By Peter Bergel

Nuclear power has been discredited in Oregon for 45 years, ever since a majority of Oregonians voted for Ballot Measure 7 in 1980. Because the nuclear industry has been unable to meet these sensible requirements, it has brought to the Oregon Legislature 13 bills seeking to modify or repeal Measure 7’s requirements.

A “yes” vote on Measure 7 meant the state began “requiring a federally licensed permanent disposal facility for nuclear waste and voter approval for nuclear power plant certification or Public Utility Commissioner’s approval for plant financing.”

The industry delights in hyping its product as “clean power.” However, making a mess that no one knows how to clean up and which will last far longer than recorded human history can not honestly be called clean.  

The nuclear power industry also insists that we need the power that nuclear can provide because it is reliable. Whether we need the power, or can even use it until our transmission facilities are improved, is an open question. But if we do, renewables stand ready to provide it far less expensively and right now, today. 

Nuclear is the costliest type of power and it will not be available – under the most optimistic of circumstances — until sometime in the 2030s. That will not help us meet our climate change goals — something the industry often claims we need nuclear to do.

The industry would have us believe that nuclear power will be available 24/7/365. 

The record on nuclear plants in the U.S., and especially in Oregon, does not bear out that rosy prediction. Refueling and repairs — sometimes really big ones — take them out of service, sometimes for long periods. “Oh,” they say, “but now we have small modular nuclear reactors. They are better designed and are much safer.”

No doubt their design is all of that, but they have yet to build a single one in the U.S. to demonstrate that the reality meets the design. The two or three that are operating in Russia and China are underperforming.

Forty-five years ago, a public that had been educated to understand the problems with nuclear power passed Ballot Measure 7, but today’s public is two generations away from 1980. Many current voters had not been born, let alone clued into nuclear’s shortcomings, at that time. The industry and the federal government are spending lavishly now to greenwash or paper over nuclear’s pitfalls. 

The movement that educated Oregon voters in 1980 was well organized, and organizers had been working at it for a long time. Today that movement needs to be re-kindled. Meanwhile, take the time to investigate nuclear power, and when you have, please contact your state representative and senator and ask them not to support any measure that weakens or repeals the provisions of 1980’s Ballot Measure 7.

Peter Bergel was the campaign director of 1980s Ballot Measure 7. He has a degree in physics and has spent much of his life participating in public interest action. He works with the Stop Nuclear Working Group.