I would like to stress the importance of nuclear energy. We need energy to drive innovations. We need energy to drive the economy. We simply need energy in order to reach our full potential as human beings.
1. Nuclear Energy is clean and safe.
There is currently only 70,000 tons of waste to deal with. Imagine that! I am being serious, because even though this sounds like a lot of waste, this pretty much makes up all of the waste that has ever been generated in the course of say 40 to 70 years of using it. Coal plants might burn that much coal in a month. There is definately more waste in coal waste than in nuclear by far. Also coal is like a big filter in the ground that catches toxic metals such as murcury and gallium. This makes it kind of hazardous.
2. Nuclear energy is abundant and limitless for at least a good billion years or so.
There is an unimaginably enormous amount of energy locked into nuclear isotopes. We can make these give us energy and keep doing it forever!
3. Nuclear waste can be recycled.
Now here is a recycling plan that makes a difference. I couldn't care less about recycling materials, unless they are very rare or valuable. The way I see it, the land fill is an opportunity to recycle later. Nuclear material can be recycled to give us our most valuable asset. Energy. This means that the 70,000 tons that was thought to be waste really is not waste, but an opportunity to recycle and obtain more energy.
I say that in order for something to have the greatest benefit there should be an inverse relationship between its value and its cost. As an example, water is the most valueable resource in the world if you've been without it for 2 days. But it has the greatest benefit to us because its cost is negligable. Energy should be the same way. Quality food as well... etc.
4. Cap and Trade is just a tax by any other name. There is a definite relationship in how much profit a corporation can make and how much they are going to charge for their services. All things being equal there will be a price set that will reflect all the input cost plus the profit margin. A carbon cap and trade will force the coporations to have a higher input cost and they will pass this on to us. There is no way around that. The only thing that will happen is higher prices and possibly a sqeeze on the profit margins of corporations as they find that they can not sell at quite the same amount they would have to raise prices in order to completely offset their carbon tax. Nuclear Energy is the solution to a zero carbon energy economy. And there is no limit to the amount of energy that can be produced. Solar and wind are limited in nature. Nuclear is 24/7 and produces energy all the time wether we are collecting it and using it or not.
5. We have all these spare nuclear weapons around. I would imagine that there is a highly refined stockpile ready to be all blown up. We could certainly borrow some of the material from there. After all what are we going to do with the nuclear material stockpile if we don't ever blow it up, god forbid we ever do. That material would be considered nuclear "waste" and is so highly refined that we would have to "dirty-it-up" a little in order to actually use it in a conventional nuclear power plant.
Nuclear material comes from nature. Ever thought about mixing it down and diluting it until it has a lower radiation level and then storing it maybe somewhere that it came from in the first place. Of course if we ever plan on recycling it that would just add an extra step to get it all back.
6. If we were to subsidize our own power we'd save a whole lot of money more than likely. I'm thinking trillions unless someone figures out how to keep making it more expensive. In reality nuclear power would be as simple as throwing some nuclear "logs" on the proverbial fire. I'm pretty sure that the first experiments were probably not far off as different enrichment levels were experimented. It could be practically free if we made no effort to put up any safeguards or use technology to get much better results. What keeps nuclear power expensive is regulation. The regulations that keep armed guard and massive facilities over top of this otherwise pretty simple powerplant. I am not saying that regulation is a bad thing. I am only saying that it is as expensive as we make it.
7. Nuclear Energy = Infinite Energy = Everything (quite literally). But as a practical example, Electrolosys on sea water produces Oxygen, Hydrogen and a few other things. Oxygen is nice for breathing and a lot of other good purposes. Hydrogen can power vehicles. Since we could make as much Hydrogen as we ever needed we now have all the transportation fuel we will ever need. This incudes the fuel to take us to the moon and mars, which is also based largely on Hydrogen. Burning hydrogen produces fresh water. There are many other necessities that can be generated from energy and electricity on which we could thrive.
8. Arguements that Nuclear Energy is somehow worse in mining that ore than coal mining are illogical. Mining Coal and Mining Nuclear ore are pretty much the same thing and there are many of the same heavy metal by-products. The major difference I see is that with nuclear power the bedding structure can be set so that it is self-maintaining and produces its own fuel. Mining would at that point be unnecessary. Let me reitterate that there would be NO MORE MINING! Only isolated reprocessing. Coal will be mined forever. Once coal is burned there are more byproducts to deal with. Tenessee recently had a wall collapse where thousands of tons of coal ash byproduct are stored. Carbon sequestration reduces the useable power from coal so that would ultimately increase the amount of coal that was burned with some being used just to store the byproduct of the rest.
