Kate Kressmann-Keyhoe

With with my kids, 2025

My journey to becoming a nuclear advocate took about 15 years. Maybe 20. 

Back in the early 2000s, when my children were very young and I was still staying home, I had begun obsessing about climate change, getting more and more anxious. Sometimes I would sit up at night, mourning the things I had grown up with that might be lost to my children, grandchildren, and future generations unknown. 

Eventually, I decided that this had to stop. I should either be making climate action a priority or not making myself crazy. 

So, in part to find out the answers for myself, I decided to collaborate with two other filmmakers and research and make a documentary about the forecasts for climate in Western New York, where I live. (I really did dig deep and with an open mind  into whether climate change is even real, but, alas, all my worst fears were confirmed.)

Working on the documentary

One of my co-producers, an engineer, was the first to bring my attention to the potential of nuclear to help solve the climate change problem. He did an in-depth analysis of his carbon footprint, pointing out that his carbon footprint was already small. This is because we live in Upstate New York where in addition to a lot of hydro, we also have a lot of nuclear. This was news to me – I had had no idea that there was nuclear locally, or really, that there was much nuclear still in the United States. 

My children in their documentary cameos (circa 2010)

(Ultimately we decided not to include the nuclear section, both because the Fukishima accident happened in the middle of production, and also because we felt that nuclear was too controversial.)

“A is for Atom” is a 1953 short piece that my co-producer was going to incorporate in pro-nuclear section that we almost put in our film.

Over 10 years, the solar panels on our house have generated almost 50MWh of power!

The local nuclear plant, Ginna, had an open house that we attended, and I was very impressed with the professionalism of the staff and the clear pride they took in their work. At that point my opinion became roughly “existing nuclear is good, but with renewables getting better and better, new nuclear is an unnecessary risk.”

The real turning point, ironically, was when we got solar panels, around 2015. We love our panels, and they make all the energy we need over the year. Having the panels for the past decade has provided the grid with almost 50 MWh of power that we either used or pushed out to the grid.

But… the panels don’t generate when we actually need the power. They make the most energy when the days are long and the skies are sunny. We need the most energy when days are short and the skies are gray.  Which they typically are from November through March in Rochester New York, where I live. Gray for day after day after day.

A typical forecast for Rochester New York. No known battery will provide uninterrupted power here.

A typical situation where we use a lot of power. This is most of the winter where I live.

I began researching nuclear more intensively, and the more I learned, particularly about how nuclear can form the stable backbone of a decarbonized grid, the more I have become convinced that nuclear is the key to solving the climate problem. 

This time, I’m ready to jump into the controversy.

Tabling for Mothers for Nuclear in 2025

Here is the short piece that I made after Governor Hochul of New York State issued her call for 5 GW of new nuclear: NYS Energy Plan Announcment