Post by Woody Williams on Aug 25, 2008 21:43:37 GMT -5
'No We Can't — Yet'
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, August 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Energy: It's no longer so cool to be openly anti-nuke. Now the naysaying has to be subtle — like Barack Obama holding out for "clean and safe" power and saying no to reprocessing.
If you really want to know what a politician thinks about nuclear power, you can't just ask a simple question like, "Are you for it?" Only the hard-core greenies not running for office will give you a flat "no." There's just too much working in favor of a nuclear renaissance these days.
The list includes, but is not limited to, the desire for energy independence, the resurgence of electric cars (and the need for more electricity), climate change and the example of France, which gets nearly 80% of its juice from nuclear plants.
But there are plenty of ways to slow or stop the nuclear express while seeming to give it a green light. You can set conditions that sound reasonable but, in practice, become show-stoppers.
Barack Obama said at an Iowa town meeting last December that he would consider expanding nuclear power, "but only so far as it is clean and safe." His camp now cites those words to complain that John McCain's campaign is being unfair when it says Obama is saying "no to clean, safe nuclear energy."
Who's right?
The answer depends on what either side means by "clean" and "safe." Clearly, in light of their actual proposals, Obama and McCain don't use those words in the same way.
McCain wants a crash program to build 45 nuclear plants. He wouldn't propose this if he didn't think nuclear power was "clean and safe" already. Obama's "only if" approach implies that nuclear power, to go forward, has to pass some "clean and safe" test that it can't pass now.
By any objective standard, nuclear energy in the U.S. has a sterling safety record, with only one major accident (Three-Mile Island) and no deaths. As for cleanliness, it has a waste problem that could be solved through the commissioning of a long-term disposal site or the reprocessing of spent fuel (or a combination of both).
McCain favors these steps. He supports opening the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada and wants the U.S. to follow France's practice of cost-efficient fuel recycling.
Obama opposes both ideas. If nuclear power in his view isn't clean enough yet (as his words suggest), he also seems disinclined to do anything about that problem anytime soon. His policy preferences thus add up to more delay and discouraged investment.
When it comes to nuclear power, his slogan should be "No we can't — at least not in the near term."
The waste issue has long been used by the anti-nuke movement as a way to cast doubt on the future of nuclear energy, raise costs and stifle investment. And with Yucca Mountain in the home state of the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (who opposes it, naturally), they're sitting pretty right now.
Reprocessing, though, has the potential to make the whole Yucca Mountain debate moot. With technology currently used by France and several other nations, nearly all the uranium-235 and plutonium in fuel rods can be recycled as nuclear fuel. Other isotopes can be extracted for use in industry and medicine.
About 95% of a spent fuel rod is low-radiation uranium 238, which needs no special disposal. The true waste left over from recycling is just a tiny part of the material we label "waste" now. France, notes author William Tucker, stores all this material "in a single room at Le Havre."
The U.S. has banned commercial nuclear recycling since 1977, out of fear that the plutonium extracted by the process could fall into the hands of rogue states or terrorists. The same argument can be heard today, but (as with nuclear power in general) there's now a long track record of safety to refute it. New technologies have the potential to make the process even safer.
The bottom line for politicians is that there are ways to produce much more nuclear energy in this country safely and cleanly. Those who really want to move in that direction have no reason to delay.
Those who insist on waiting until nuclear energy meets an ever-rising standard of cleanliness and safety can keep finding excuses for delay. But their case is wearing thin.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, August 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Energy: It's no longer so cool to be openly anti-nuke. Now the naysaying has to be subtle — like Barack Obama holding out for "clean and safe" power and saying no to reprocessing.
If you really want to know what a politician thinks about nuclear power, you can't just ask a simple question like, "Are you for it?" Only the hard-core greenies not running for office will give you a flat "no." There's just too much working in favor of a nuclear renaissance these days.
The list includes, but is not limited to, the desire for energy independence, the resurgence of electric cars (and the need for more electricity), climate change and the example of France, which gets nearly 80% of its juice from nuclear plants.
But there are plenty of ways to slow or stop the nuclear express while seeming to give it a green light. You can set conditions that sound reasonable but, in practice, become show-stoppers.
Barack Obama said at an Iowa town meeting last December that he would consider expanding nuclear power, "but only so far as it is clean and safe." His camp now cites those words to complain that John McCain's campaign is being unfair when it says Obama is saying "no to clean, safe nuclear energy."
Who's right?
The answer depends on what either side means by "clean" and "safe." Clearly, in light of their actual proposals, Obama and McCain don't use those words in the same way.
McCain wants a crash program to build 45 nuclear plants. He wouldn't propose this if he didn't think nuclear power was "clean and safe" already. Obama's "only if" approach implies that nuclear power, to go forward, has to pass some "clean and safe" test that it can't pass now.
By any objective standard, nuclear energy in the U.S. has a sterling safety record, with only one major accident (Three-Mile Island) and no deaths. As for cleanliness, it has a waste problem that could be solved through the commissioning of a long-term disposal site or the reprocessing of spent fuel (or a combination of both).
McCain favors these steps. He supports opening the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada and wants the U.S. to follow France's practice of cost-efficient fuel recycling.
Obama opposes both ideas. If nuclear power in his view isn't clean enough yet (as his words suggest), he also seems disinclined to do anything about that problem anytime soon. His policy preferences thus add up to more delay and discouraged investment.
When it comes to nuclear power, his slogan should be "No we can't — at least not in the near term."
The waste issue has long been used by the anti-nuke movement as a way to cast doubt on the future of nuclear energy, raise costs and stifle investment. And with Yucca Mountain in the home state of the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (who opposes it, naturally), they're sitting pretty right now.
Reprocessing, though, has the potential to make the whole Yucca Mountain debate moot. With technology currently used by France and several other nations, nearly all the uranium-235 and plutonium in fuel rods can be recycled as nuclear fuel. Other isotopes can be extracted for use in industry and medicine.
About 95% of a spent fuel rod is low-radiation uranium 238, which needs no special disposal. The true waste left over from recycling is just a tiny part of the material we label "waste" now. France, notes author William Tucker, stores all this material "in a single room at Le Havre."
The U.S. has banned commercial nuclear recycling since 1977, out of fear that the plutonium extracted by the process could fall into the hands of rogue states or terrorists. The same argument can be heard today, but (as with nuclear power in general) there's now a long track record of safety to refute it. New technologies have the potential to make the process even safer.
The bottom line for politicians is that there are ways to produce much more nuclear energy in this country safely and cleanly. Those who really want to move in that direction have no reason to delay.
Those who insist on waiting until nuclear energy meets an ever-rising standard of cleanliness and safety can keep finding excuses for delay. But their case is wearing thin.