9. There is an enormous amount of energy in nuclear material. One pound of enriched Uranium can produce as much as 2.2 MILLION pounds of coal. That is only in one cycle which last about 18 months. There are currently a little over 100 nuclear powerplants in the United States. Those few power plants produce nearly 20% of our electricity demand. Wouldn't that mean that 500 powerplants would produce 100% of our electricity demand in the United States. We could build more and export electricity while fully powering our country at whatever level we feel like. Not a level that has been limited by how much carbon is emitted.
Nuclear energy is not the demon that it is made out to be. I could go on forever about how one can use the enormous amount of energy that is available in Nuclear Energy. The "not in my backyard" slogan is misleading and outdated. There are far worse things in your backyard. I guarantee it! But, since we live in the days of sloganism I'll close with this. There are six billion reasons to choose nuclear energy. What's yours?
Related Links:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/obamaclark/gGxtKp/commentary
The weapon design and arms control communities agree that it is not the capability to design a nuclear device that determines the pace of a country’s acquisition of a first weapon, but, rather, the availability of nuclear weapons materials that can be turned to weapons purposes. For a nation-state, the material for weapons can come from uranium enrichment plants (highly enriched uranium), or reactors and nuclear fuel reprocessing plants (plutonium), or both.
Regardless of its isotopic composition, the minimum amount of plutonium required to make a pure fission nuclear explosive, with a yield equivalent to one to 25 kilotons of chemical high explosives, is quite small, on the order of 1 to 3 kilograms (kg), with the exact amount depending on the level of design expertise and the desired nuclear explosive yield. The minimum amount of highly enriched uranium required is a few times larger—5 to 10kg.
While far from ideal for military applications, the isotopic composition of the plutonium typically produced in civil power reactors does not pose a serious obstacle to fabricating efficient and powerful weapons, as well as crude terrorist devices.
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf
The proliferation of nuclear weapons is inextricably linked to nuclear power by a shared need for enriched uranium, and through the generation of plutonium as a by-product of spent nuclear fuel. The two industries have been linked since the very beginning and a nuclear weapons free world requires a non-nuclear energy policy. http://www.cnduk.org/index.php/information/info-sheets/briefings.html#nuclearpower
HOPE AND HYPE VS. REALITY IN NUCLEAR REACTOR COST
THE ECONOMICS OF NUCLEAR REACTORS:http://www.vermontlaw.edu/Documents/Cooper%20Report%20on%20Nuclear%20Economics%20FINAL%5B1%5D.pdf
Nulear power is one of the most expensive and unsuitable sources of power existing. There is a simple metaphor to illustrate. It is the same as ringing a doorbell with a cannon. But you cannot just fire the cannon, it would destroy the door and what is inside. So then you have to take a thick metal plate and put a hole in it just big enough to allow the tip of the cannonball to protrude out the end and ring the bell. Then you have to mount the plate on the wall with special supports that can cushion the metal plate when it is hit with the cannonball.
Nuclear power is used to boil water to turn turbines. There are so many better and inexpensive ways to turn those turbines. And less dangerous to the general public.
Please do not allow any more of these to be built.
Greetings Everyone,
Because the agencies whose missions have been to protect us and our interests as citizens of this country have allowed themselves to be dictated to by political interests rather than there assigned duties as directed by their mission statements, we find our health & well-being, our environment, and our federal and local budgets are in jeopardy.
I am not just referring to the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but I am also talking about agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission.
The nuclear power industry has been allowed to tell the American public that it provides safe and clean energy to our country. Though nuclear power is neither safe nor clean, it has been allowed to do this by the FCC and the FTC and SEC when it engages in its advertising and when it engages in its business activities. The nuclear power/energy industry has been allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, the Department Of Energy, and state public service commissions to be heavily involved in setting the standards and regulations that govern it. Those standards and regulations, for the most part, do not protect human health or the environment.
The current as well as previous administrations have allowed these regulatory agencies to be run by, and in most cases rendered impotent by having them run with, political appointments and agendas. This has been unfortunate, because now we have an American public who is working from a well ingrained position of ignorance when it has been led to believe that nuclear power is clean, safe, less expensive, and needs to remain 'on the table' as part of our energy solution.
These agencies that were designed to protect us have allowed the nuclear power/energy industry to get away with false advertising in its commercials and publications, they have been allowed to misinform investors with this same false and incomplete information.
A nuclear power reactor/plant is not a stand-alone entity that acts as the sole source provider of nuclear power. It is only one segment of the process of getting nuclear power generated electricity to the public. It is only one link in the fuel chain.
