News release from NIRS

December 25, 2007

Below is a news release from NIRS announcing that more than 500 organizations have now signed the statement on nukes and climate on NIRS' website! Please forward this statement (you can download a formatted copy at Here ) to your local reporters, and to your politicians whenever they try to parrot the nuclear industry's preposterous claim that the environmental and safe energy movements are now considering nuclear power as a valid energy source.

We released this statement today because the House of Representatives is set to vote late tonight (Monday night or early Tuesday morning) on the omnibus appropriations bill. While some progress has been made on loan guarantees, it has not been nearly enough, and we-and many DC groups-are now urging you to call your House members and Senators and demand that they vote against the omnibus appropriations bill until loan guarantees for dirty energy are removed.

Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121

Still in the omnibus appropriations bill are $18.5 billion for new atomic reactors; $2 billion for a uranium enrichment plant in Ohio; $8 billion for coal; and $10 billion for renewable energy, energy efficiency, and distributed energy systems.

The House is slated to vote on the bill late tonight-with no money for funding the Iraq war. The Senate will then take up the bill, and add war funding. They'll send it back to the House, which will vote on it again, with the war funding this time. Congress hopes to wrap all this up by the end of the week.

If your organization hasn't signed the statement yet, please do so at
this website . To check the list of organizational signers, please go to this website

NEWS FROM NIRS

Nuclear Information and Resource Service
6930 Carroll Avenue, #340, Takoma Park, MD 20912
301-270-6477; f: 301-270-4291; nirsnet@nirs.org;
http://nirs.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Michael Mariotte, Executive Director

December 17, 2007
301-270-6477

500+ ORGANIZATIONS SIGN STATEMENT REJECTING NUCLEAR POWER AS A SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CRISIS

More than 500 organizations from every corner of the U.S. and across the world have signed a statement explicitly rejecting the use of nuclear power as a means of addressing the climate crisis.

The signers include many of the world's largest and most influential environmental organizations, such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth International, Sierra Club, Clean Water Action, Rainforest Action Network and many others, along with major peace groups like Code Pink, Peace Action, and Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and hundreds of grassroots environmental, sustainable energy, religious, peace and other groups and businesses large and small from 46 states and 38 countries on six continents. 5900 individuals also have signed the statement, and more sign every day.

The statement is being released as the U.S. Congress prepares to consider billions of dollars of taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for new nuclear reactor construction based in large part on the incorrect assumption that nuclear power is a useful means of reducing our carbon emissions.

"We keep hearing from nuclear industry lobbyists that environmentalists are 're-examining' nuclear power," said Michael Mariotte, executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), which has been collecting the signatures. "That re-examination is long over, and it is clear that nuclear power is not helpful at addressing the climate crisis. Indeed, because of its high costs, long construction times, and its own considerable carbon footprint, its use would actually make matters much worse by diverting the resources necessary to take genuinely effective steps to end carbon emissions."

"Moreover," Mariotte added, "nuclear power has not successfully addressed any of the problems that caused the failure of its first generation: safety, radioactive waste disposal and the poor economics that led to soaring electric bills, bond defaults and utility bankruptcy. Add to that the newer problem of security, and nuclear power can't win any rational argument over renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies."

"Our energy future ultimately must and will be carbon-free and nuclear-free. Fortunately, such a future is attainable, and in time to avert the worst of climate change. But the sooner we get there, the better," said Mariotte. "It's time for the Bush Administration and U.S. Congress to let go of their 20th century thinking and start taking meaningful steps to reduce both carbon and radioactive emissions and build a truly sustainable energy future. As we saw in Bali, the world is crying out for action."

The statement, signed (as of December 17, 2007) by 515 organizations, states simply: "We do not support construction of new nuclear reactors as a means of addressing the climate crisis. Available renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies are faster, cheaper, safer and cleaner strategies for reducing greenhouse emissions than nuclear power."

The statement has been translated into French, Spanish, Russian and Ukrainian.

A list of U.S. organizational signers can be seen at http://www.nirs.org/petition2/ussigners121707.pdf. A list of international organizational signers is available at http://www.nirs.org/petition2/intsigners120607. Both lists are updated periodically.

The statement can be signed at: http://www.nirs.org/petition2/index.php

More information on why nuclear power is not a suitable choice for addressing the climate crisis can be found at www://www.nirs.org (Reports, Papers and Info You Can Use) and http://www.nirs.org/climate/climate.htm