Credit: Chuck Berman/TNS Exelon says that it will close the Byron Nuclear Generating Station near Rockford, pictured, and another in Grundy County unless Illinois lawmakers grant subsidies. Years ago, opposing nuclear power was cool. A partial meltdown at Three Mile Island lit a nationwide fire in 1979, when an estimated 200,000 anti-nuke protesters flocked to New York for a demonstration six months after what remains the nation s closest brush with nuclear energy catastrophe. Tens of thousands marched elsewhere. If they can open one on an earthquake fault, they can put one anywhere, musician Jackson Browne told the Associated Press in 1981, when he and nearly 2,000 other demonstrators were arrested for attempting to blockade a plant under construction in California, where the governor two years earlier had been amo
On a new episode of Teachers Lounge: Mike McHale. He’s a professor at Rockford University and a math and physics teacher at Byron High School. Mike is also a cross country coach and we talk about running during the COVID-19 season. He and host Peter Medlin chat about the potential closure of the Byron Nuclear Generating Station and the effect it could have on the school, community and his own personal connection to the plant. And they talk about Mike’s music hobby and a music video he helped make for students when schools closed in the spring.