[UPDATED] Saving the U.S. nuclear power industry is the equivalent of saving hundreds of thousands of “solid, middle-class jobs,” an editorial written by the president of North America's Building Trades Unions Sean McGarvey declared on Wednesday.
In the opinion piece published by The Hill newspaper, McGarvey said the issue of jobs was especially pertinent during a national election campaign, given the point that “government affects the distribution of the nation’s prosperity.”
McGarvey said that the country “faces an inflection point that may have long-term consequences on our nation’s energy future and economy.”
He then explains that the reason nuclear plants are facing closure due to economic reasons has nothing to do with the industry’s business model. Instead, “unintended consequences of market structure and government policies,” are forcing plant owners to consider shuttering plants before their operating licenses end.
By the numbers, a nuclear power plant typically employs 500 to 700 workers, who receive wages that are, on average, 36 percent higher than the prevailing local wage, according to McGarvey. In addition, “36 percent of the U.S. nuclear energy workforce will be eligible to retire in 2016, opening up tens of thousands of job opportunities in the next two to four years,” he wrote.
McGarvey, who is also a member of the leadership council of Nuclear Matters, also said, "the typical U.S. nuclear energy plant has an average annual payroll of $40 million, generates about $470 million a year in sales of goods and services and annually pays $16 million in local and state taxes that benefit schools, roads, parks and other infrastructure that our citizens rely on every day.”
When you close a nuclear power plant, “the consequences are palpable,” McGarvey wrote, citing the closure of the Kewaunee plant in Wisconsin and the San Onofre plant in California as prime examples. When the Wisconsin plant closed, the host county lost 15 percent of its jobs and 30 percent of its tax revenue. In California, San Onofre’s closure meant the loss of 1,500 local jobs, McGarvey wrote.