of 55% compared to a year earlier and more than the new capacity provided by natural gas (3,896-MW). Wind thus accounted for 15.2% of all new capacity added during the first ten months of 2025.
 
 
Renewables were more than 87% of new capacity added year-to-date:
 
Year-to-date (YTD), wind and solar (joined by 4-MW of hydropower and 6-MW of biomass) accounted for 87.2% of all new generating capacity while natural gas added just 12.4%. The balance of net capacity additions came from oil (66-MW) and waste heat (17-MW).
 
 
Solar + wind are a quarter of U.S. generating capacity; all renewables combined are over a third:
 
Taken together, wind and solar constitute nearly one-fourth (23.79%) of the U.S.’s total available installed utility-scale generating capacity.
 
Moreover, more than 25% of U.S. solar capacity is in the form of small-scale (e.g., rooftop) systems that are not reflected in FERC’s data. [2] Including that additional solar capacity would bring the share provided by solar + wind to more than a quarter of the nation’s total.
 
With the inclusion of hydropower (7.57%), biomass (1.05%) and geothermal (0.31%), renewables currently claim a 32.72% share of total U.S. utility-scale generating capacity. If small-scale solar capacity is included, renewables are now more than one-third of total U.S. generating capacity.
 
 
Solar is on track to become the second largest source of U.S. generating capacity:
 
FERC reports that net “high probability” net additions of solar between November 2025 and October 2028 total 89,720-MW – an amount more than four times the forecast net “high probability” additions for wind (19,660-MW), the second fastest growing resource.
 
FERC also foresees net growth for hydropower (555-MW) and geothermal (92-MW) but a decrease of 124-MW in biomass capacity.
 
Meanwhile, natural gas capacity would expand by 8,983-MW and nuclear power would add just 335-MW, while coal and oil are projected to contract by 19,741-MW and 1,363-MW respectively.
 
Taken together, the net new “high probability” net utility-scale capacity additions by all renewable energy sources over the next three years - i.e., the Trump Administration’s remaining time in office - would total 109,903-MW. On the other hand, the installed capacity of fossil fuels and nuclear power combined would shrink by 11,786-MW.
 
Should FERC’s three-year forecast materialize, by mid-fall 2028, utility-scale solar would account for 17.3% of installed U.S. generating capacity - more than any other source besides natural gas (40.1%). Further, the capacity of the mix of all utility-scale renewable energy sources would exceed 38%. Inclusion of small-scale solar - assuming it retains its 25% share of all solar - could push solar’s share to over 20% and that of all renewables to over 41% while that of natural gas would drop to about 38%.
 
In fact, the numbers for renewables could be significantly higher.
 
FERC notes that “all additions” (net) for utility-scale solar over the next three years could be as high as 232,487-MW while those for wind could total 65,658-MW. Hydro’s net additions could reach 9,932-MW while geothermal and biomass could increase by 202-MW and 34-MW respectively. Such growth by renewable sources would significantly exceed that of natural gas (30,508-MW).
 
 
"It has now been a full year since Trump launched his assault on renewable energy with a string of anti-solar and anti-wind executive orders," noted the SUN DAY Campaign's executive director Ken Bossong. "And while they may have slowed progress, the economic and environmental benefits of renewable energy sources continue to drive their dramatic growth." 
  
# # # # # # # # #  
   
Source:  
FERC's 8-page "Energy Infrastructure Update for October 2025" was posted on January 20, 2026. The link to the full report can be found at: https://cms.ferc.gov/media/energy-infrastructure-update-october-2025.
 
For the information cited in this update, see the tables entitled "New Generation In-Service (New Build and Expansion)," "Total Available Installed Generating Capacity," and "Generation Capacity Additions and Retirements."
 
FERC notes: “Data derived from Velocity Suite, Hidachi Energy, and Yes Energy. The data may be subject to update.”
 
Notes:   
[1] Generating capacity is not the same as actual generation. Fossil fuels and nuclear power usually have higher "capacity factors" than do wind and solar. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports capacity factors in calendar year 2024 for nuclear power, combined-cycle natural gas plants and coal were 92.3%, 59.7%, and 42.6% respectively while those for wind and utility-scale solar PV were 34.3% and 23.4%. See Tables 6.07.A and 6.07.B in EIA's most recent "Electric Power Monthly" report. 