We have to face that we are being led down a path that is false from it beginning. Nuclear energy is one of the most egregious emitters of CO2, toxic heavy metals, and other poisonous emissions and we have to stop being led by the nuclear industry to believe that nuclear power is clean, safe energy.
The electricity produced by nuclear power in and of itself is relatively benign, however the waste, including high levels of CO2, which has been created to get us to the production of that electricity will harm you, your children, your grandchildren, and generations after them.
You should also always keep in mind that CO2 is not the only toxin that we have to deal with or be worried about.
The nuclear industry itself uses enormous amounts of electricity in their gaseous diffusion plants, (created by coal-fired power plants). Enormous amounts of cooling water are needed and used, and the highly corrosive and radioactive uranium hexafluoride gas is produced. All have adverse human health and environmental impacts. The waste is pervasive in its movements through our earth, air, and water. It has proven itself to be more than difficult to contain. It has proven itself deadly. Sometimes it will kill you slowly; sometimes it will kill you quickly. The nuclear power/energy industry has of course chosen to do its damage primarily on Native American lands as well as in poor and minority communities. The people who until now had no voice, no say.
But don't be fooled. Nuclear waste is not just a byproduct created at the end of the nuclear weapons, nuclear fuel, or nuclear energy production cycle. The ugliness begins at the beginning and it's not all radioactive. The Uranium ore needed to produce nuclear power or nuclear energy has to be mined. Uranium is both radioactive and a chemical toxin. Part of the uranium mining process is milling which consists of chemically separating uranium from other ore. The waste produced is known as milling tailings. In some cases these highly radioactive tailings are left on and near the land surrounding the mines creating another legacy of dangerous waste. For typical uranium concentrations, the tailings contain an extremely high percentage of the radioactivity in the original ore, along with toxic chemicals and heavy metals, such as lead and arsenic which adversely affect the environment and human health. After being converted to uranium hexafluoride it is further enriched through the process of gaseous diffusion. Enrichment is required to increase the percentage of Uranium-235 (half-life of 700 million years). Considered to be the "product", it's the isotope needed for nuclear power and weapons. Uranium-238, aka depleted uranium, another byproduct of gaseous diffusion, is a heavy metal and radioactive. Uranium-238 can be used to breed plutonium-239. These radioactive and toxic wastes are process and production outcomes. Remember, all of this and we haven't even gotten to the nuclear reactor for the production of the first nuclear energy generated kilowatt.
We really have to let our representatives know that we are not going to continue to allow this industry to control our conversation on our energy needs and our national security. We can look forward to being carbon free and nuclear free if we make that commitment to ourselves, our families, and our environment.
We have to start now to look toward a new type of future, a future that considers all of us, not just one group of people. We have to stop this unsafe practice of giving quick money more importance than sound judgment and survival.
It is time to change how we live in this world, we have to start somewhere, at some point in time. Now is that time.
Peace,
Dianne
To My Fellow American,
We environmentalist have been fighting long and hard the last eight years to make sure that our environment, the environment we will pass down to our children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren is still a good and healthy environment with nature given a chance to flourish and man right with nature because we are a part of nature.We environmentalist and conservationists are not anti business or industry. We need to work, and we also like to have our cars and other things that businesses and industries make and sell just like anyone else, but we have to sometime just slow down and stop and think, do we need to pollute that river or kill those animals or worsen global warming to help business. There are ways that we can help business and not harm our environment.
John McCain, it seemed like the last few years has seemed to change his attitue concerning the environment. Before 2000, McCain was a very traditional Conservative Republican Senator from Arizona. After losing in two thousand to Bush, he seemed to pull a different attitude especially towards the environment. He and Sen. Lieberman wrote a bill to help combat global warming. Although it was a weak bill it still was a bill to get things started. Lateley he seems to be going back to his old ways. The League of Conservation Voters lifetime score for John McCain is a low 24%. The best score he has recieved from that organiations was from the early 2000"s of 53%, which is not a great score either. McCain's stance on off shore drilling certainly doesn't say that he is a strong environmental advocate. McCain'sstance on nuclear energy is a little worrismoe too. Nuclear does not add any pollution to global warming there is always the concerns of a meltdown is always justified. If you asked anyone at the Department of Energy what are the chances of a meltdown, they might answer not as high as it was in the seventies with three mile island but it certainly isn't zero either. Plus the question of what we do with the spent fuel afterwards id a question that the answer is still being sought out. McCains is against the spent fuel rods from going through Arizona on its way to Yucca Mountain in Nevada. What does that tell you? I have my doubts about Nuclear. I am not against it, I just have my reservation about it.
