Garlow: Nuclear power plants too costly, take too long

In response to the Opinion by Wayne Smith, promoting nuclear power over clean renewable energy, we should look to see how well nuclear plants have been doing lately.

The most recently built nuclear plants are in Georgia, and it has been decades since other nuclear plants have been built.

These two plants were budgeted to cost $14 billion and be completed by 2017. Instead, they cost $35 billion, and they were not completed until this year.

No wonder Wall Street does not want to back any more nuclear plants — they cost too much, and they take too long.

Meanwhile, solar and wind plants, with batteries, are increasing by leaps and bounds.

The U.S. utility-scale solar, wind and storage sectors added 5,585 megawatts in the first quarter of 2024, a 28% increase year-over-year, says a new quarterly market report released Aug. 6 by the American Clean Power Association.

That’s equal to five nuclear plants. And this has been increasing for years.

Charlie Garlow

Citizens’ Climate Lobby

Rehoboth Beach

Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.