Olympic Torch, Meet Nuclear Waste
The 2026 Winter Olympics have just concluded in Italy — dazzling performances on ice and snow, punctuated by the occasional over-confessional athlete and embarrassing U.S. official (here and here). But taken together, the Games once again captured the global imagination, reminding us how powerfully a single flame can unite us and hold the world’s attention. In two years, that flame will be lit in Los Angeles.
Opinion: Gov. Cox is wrong about nuclear power
Nuclear power was born as an afterthought of manufacturing nuclear weapons. It should remain an afterthought.
Shrimp with a side of cancer? Radioactive contamination is real.
The MAHA Commission 2025 report unfotunately ignored radioactivity as a possible cause of rising cancer and chronic illness. But even leaving aside nuclear accidents, studies show living near nuclear plants elevates cancer risk. Nuclear reactors generate radioactive waste and ionizing radiation, which get into the environment, contaminating air, water, soil and food.
This Nuclear Renaissance Has a Waste Management Problem
It’s easy to see the appeal of nuclear energy. Nuclear reactors generate reliable, 24/7 electricity while generating no greenhouse gas emissions or local air pollution. But these reactors also generate some of the most hazardous substances on earth. In the current excitement around an American nuclear renaissance, the formidable challenges around managing long-lived radioactive waste streams are often not mentioned or framed as a solved problem.
In the wee hours of Sept. 1, 2022, the California state legislature passed an “urgency statute” that reversed itself on the planned closure of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant’s two reactors, which were scheduled to shut down in 2024 and 2025.
Time for a course correction?
Ever since the world learnt of nuclear weapons in 1945 following the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the necessity of abolishing them has been widely recognized, starting with the very first resolution of the United Nations. People around the world have worked to eliminate the nuclear threat since then.
Why a national cancer study near US reactors must be conducted before any new expansion of nuclear power
The last and only national study of the health risks posed by existing US nuclear reactors was conducted in the late 1980s. But by then, many of the 62 nuclear plants had only been operating for a relatively small number of years, not enough time for the effects of radiogenic exposure to appear in workers and the nearby population. An attempt to launch a new study in 2009 was ultimately cancelled despite many reported cases of cancer and other diseases.
Cancer risk may increase with proximity to nuclear power plants
The researchers estimated that about 20,600 cancer cases in the state—roughly 3.3% of all the cases included in the study—were attributable to living near an NPP, with risk declining sharply beyond roughly 30 kilometers from a facility. The risk of developing cancer attributable to living near an NPP generally increased with age.