Several months ago, John McCain, after recieving a big endorsement check from the oil companies, is when John McCain seemed to change his stance on the subject of drilling off shore 180 degrees.Therefore, I am taking everything that McCain says, especially on the subject of the environment, with a grain of salt.
Nuclear Power Is Contraindicated as a Solution to Global Warming Because of Nuclear Mutagenesis. Watch: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4397307903287515932
Nuclear Power Is Contraindicated as a Solution to Global Warming Because of Excessive Cost: "When it comes to nuclear power specifically, every dollar invested in new US nuclear electricity will save approximately 2-11 times less carbon, and will do so roughly 20-40 times slower, than investing in the same dollar in energy efficiency and "micropower" (cogeneration plus renewables minus big hydro dams). Buying new nuclear capacity instead of efficiency causes more carbon to be released than spending the same money on new coal plants!
"These conclusions and the empirical evidence supporting them are summarized in "Forget Nuclear," and fully documented in "The Nuclear Illusion," available for download here, which is to be published in early 2009 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' journal Ambio. (courtesy of rmi.org)
Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming Program has said, "Switching from coal to nukes is like giving up smoking and taking up crack."
Here is the Natural Resources Defense Council's position on Nuclear Power: http://nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf.
Make a small statement. Join our My.BarackObama.com group, Nuclear Power?, here:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/NuclearPower
Barack Obama is a man of integrity. Our belief is that when all the facts about nuclear power are presented to him clearly, that he will reject it as an option.
The large utilities eager to build nuclear power plants are now suddenly pressing Congress about global warming. Very convenient. But is nuclear power a solution for the problem of global warming? Hmmm, No.
1)Nuclear power plants are too expensive to build. The nuclear power industry refuses to accept responsibility for the unique risks of nuclear power and demands massive federal subsidies so that they can rake in profits on their suspect investments. To quote the Rocky Mountain Institute (rmi.org) position on nuclear power: "Contrary to an argument nuclear apologists have recently taken to making, nuclear power isn't a good way to curb climate change. The power they produce is so expensive that the same money invested in efficiency or even natural-gas-fired power plants would offset much more climate change." Quoting the Natural Resources Defense Council(NRDC): "Our national electricity needs could be met, while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent or more, through a combination of increased energy efficiency, wind power, solar power, advanced coal-fired plants with carbon capture and storage, and high-efficiency natural gas turbines."
2)Nuclear power is extremely unsafe. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has acknowledged in a reference document "that early containment failure cannot be ruled out with high confidence for any of the plants." Even with the most technologically advanced checks and safeties, eventually some critical part of everything man makes fails. If an explosion occurs at a gas-fired or coal-fired plant, this is not good. But if a nuclear reactor melts down and breaks through its containment vessel, we have at least a regional catastrophe. Large areas of necessary habitable land are rendered uninhabitable, and people die of radiation-caused cancer.
3)To again quote the Rocky Mountain Institute's position on nuclear power: "Nuclear power poses significant problems of radioactive waste disposal."
4)Quoting the NRDC: "Plutonium is a normal by-product of electricity production in conventional reactors. Thus, the same reactors and fuel-processing facilities that are used for energy production can also be used for the manufacture of weapons." "Perhaps the most serious of all the problems that would be exacerbated by dramatically increasing global nuclear capacity is the threat of nuclear proliferation."
Join our My.BarackObama.com group, Nuclear Power?, here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/NuclearPower
First they both produce power. The difference is nuclear creates nuclear radioactive waste. Nuclear waste is not a problem until it is being dumped in your back yard. John likes nuclear because in Arizona we have 3 nuclear power plants. The only thing he did not tell you is that they are reaching their maturity and they are off line more than they are on line and he knows that some of those nuclear reactors would end up out at Palo Verde and create lots of jobs in Arizona.
Plasma Converters get rid of garbage. With this technology the only thing you need to recycle is the paper. Go to http://renewableenergy101.wordpress.com for the full explanation of a Plasma Converter. First the fuel is free. The benefits are numerous and there is zero emissions. See the heat produced in these unts is the same heat as on the sun and so everything that is introduced to the plasma becomes molecularly dissociated. The results is heat and lots of it, hydrogen, some process gas, metal slag, a stone like material and no emmissions.
I do not agree at all with either candidate. Nuclear is not the answer...Not at all. Even if you reprocess fuel there is still all the equipment that came in contact with the radioactivty that has a half life of 1000's of years.
Maintaining the equipment is an absolute nightmare.
I participated in a study with handling waste at the Hanniffer GE Richland, WA project and the amount of people required to fix anything is ridiculous. It is because any one person can only be exposed to so many rads for a given time and so it is cheaper to throw away than it is to fix.
