Mark Zachary Jacobson is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. He is notable for having filed and later withdrawn a defamation lawsuit seeking $10 million in damages against a scientific critic of his work on the practicality of converting the entire energy grid to wind, water, and solar power and a journal that published the critic; a District of Columbia court later ordered Jacobson to pay legal fees under the District’s anti-Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (anti-SLAPP) provisions.¹

Opposition to Nuclear Energy

In December 2023, at the 28th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the administration of President Joe Biden committed the United States to a declaration proposing a tripling of carbon free nuclear energy output by 2050. ²

Common Dreams, a left-wing news website, quoted representatives from several anti-nuclear climate nonprofits that were opposed to the U.S participation in the pro-nuclear pledge. Jacobson was one of the quotesd opponents: ³

When word of the multi-nation pledge emerged last month, Mark Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and co-founder of The Solutions Project which offers a roadmap for 100% renewable energy that excludes nuclear energy, called the proposal the “stupidest policy proposal I’ve ever seen.”

Jacobson said the plan to boost nuclear capacity in a manner to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis “will never happen no matter how many goals are set” and added that President Joe Biden was getting “bad advice in the White House” for supporting it. ⁴

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. ⁵ 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. ⁶ 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. ⁷ 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.” ⁸

1. Oransky, Ivan. “Stanford Prof Ordered to Pay Legal Fees after Dropping $10 Million Defamation Case against Another Scientist.” Retraction Watch, July 10, 2020. https://retractionwatch.com/2020/07/09/stanford-prof-ordered-to-pay-legal-fees-after-dropping-10-million-defamation-case-against-another-scientist/.
2. “At COP28, Countries Launch Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy Capacity by 2050, Recognizing the Key Role of Nuclear Energy in Reaching Net Zero.” (News Release) U.S. Department of Energy. December 1, 2023. Accessed July 19, 2024. https://www.energy.gov/articles/cop28-countries-launch-declaration-triple-nuclear-energy-capacity-2050-recognizing-key
3. Queally, Jon. “Plot to Triple Nuclear Power by 2050 Decried as ‘Dangerous Distraction’ at COP28.” Common Dreams. December 2, 2023. Accessed July 19, 2024. https://www.commondreams.org/news/triple-nuclear-power-cop28
4. Queally, Jon. “Plot to Triple Nuclear Power by 2050 Decried as ‘Dangerous Distraction’ at COP28.” Common Dreams. December 2, 2023. Accessed July 19, 2024. https://www.commondreams.org/news/triple-nuclear-power-cop28
5. “Nuclear explained.” U.S. Energy Information Administration. Accessed July 19, 2024. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/us-nuclear-industry.php
6. “The Science of Sustainability.” The Nature Conservancy. October 13, 2018. Accessed July 19, 2024. https://www.nature.org/en-us/what-we-do/our-insights/perspectives/the-science-of-sustainability/
7. Ritchie, Hannah. “What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy?” Our World in Data. February 10, 2020. Accessed July 19, 2024. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy  
8. “3 Reasons Why Nuclear is Clean and Sustainable.” U.S. Department of Energy. March 31, 2021. Accessed July 19, 2024. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-reasons-why-nuclear-clean-and-sustainable