The premature closure of nuclear power plants is a detriment to U.S. climate change goals, former assistant energy secretary Susan Tierney said during a June 17 Democratic Party event in Phoenix.
Tierney, who was set to become deputy energy secretary under President Barack Obama in 2009 before she withdrew her candidacy, appeared during a regional Democratic National Convention Platform forum. The convention is scheduled for July 25-28 in Philadelphia.
During the session Tierney was asked by Warren Gunnels, policy director to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), where the U.S. should store its nuclear waste. She called it a “tremendously challenging issue,” given that tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste is currently stranded at about 100 nuclear reactor sites around the country. She noted that she was a nuclear opponent when she began her career, but said her opinion shifted as she began working to address the threat of climate change.
“We have to figure out how to solve (the nuclear waste issue),” said Tierney, now a senior adviser with the Analysis Group. “Science has moved to identify much more safe, in-place storage today, compared to when I first started 30 years ago, but we need to have a permanent solution eventually. That said, premature retirement of safely operating nuclear power plants would put us back so far on our climate goals.”
In recent years, energy companies have closed or announced closure of a number of nuclear power plants that had not reached the end of their service lives. Companies such as Exelon and Entergy say their plants face multiple challenges, including low natural gas prices and increasing costs.