The Challenge is the status quo and new designs cost money. If you replicate old designs you can make more money building new power plants. Then there is the politics of the existing vs the new. People resist change especially when they are getting near the end of their careers. I saw this with my Dad when he worked for what use to be Combustion Engineering. They were just bringing in computers when he was 2 years from retirement and he did not want anything to do with the new technology.
With Plasma Converters you have to deal with the egos and status quos of the existing power companies who usually know nothing about waste management. And waste management companies that know nothing about power.
Places like Hawaii, Japan, big cities have a garbage issue and they are usually more open to change because it solves a major problem.
Conclusion: This and many more changes will not happen unless governent mandates the change and provides money and incentives to make the change. Someone needs to lead and be bold.
Modern society is not environmentally friendly, no matter from what source it derives its energy. I am a proponent of nuclear energy that is nuclear non-proliferative. See thoriumpower.com. France has shown that nuclear plants, built with today's technology, are safe and effective. See areva.com. Chernobyl was an incident in a different era. In fact, there are nuclear plants that are operating safely in the United States today, and there have been no reports, on youtube.com or elsewhere, showing, as one blogger on here said, "dogs with three tails and cats with nine eyes."There is also a fear of terrorists taking out nuclear installations. This fear, however rational, is certainly no greater than the fear of terrorists destroying the electrical grids that feed large metropolitan areas.
In comparison to other forms of "clean energy," nuclear power is the single best source for generating the cleanest and most consistent flow of electricity for large-scale usage.
Candidate Obama has not foreclosed nuclear power as an option for solving the energy crises. The following was his response during an interview on May 4, 2008, with Tim Russert, http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2008/05/barack-obama-on-nuclear-energy.html:
Obama: I think we do have to look at nuclear, and what we've got to figure out is can we store the material properly? Can we make sure that they're secure? Can we deal with the expense? Because the problem is, is that a lot of our nuclear industry, it reinvents the wheel. Each nuclear power plant that is proposed has a new design, has—it, it has all kinds of changes, there are all sorts of cost overruns. So it has not been an effective option. That doesn't mean that it can't be an effective option, but we're going to have to figure out storage and safety issues. And my attitude when it comes to energy is there's no silver bullet. We've got to be—we've, we've got to look at every possible option.
Bush continues his relentless march to war, at any cost. Now that he's checked off his to-do list "Talk to Iran," he'll continue pressuring the rest of the world for sanctions. This will continue to get us precisely nowhere, as China will continue to buy Iranian oil, and Russia will continue "doing business" with Iran, whatever THAT means. Then, after election day, when all this chest-thumping all but ensures an Obama victory, Bush will act the spoilsport and either give the green light to Israel to bomb, or make some sort of cross-border incursion into Iran in the name of defending Iraq that will virtually guarantee an Iranian military counter-response, and then it's off to a full middle east war and $200+ oil. Sanctions won't work - unless the world is willing to stop buying Iranian oil, and stop shipping them refined gasoline. Nothing else matters much at this point.Here's another way:1. Acknowledge, as even Dick Chenney did in his unguarded moments, that Iran has the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under the NNPT they signed. Of course, we need MUCH better inspection capability and that really is a basis for negotiations.2. Make a formal declaration that we will respond with full military force if Iran attacks Israel - i.e. we will "wipe Iran off the map." If it comes to that, I think even the arabs will not blame us for destroying such a dangerous neighbor.3. Continue to assist Israel in every security measure they need, and make it publically known we are doing so.4. Investigate and encourage Iran to develop alternative nuclear power producing methods that do not produce plutonium, such as pebble bed reactors. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactorWe have to keep up with the latest technology, especially when it can lead to a more peaceful world. This technology is proven, more efficient, and less dangerous to operate and doesn't produce plutonium which can be used in nuclear weapons. God/Allah help us if McCain gets elected; he can't even "do a google" as he puts it.
I've given up expecting innovative solutions from this administration. I hope we can avoid WWIII until the next one.
Link to article: http://sierra.convio.net/site/MessageViewer?em_id=60961.0&dlv_id=54641&JServSessionIdr009=44e1jrh4x3.app23a
Please note our new RAW email address, raw@sierraclub.org.
Issue #259June 27, 2008McCain Caught On TapeJosh DornerThis week after touting his misguided plan for offshore planning while visiting the site of one of the nation's worst environmental catastrophes -- the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill -- McCain had a major YouTube moment that showed his rank hypocrisy when it comes to nuclear energy.
