Praising the President
I feel it is my duty as an ultra-conservative nut job to praise the President when he does something with which I can agree. I was pleased to see this Huffington Post story (Yes, I’m linking to the Huffington Post) about the President making some efforts to encourage the construction of new nuclear power plants.
More than $8 billion in new federal loan guarantees to build two nuclear reactors in Georgia could be the first step toward a nuclear renaissance in the United States, three decades after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident halted all new reactor orders.
With the nuclear industry poised to begin construction of at least a half dozen plants over the next decade, President Barack Obama announced the first loan guarantees Tuesday, casting them as both economically essential and politically attractive. He called nuclear power a key part of comprehensive energy legislation that assigns a cost to the carbon pollution of fossil fuels, giving utility companies more incentive to turn to cleaner nuclear fuel.
“This is only the beginning,” Obama said in designating the new federal financial backing for a pair of reactors in Burke County, Ga., to be built by Atlanta-based Southern Co. Obama’s budget would triple – to $54.5 billion – loan guarantees available for new nuclear construction.
I think this is a great thing. While solar and wind power hold promise for the future, the best way to quickly reduce our use of oil and coal-powered electricity plants is to increase our nation’s use of nuclear power. Widespread implementation of solar and wind are at least decades away. The technology for safer nuclear power plants is ready now. We just need to make it easier for the owners of these plants to get through the economic and environmental hurdles so they can be built.
While nuclear power isn’t perfect, it is widely used in the rest of the world. France for example, produces 78% of its electricity from 59 nuclear power plants. With the technology available here in the United States, if anyone can operate these plants safely, it should be us. Waste nuclear materials can be processed and reused to minimize the nuclear waste issues.
Greenpeace found Patrick Moore changed his position on nuclear power in 2006. He now sees it as a way to dramatically reduce CO2 output.
Look at it this way: More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions — or nearly 10 percent of global emissions — of CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so safely.
I’m glad to see President Obama making an effort to encourage the development of new nuclear power plants. This is a good first step.
Now, if we can just get him to embrace the idea of better utilizing our fossil fuel deposits, we can reduce dependence on Middle East oil. I’d love to see our nation stop buying critical fuel supplies from nations that would just as soon see us vaporized.
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