Elon Musk calls for nuclear power expansion and offers to eat food grown near reactors

Entrepreneur calls the move ‘critical’ for national and international security

Elon Musk has called for an expansion of nuclear energy and even offered to eat food grown near reactors live on TV.

The Tesla CEO called on European companies to generate more nuclear power to offset any shortages caused by Russian oil and gas sanctions in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine.

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“Hopefully, it is now extremely obvious that Europe should restart dormant nuclear power stations and increase power output of existing ones. This is *critical* to national and international security,” Mr Musk tweeted.

And he got ahead of anti-nuclear criticism by asking his followers to suggest the “worst location” for radiation and promising that he would “travel there & eat locally grown food on TV.”

He added: “I did this in Japan many years ago, shortly after Fukushima. Radiation risk is much, much lower than most people believe.”

“Also nuclear is vastly better for global warming than burning hydrocarbons for energy.”

The businessman’s call for nuclear expansion came just days after he called on the US to increase its domestic oil and gas production, even though the move would be “negative” for his electric car company.

“Hate to say it, but we need to increase oil & gas output immediately. Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures,” he tweeted.

Russia provides 10 per cent of the world’s oil and gas supply, and accounts for around 40 per cent of the European Union’s.

Ukraine’s nuclear power plants came into focus last week when Russian forces attacked the Zaporizhzhia facility which the US Embassy in Kyiv called a “war crime.”

Last week, the SpaceX boss mocked Russia as the country said it would stop providing rocket engines to the United States in retaliation to sanctions placed on it for invading Ukraine.

The boss of state space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, was ridiculed by Mr Musk after suggesting that the US would have to go into orbit on “their broomsticks.”

“American broomsticks,” taunted Mr Musk on Twitter as he posted a video of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launching another 47 Starlink satellite into orbit.

Mr Musk has also publicly advised Ukraine’s leaders on keeping the internet working in the embattled country, as well as activating SpaceX’s satellite-internet service over it.