The Arizona Senator is a major proponent of nuclear energy -- going so far last Thursday as proposing a whopping 100 new nuclear plants. According to utilities' own cost estimates, this plan could cost more than $1 trillion! This is nothing more than a costly, dirty, and dangerous distraction from the real solutions to global warming -- clean, renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Worse yet, John McCain believes that the people of Nevada should get stuck with the 77,000 tons of dangerous high-level nuclear waste that have already been created by the nuclear industry. He sees no problem whatsoever with transporting waste across 45 states and putting it at the unsafe and unproven Yucca Mountain repository.
While McCain is fine with forcing all that nuclear waste on Nevada for all time and eternity, he's unwilling to have it in his own backyard for even one day. A YouTube clip (fast forward to 1:14 for the goods) uncovered by the Sierra Club just this past Wednesday shows McCain firmly shaking his head no and saying he wouldn't be comfortable with nuclear waste traveling through his home state on its way to Yucca Mountain.
Interviewer: What about the transportation? Would you be comfortable with nuclear waste coming through Arizona on its way, you know going through Phoenix, on its way to uh Yucca Mountain? McCain (Shaking Head): No, I would not. No, I would not.
Looks the like the straight talk express just came off the rails! (Again.)
McCain's Nuclear Waste: How the Arizona senator doomed his own global warming legislation with billions in nuclear subsidies
On January 9, 2003—five years before he would become the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee—Senator John McCain strode to the Senate floor and began a speech by citing the National Academy of Sciences: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in the Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise." He then pointed to a host of scientific studies that had outlined the negative consequences of global warming. "The United States must do something," he proclaimed, announcing that he and Senator Joseph Lieberman were introducing legislation that day to establish mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions and set up a system for the trading of emissions credits.
Environmental groups endorsed the McCain-Lieberman bill, which compelled major industries to reduce greenhouse gases to 2000 levels by 2010. The League of Conservation Voters called it "a relatively modest reduction" but an "important first step" that would "send an important signal to the global community." It was indeed the first serious attempt in the Senate to impose a cap on global warming emissions.
Ten months later, the bill was defeated by a relatively close margin, 55 to 43. (Then-Senator John Edwards, who missed the vote, had indicated he supported the bill.) Environmental advocates in Washington considered this a decent start considering that six years earlier the Senate had voted unanimously for a nonbinding resolution that signaled opposition to the Kyoto global warming treaty. With this bill, McCain established himself as the undisputed Republican leader on climate change. Convinced that global warming had already led to more droughts and wildfires in his home state of Arizona, McCain vowed to keep fighting for the measure. But within a year and a half, McCain would lose ground and set back the effort to reduce emissions because of a profound political miscalculation, his own stubbornness, and, most of all, his deep attachment to nuclear power.
About a year after their bill was defeated, McCain and Lieberman began drafting a new version. It was close to the original, but with one significant addition: billions of dollars in tax subsidies for the nuclear energy industry.
McCain had long been an advocate of nuclear power. "He feels strongly that nuclear power will be one of the keys to reducing emissions," says Heather Wicke, who was his environmental legislative aide at the time. But environmentalists who had worked with McCain and Lieberman on the first bill were stunned. In one meeting, lobbyists for environmental groups attempted to persuade McCain not to attach nuclear subsidies to the legislation, arguing that doing so would weaken support for the bill. "He shook his finger at us and scolded us," says one participant at the meeting, who recalls McCain saying, "You're wrong and I'm right." Wicke, now the director of policy for the Piedmont Environmental Council, notes that McCain had already made up his mind and that the session was "testy."
In meetings with McCain's staff, environmental lobbyists argued the obvious points, according to Karen Wayland, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Council: what to do with nuclear waste, the need to prevent nuclear proliferation, the problem with security at nuclear facilities. They noted that legislation restricting greenhouse emissions in and of itself would create a competitive advantage for nuclear energy companies. They made no headway, so the enviros appealed to Lieberman and his staff. "Lieberman didn't seem to care for this provision," one of the green lobbyists remembers, "but he needed McCain, and McCain was pushing hard" for the nuclear subsidies.
Part of McCain's motivation was political. According to Wicke, he and his aides figured that these subsidies could attract several pro-nuclear Republicans, and they had their eyes on Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Senator Liddy Dole of North Carolina. Wicke was concerned at the time that the nuclear subsidies would cost the measure support and that a bill loaded with money for the nuclear energy industry would contradict McCain's high-profile opposition to subsidies—which was partly responsible for his reputation as a fiscal conservative and a maverick. In June 2003, McCain had joined 47 other senators to vote for an amendment stripping an energy bill of up to $16 billion in subsidies for the nuclear power industry. (The amendment lost by a two-vote margin.)