[2] While FERC does not provide capacity data for small-scale solar, the EIA does. In its latest “Electric Power Monthly” report issued on December 23, 2025, EIA reported that as of October 31, 2025, installed solar capacity totaled 200,995.5-MW of which 58,065.8-MW (i.e., 28.9%) was provided by small-scale solar (estimated). See table 6.1 at https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=table_6_01
 
# # # # # # # # # 
   
The SUN DAY Campaign is a non-profit research and educational organization founded in 1992 to support a rapid transition to 100% reliance on sustainable energy technologies as a cost-effective alternative to nuclear power and fossil fuels and as a solution to climate change.
By admin at Thu, 01/22/2026 - 15:31

[decomm_wkg] "German steam generators arrive in Sweden for recycling"

Watch for this one. 
This was attempted (2011) in Canada with Bruce Power steam generators to travel from Lake Huron through the Great Lakes out the St. Lawrence Seaway to Sweden.
We stopped them from sending 64 steam generators each larger than a bus.
 
"German steam generators arrive in Sweden for recycling"
 
"Decommissioning Is Creating a New Pipeline of Opportunity in Europe"
 
N2
Michael J. Keegan
Coalition for a Nuclear Free Great Lakes
By admin at Thu, 01/15/2026 - 14:26

DOE memo on ALARA - Re: E&E: DOE kills decades-old radiation safety standard (ALARA)

https://www.eenews.net/articles/doe-kills-decades-old-radiation-safety-standard/

DOE kills decades-old radiation safety standard

The standard is based on the principle that there is no safe dose of radiation.

Avatar of Francisco "A.J." Camacho

By: 

 | 01/12/2026 04:32 PM EST

The Department of Energy in Washington.
The Department of Energy in Washington on May 1, 2015. Jacquelyn Martin/AP

E&E NEWS PM | Energy Secretary Chris Wright killed the Department of Energy’s decades-old radiation safety standard Friday.

Wright ended the department's use of the As Low As Reasonably Achievable — or "ALARA" — principle, which has long been a staple of nuclear regulation. ALARA is rooted in the idea that any radiation exposure carries risks, but low doses can be justified by practical considerations. Critics in the nuclear power and health fields argue that the standard is overly burdensome with no real safety benefits.

The move could lower operational costs and accelerate projects using nuclear material, but it will alter an established safety-first culture. The change in safety standards may impact DOE’s ongoing advanced nuclear reactor pilot program and high-stakes radiation cleanups, like the Hanford site in Washington state that has been dubbed the most contaminated place in the Western Hemisphere.

A person familiar with the Trump administration’s nuclear policy, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive issues, confirmed that Wright decided to remove ALARA from DOE regulations and that there would be a subsequent process to decide replacement standards. DOE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"ALARA is effectively, as far as I understand it, as of Friday, totally nullified and gone," said Emily Caffrey, a radiation health physicist and assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "So anywhere you see ALARA in DOE regulations, you'll scratch it out with no replacement."

DOE is engaged in an advanced reactor pilot program with nine companies. The participating companies have their sights on selling their technology commercially to power military bases, data centers and homes across the country.

The secretary’s memo does not directly affect the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates the operation of America’s 94 nuclear reactors powering one-fifth of the country. That means the pilot program participants won’t need to adhere to ALARA immediately, but they will still need to satisfy it if they want the requisite NRC license to build reactors to feed the larger electricity grid.

The severe health impacts of ionizing radiation became apparent to the public after the 1945 atomic bombings in Japan, where thousands of initial survivors died of cancers linked to the bombings.

In response, the U.S. sought to establish increasingly strict safety standards for nuclear workers and civilians. This evolution culminated in the As Low As Reasonably Achievable protocol. Since its introduction by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the 1970s, ALARA has been the "gold standard for nuclear safety" despite its significant implementation costs.

DOE began to adopt ALARA for certain activities in 1988. Today, its regulations apply the ALARA standard across various aspects of radiation safety, including occupational exposure, environmental releases and site decommissioning.

“It is the underlying philosophy that NRC and the Department of Energy use when thinking about radiation exposures,” Caffrey said. “Anytime you have a worker or someone who is going to encounter ionizing radiation, you think about ALARA.”

