Mark Cooper is a senior research fellow for economic analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at the

Vermont Law School Vermont Law and Graduate School (VLGS) is a private law and public policy graduate school in South Royalton, Vermont. It offers several degrees, including Juris Doctor (JD), Master of Laws (LLM) in Environmental Law, Master of Environmental Law a ...

, and a frequent

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

industry commentator. Cooper holds a PhD from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

and is a former Yale University and

Fulbright Fellow The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

. He has provided expert testimony in over 250 cases for public interest clients before state and federal agencies, courts, and legislators in many jurisdictions in the U.S. and Canada. Cooper has published many books and articles on energy, telecommunications and high technology industries. Cooper's 2011 report, ''Nuclear Safety and Nuclear Economics,'' says that past

nuclear disaster A nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility. Examples include radiation poisoning, lethal effects ...

s, such as the 1979

Three Mile Island accident The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island, Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor in Pennsylvania, United States. It began at 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979. It is the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclea ...

, have tended to "greatly raise regulatory barriers and have also severely multiplied the cost of reactor construction". After Three Mile Island, the report said, the cost of nuclear power plant construction doubled in most cases and trebled or quadrupled in some rare circumstances. He says that presently we are witnessing not a

nuclear renaissance Since about 2001 the term nuclear renaissance has been used to refer to a possible nuclear power industry revival, driven by rising fossil fuel prices and new concerns about meeting greenhouse gas emission limits. In the 2009 ''World Energy ...

but a collapse in expectations for new nuclear reactor construction.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Mark People associated with nuclear power Sustainability advocates Living people 21st-century American economists Year of birth missing (living people)

See also

References