Wicke heard from staffers for several senators who had supported McCain and Lieberman's original bill that these senators might oppose the measure if the new version contained nuclear subsidies. "It made me nervous," she recalls. But McCain remained firm in his belief that the billions for nuclear power would draw in more Republicans.
In May 2005, McCain and Lieberman reintroduced their climate change bill—with the subsidies. McCain acknowledged that "friends" in the environmental movement were opposed to the nuclear provision. He spoke at length in the Senate to defend this part of the bill: "The idea that nuclear power should play no role in our energy mix is an unsustainable position.... I, for one, believe it can and should play an even greater role, not because I have some inordinate love affair with splitting the atom, but for the very simple reason that we must support sustainable, zero-emission alternatives such as nuclear if we are serious about addressing the problem of global warming.... I am a green, and I entreat my friends in the movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy."
His friends were not persuaded. While the Environmental Defense Fund and the National Wildlife Federation continued to support McCain, the Natural Resource Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and others mounted a fierce campaign against the new bill. On June 22, 2005, it came up for a vote and was defeated 60 to 38. Several Democratic senators who had backed McCain's original legislation—Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Mark Dayton (D-Minn.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)—defected, and McCain picked up no new Republicans. (Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both voted for it.) "The staff didn't fully appreciate how much opposition there would be to the nuclear provision," Wicke says, adding, "I could say it was a bit of miscalculation.... It did stymie this climate change legislation." After collecting 44 supporters for the first bill, McCain had lost ground.
Sometime after the vote, the NRDC's Wayland attended a meeting McCain held with representatives of environmental organizations. McCain was unapologetic about his decision to tie his climate change measure to nuclear power subsidies. "He said that environmentalists had lost power and influence because they did not support nuclear power," Wayland recalls, "and that renewables would never be more than 1 or 2 percent of the active energy supplies. I tried to argue with him and got nowhere. It was hard to a get a word in edgewise." After the meeting an upset Wayland, engaging in retail therapy, headed to a store and bought several pairs of shoes.
In January 2007, McCain and Lieberman again introduced their climate change bill, and the nuclear subsidies remained in the bill. (Public Citizen estimated the subsidies would run to at least $3.7 billion.) But in fall of 2007, the McCain-Lieberman bill was eclipsed by legislation introduced by Lieberman and Republican Senator John Warner. This bill called for deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions—though not as great as many scientists advocated—and it contained no special subsidies for nuclear power. The Lieberman-Warner measure immediately became the major piece of pending climate change legislation in the Senate. McCain and his bill were essentially out of the picture. He was, at the time, busy campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination.
"To his credit, he was a leader in the Republican Party on climate change," Wayland says. But by pushing breaks for nuclear power, McCain damaged a cause he had been passionately advocating for, leaving this particular battlefield with self-inflicted wounds.
http://motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/03/john-mccain-nuclear-waste.html
NUCLEAR ENERGY.
Senators Obama and Clinton ought to be on board this one. Unfortunately, neither democrat has enough political audacity to come out of his and her carbon emitting coal closet. This is Senator McCain's most daring move in his candidacy for president, brilliantly tying together national security, the economy and the environment with two simple words. It is also an effective counterweight to the oil dynasties of Bush and Cheney.
The democratic presidential nominee who takes an opposing stance will lose on all three of the biggest issues confronting the world today. I can see the Republican slogan now: Nuclear Energy: A New Tomorrow.
Will that beat "Change"?
Barack Obama has touched on the issue of adopting the concept of providing for future generations. I've heard it called: "Intergenerational Equity," a concept I introduced during our caucus this last weekend in Seattle, it was encouraging to hear Senator Obama speak in these terms almost simultaneous to my offering. My only problem was that I only had 20 seconds to speak, so there was little more that I could say (especially since I am not one for talking very fast...).
As a retired Environmental Specialist, I am encouraged to see Senator Obama adopting the concept of Intergenerational Equity, but I am interested in knowing how Obama has reconciled his support of liquid coal and the nuclear industry as a means of reducing our dependence on foreign oil. Unless Senator Obama only supports complete sequestering of carbon produced by these polluting industries, I think the Intergenerational Equity discussion rings a little hollow.
Can anyone tell me if Senator Obama has changed his position in support of nuclear energy or liquid coal? I'd appreciate knowing so that I can carry favorable arguments into the next phase of caucusing, it would also help me feel more steadfast in my support of Senator Obama.
This is totally nuts. I was proposing that the US subsidize sale of AP1000 reactors to China in order to generate US jobs and secondly to head off the disasterous CO2 emissions that will be produced by 500 coal fired 1 Gigawatt plants planned in China.