The decision might put additional pressure on the NRC to ditch ALARA, too. A May 2025 executive order from President Donald Trump asked the NRC to reconsider its use of the standard. Wright’s move may also have implications for DOE’s ongoing radiation cleanups of abandoned uranium mines and Manhattan Project sites, like the one in Hanford.

Hanford produced the bulk of America’s weapons-grade plutonium, and nuclear waste is still stored on the site. But Hanford has been plagued with problems from explosions to toxic vapor releases to nuclear waste leaking from its tanks, and the federal government has paid out nearly $2.7 billion to thousands of workers for illnesses linked to exposure to radiation and toxic chemicals.

DOE estimates it will cost $364 billion to $590 billion to finish the Hanford cleanup. Lowering the radiation dose standard might allow the cleanup to proceed faster.

ALARA has long been hotly debated in the nuclear industry and among health experts.

“ALARA means different things depending on the context,” Caffrey said. “You can get a state like California, where if you need to decommission a facility, you have to go to zero radiation dose.”

Caffrey said she thinks that California takes ALARA too far since people are naturally exposed to some radiation from the sun and space constantly.

“This is really the fundamental reason why so many people get so upset about ALARA,” she said.

The nuclear power industry has also often complained about the principle. A December report from the pro-nuclear Breakthrough Institute points out that the ALARA principle often means minimizing doses to 25 times lower than what other regulations consider already safe.

“This increases licensing costs and timelines without improving protection,” the report says of ALARA.

Edwin Lyman, a physicist and the director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, defended the NRC’s radiation standard in a 2025 interview.

“Documented scientific evidence has only indicated that [low-level radiation exposure] is more dangerous than was known decades ago, when these standards were set,” Lyman said. “Evidence has emerged about the impact of the level of radiation exposure on cardiovascular disease.”

“ALARA has been misapplied across the board in a lot of different areas, and it has cost taxpayers a lot of money, and it has caused a lot of unnecessary fear in the public by saying, ‘Well, any little bit of radiation dose is going to give you a cancer,’ which is just fundamentally not true,” Caffrey concluded. “But as a radiation protection principle and paradigm, it was well-intended.”

DOE ALARA Memo_01092026.pdf

PDF iconDOE ALARA Memo_01092026.pdf

By admin at Thu, 01/15/2026 - 14:22

[decomm_wkg] Port Hope's Electricity Future: Wind & Solar or Nukes - Public Mtg, January 21st

MediaReleasePHCHCCJan21 event.docx.pdf

PDF iconMediaReleasePHCHCCJan21 event.docx.pdf
By admin at Sat, 01/10/2026 - 17:25

Trump replaces NRC chair as he remakes agency

Ho Nieh is now chair. David Wright is still on the commission, but apparently he was not compliant enough with the “rubber stamp” agenda to satisfy the White House to remain in charge. So implies the article:
 
Wright’s tenure as chair was marked by growing tension between the historically independent NRC and the White House and Department of Energy. Wright told lawmakers in September that he had pushed back when a DOE attorney suggested in 
By admin at Sat, 01/10/2026 - 17:11

[decomm_wkg] Fracking / Nuclear Waste - PA

 "Twenty years into fracking, Pa. has yet to reckon with its radioactive waste"
 
"Residents demand action at one of the largest nuclear waste dumps in US: 'We want to make sure it's being done right'"
By admin at Sat, 01/10/2026 - 17:09

SUN DAY Campaign: Quarterly Compilation of News Story Excerpts (4th Q. 2025)

SUN DAY CAMPAIGN     

(a campaign for a sustainable energy future)          
8606 Greenwood Avenue, #2; Takoma Park, MD 20912--6656      
301-588-4741
sun-day-campaign@hotmail.com          
‏
       
      
January 3, 2026       
       
To:  Members, SUN DAY Campaign       
       
From: Ken Bossong       
       
Attached as a word document please find a compilation of news story "excerpts" issued by the SUN DAY Campaign between October 1 and December 31, 2025.       
       
These "excerpts" were sent earlier to you in the mailings that were usually distributed at the end of each week. They provide short reviews of new reports and studies on sustainable energy and climate change issues.       
     
Approximately 300 news story "excerpts" are provided in the 69-page compilation.       
       
They are listed in chronological order within each of 10 different categories (e.g., solar, wind, climate change).       
       
