Ninety years after the Hoover Dam

Ninety-years-ago on this day (September 30, 1935) President Franklin Delano Roosevelt officially dedicated the Hoover Dam. Nearly 100 people died just during the construction of what was then the tallest hydro-electric dam ever built.

In December 1957 the Shippingport Atomic Power Plant—America’s first civilian nuclear plant—began producing electricity. From then until today, according to Environmental Progress, fewer than 25 fatalities have occurred in the American nuclear energy industry.

This is not surprising. According to Our World in Data, nuclear power produces fewer fatalities than every major energy source we have, far safer than coal, petroleum, natural gas, and hydro. Nuclear is functionally as safe as wind and solar, but those weather dependent power sources cannot be scaled up to provide anywhere near the power output of nuclear and traditional hydrocarbon fuels.

In America today, nuclear power stations provide more than triple the electricity output of hydro-electric dams and far more than wind and solar combined. And that’s not including the hundreds of nuclear-powered U.S. Navy vessels that have been in operation since the 1950s.

Unlike hydro dams, which can exist only where water and gravity cooperate, or weather dependent energy that works only when the wind and sun cooperate, nuclear power is a functionally limitless energy source.

Nuclear power and hydro power have one important thing in common: neither one produces emissions—carbon-dioxide or otherwise. This should make them the darling of the carbon-obsessed climate NGOs.

But that’s not the case.

There are hundreds of American nonprofits, most claiming to be “environmental” groups, that oppose nuclear power. The list includes most of the biggest names, such as the Sierra Club, the NRDC, the Environmental Defense Fund, the World Wildlife Fund, the Rocky Mountain Institute and the League of Conservation Voters. The anti-nuclear movement also includes unexpected names, such as the NAACP, the League of Women Voters, Church World Service and the American Friends Service Committee.

The combined annual revenue of the American anti-nuclear movement is at least $3.3 billion.

The InfluenceWatch profile for the Opposition to Nuclear Energy begins with this overview of the subject:

There are more than 700 nonprofits and other advocacy groups in the United States that oppose the use of carbon free nuclear energy. A July 2025 analysis from the Capital Research Center examined more than 300 nonprofits that opposed nuclear energy and conservatively estimated that the total combined annual revenue of the American opponents of nuclear power exceeded $3.3 billion.

Some of the largest nonprofits opposing nuclear energy, as measured by the revenue reported in their most recent filings with the IRS (as of January 2025) included the World Wildlife Fund, the World Resources Institute (WRI), the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Sierra Club, the Rocky Mountain Institute, Grid Alternatives, and the League of Conservation Voters (LCV).

Some of the largest known contributors to the anti-nuclear-energy groups have included Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Foundation for the Carolinas (FFTC) / Fred Stanback,  the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Gordon E. and Betty I. Moore Foundation, the Sixteen Thirty Fund (1630 Fund) / Arabella Advisors and the Tides Foundation.

Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and from 1990 until 2021 accounted for 20 percent of American electricity production—the largest source of zero carbon electricity in the United States.  An October 2018 proposal from The Nature Conservancy noted that zero-carbon nuclear plants produced 7.8 percent of total world energy output and recommended reducing carbon emissions by increasing nuclear capacity to 33 percent of total world energy output.  A 2020 analysis from Our World in Data reported that nuclear energy “results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas,” making it “just as safe” as wind and solar power production.  The U.S. Department of Energy has concluded that “nuclear energy produces more electricity on less land than any other clean-air source” and that it would require “more than 3 million solar panels to produce the same amount of power as a typical commercial reactor or more than 430 wind turbines.”

In addition to that InfluenceWatch profile, other Capital Research Center reports on the anti-nuclear movement include:

The odd enemies of nuclear energy

UPDATE: Combined Annual Revenue of Nuclear Energy Opponents Is $3.3 Billion

What the Ford Foundation Could Be Doing with Henry Ford’s Fortune

Biden Administration Approved $485 Million for Anti-Nuclear Nonprofits

The Southern Environmental Law Center and Its Misanthropic Donor

Anti-Energy Grants Should Be in the DOGE Crosshairs

The California Teachers Association and the $2.5 Billion Crusade Against Nuclear Power

Film Review of Juice

The Sequoia Climate Foundation and America’s Secretive Climate Colonialist

The Center for International Environmental Law Reaps Big Rewards for Radical Policies

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/ninety-years-after-the-hoover-dam/