It turns out that Bush allowed Westinghouse Electric to be sold to the Japanese. Brilliant, George. Just brilliant.
I have tried to reach into the center by giving an honest look at nukes, but am incredibly frustrated by the stupidity of this administration- even on conservative issues like nuclear power.
Edit- Westinghouse Electric was sold to British Nuclear Fuels Limited in 1998. It has 1700 employees in Pennsylvania. A major competitor in the China market is Areva, a French company. However like Westinghouse it is actually a multinational, with as many, or more US employees (5,300 employees in 42 locations across 20 states) (source).
Today I stumbled upon a place on the Issues Page relating to Energy and Environment which said I could send in my IDEAS - that Obama is interested in hearing people's ideas and sees these as potential elements in a real world Presidential administration (my words).
So, I quickly wrote in my main idea at the moment. It is about my vision of a unified electrical and transportation system and the importance of supporting the growth of nuclear power in the USA as the main alternative to Greenhouse Gas (GHG) fossil fuels which are going to devastate our world. I want an end to this scary situation - I mean I want to see action and for that to happen we have to have a coherent plan. ASAP.
Since I am interested in other people reading about these ideas as well as the Obama team (and maybe Barack himself?), I am pasting in my letter here:
1/31/08 9:14:53 AMTo BARACK OBAMA website where he asks for ideas from the public re policy:http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/mypolicyMy idea is that we need a vision of an integrated electricity and transportation system (by land at least).Cars, trucks, buses, light rail and high speed rail could all be powered by electricity. They would become a new mobile source of energy due to being able to give back energy from their batteries – something that could help the grid at peak times of use.Electric vehicles could be charged from renewables and from nuclear or clean coal. Car parks all over the sunny parts of the country could have solar panels connected to outlets where vehicles could be charged, for free!Once the electricity grid is cleaned up so that it stops causing global catastrophe through GHG emissions, we can create hydrogen cheaply and safely. We can also desalinate water and relieve pressure on rivers for their irrigation and drinking water supplies so that fish and other species can have their habitat restored. The necessity for public money to be used to create an integrated electricity and transportation system is not an economic sin or error but a virtue and benefit of being a materially wealthy society. It will help all human activities at the same time as helping the environment. Far from being something to criticize, I would say that it is a duty to use public money to support technological advances that will save the planet and clean up our messes due to ignorance regarding ecological balance. It is a duty of rich society to support the building of energy infrastructures that clean up the environment. That money would be well spent and should be allocated to all forms of energy that need it. Nuclear energy has the greatest potential to supply vast amounts of energy in a reliable way and all prejudices against it need to melt away as we seek to save the planet.And please note, Mr Obama, nuclear waste is mainly NOT waste – it is FUEL waiting to be used! Only 1% of the energy potential of all the uranium dug out of the ground so far has been used. Much of the so-called waste could become useful fuel again, with concomitant reduction of volumes of material to be long-term stored.Also, scientists are developing microbes that can clean up radionuclides. Decommissioning need not cost the earth. Scientists have also developed meltdown-proof reactors, much smaller ones, using less resources to construct.Lastly, trust the geologists and listen very carefully to them. It is not okay to spread rumors about Yucca Mountain. If the area is truly prone to earthquakes then the whole project is a tremendous lie and that I cannot believe.Also did you know that radionuclides ‘like’ mud? They will stick to mud and not move for billions of years. This has been proved by an example from nature which has been found in West Africa at a place called OKLO. Nuclear reactions took place a long time ago and the products have not moved at all. Over 1.5 billion years, I believe. Sequestering the unwanted products from nuclear energy is no different from sequestering the unwanted CO2 from coal and gas etc. Both entail an element of risk. We have to accept that there are risks in life on Earth but we have to be able to evaluate risks in the most sensible and ideology-free way. My point is that your Administration, and you yourself must be extremely well-informed in order to deal with Energy and Environment issues. I am willing to put a dossier together for you if you are interested. It will have a short-list of names of people whose knowledge is vital for your Administration to consult with and be informed by. I would like to end by recommending a key new book which is a great read. I know you wont have much time for reading but some of your assistants can read it and help you be the best politician around today:It is by Gwyneth Cravens and is called: POWER TO SAVE THE WORLD – THE TRUTH ABOUT NUCLEAR ENERGY. She was formerly an antinuclear activist. This book is honest and clear and compelling. Please read it and become as well-informed as you can so that you can help the public understand Energy and Environment issues much better than they currently do.Warm wishes to youCaroline Webb