You may find this information of use if you are preparing any reports, news releases, testimony, letters-to-the-editor, etc.       
       
 
NOTE: A similar set of news story “excerpts” for the first quarter of 2026 may be sent to you sometime in early April 2026. 
 
By admin at Sat, 01/03/2026 - 17:05

32 Years of Resistance!

Hello community!
 
We hope you all are staying warm and cozy and that you have been enjoying the winter holiday season in your own ways. So far, so good, here at headquarters but, as a reminder, DTE has Michigan ranking as the second worst state in the country for recovering from power outages. We are expecting a very precipitous winter this season so make sure you are prepared before a potential emergency. Here is a list of tips for what to do before, during, and after a winter outage.
 
2026 marks the 12th year of our newsletters! As always, a big thank you to our elder Grandmother Jessie for her unyielding watchdogging as she writes our monthly newsletter and monitors Fermi 2. Check it out for updates on the power plant, news both local and national on the nuclear front, and educational resources!
The Christmas That Created CRAFT
 
This past Christmas marked the 32nd anniversary of the accident that sparked the formation of CRAFT. The Christmas Day 1993 incident at Fermi 2resulted in radioactive release due to damage to one of the main turbines. This subsequently dumped 1.5 million gallons of untreated toxic, radioactive water into Lake Erie. As a tiny powerhouse of concerned citizens, we were active until 2001 when key members left the area. The Fukushima accident in 2011 brought the danger of the Mark 1 nuclear reactors back to the forefront and, after much soul-searching on the part of our elders, the decision to revive CRAFT was made. In 2012, several original members of CRAFT held a meeting to revive Citizens’ Resistance at Fermi 2 to raise awareness of DTE’s need to phase out their nuclear reactor and replace it with sustainable energy.
 
And, we’ve been at it ever since! Thank you all, both long-standing allies and new friends, for continuing to support us from near and far.
 
Saline Marine Brings the Fight to DTE’s Data Center
 
The miasma of the artificial intelligence industry continues to lurk around every corner, and the current heads of the hydra are popping up with proposed plans for data centers across Michigan. In the case of Saline Township, one resident has taken a stand by filing against the data center threatening to be built next to her farm. Kathryn Haushalter, a US marine, is charging the Township with cutting deals with Related Digital, the company behind this particular data center. The Open Meetings Act prohibits the signing of deals behind closed doors, and she is taking them to task. State government seems split over the issue as Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been supporting data centers as she rubs elbows with DTE, while Attorney General Dana Nessel has been an ongoing opponent of the infamously sketchy energy company. Stay tuned for further updates!
Net Zero Without Nuclear
 
As data companies keep pushing AI and the consequent need for nuclear power to fuel their data centers, we would like to share information that Beyond Nuclear has compiled to dispel one of the myths of the industry: nuclear energy can help us achieve Net Zero. Net Zero is the point at which global greenhouse emissions are balanced by the removal of emissions from the atmosphere, aka we are removing an equal amount of pollution that we are putting out. A major myth about the nuclear industry is that it is carbon-neutral and is a source of “green energy”. This is wildly inaccurate and the nuclear fuel chain in its entirety is a massive environmental threat. Uranium mining destroys the land and exposes the environment and all local life to toxic radiation. Transportation of fuel and waste is always at risk of accidents and potential attacks. While energy companies may cite carbon neutrality at the power plants, many other facets of the fuel chain are active carbon emitters (see: mining equipment and transport vehicles). A Net Zero future is not radioactive. Do not fall for nuclear propaganda.
CRAFT January 2026 Newsletter & Insert
 
Thanks for supporting us and a safer world powered by renewables.
We’re in this together!
 
Peace and Safety,
 
The CRAFT Team
Donate to Support

Citizen's Resistance At Fermi Two (CRAFT) is an Indigenous-led, grassroots, organization, committed to an accessible, fair, and just energy future for all! CRAFT originally formed after the Christmas Day 1993 incident at the Fermi2 nuclear reactor that dumped 1.5 million gallons of untreated toxic, radioactive water into Lake Erie. We will continue to push for the closing of Fermi2, and for a safer world powered by renewables.
By admin at Fri, 01/02/2026 - 15:54

Mini nuclear reactors are already losing their glow

 
By admin at Wed, 12/31/2025 - 09:59

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