45 New Nuclear Reactors by 2030?
It is abundantly clear that energy policy will be the key issue in
the upcoming 2008 presidental election. The price of a gallon of
regular unleaded gas will likely be north of $5/gallon by then.
Today, presumptive republican presidental nominee John McCain
declared that he wants to build 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030.
A position I wholeheartedly endorse... as does Greenpeace founder
Patrick Moore (see
here).
McCain Sets Goal of 45 New Nuclear Reactors by 2030
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: June 19, 2008
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Senator John McCain said Wednesday that
he wanted 45 new nuclear reactors built in the United States by 2030, a
course he called "as difficult as it is necessary."
In his third straight day of campaign speechmaking about energy and
$4-a-gallon gasoline, Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee,
told the crowd at a town-hall-style meeting at Missouri State
University that he saw nuclear power as a clean, safe alternative to
traditional sources of energy that emit greenhouse gases. He said his
ultimate goal was 100 new nuclear plants.
Mr. McCain has long promoted nuclear reactors, but Wednesday was the
first time that he specified the number of plants he envisioned.
Currently there are 104 reactors in the country supplying some 20
percent of electricity consumed. No new nuclear power plant has been
built in the United States since the 1970s.
"China, Russia and India are all planning to build more than
a hundred new power plants among them in the coming decades,"
Mr. McCain said in this pocket of Missouri that is reliably Republican.
"Across Europe there are 197 reactors in operation, and
nations including France and Belgium derive more than half their
electricity from nuclear power. And if all of these nations can find a
way to carry out great goals in energy policy, then I assure you that
the United States is more than equal to the challenge."
[...]
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Mr. McCain's chief domestic policy
adviser, said Mr. McCain had arrived at the goal of 45 as consistent
with his desire to expand nuclear power, "but not so large
as to be infeasible given permitting and construction times."
In recent years, I have been voting for candidates primarily based on
what I judge to be
reasonable foreign policy
(which is pretty much the opposite of President Bush's foreign policy
positions). I definitely side with Obama on foreign policy (Senator
McCain's foreign policy is identical to that of President Bush).
However, Senator McCain just might win me over with his energy policy.
Be Green; Go Nuclear
One of the co-founders of Greenpeace has an editorial today arguing
for nuclear energy. I've long thought that we need to start
building more nuclear power plants here in the US, but the stigma of
nuclear energy has been hard to overcome (no thanks to Hollywood of
course). But this is a positive development. Perhaps soon more
people will be less dismissive of nuclear energy. Have a read:
Going
Nuclear
A Green Makes the Case
By Patrick Moore
[...] 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.
[...]
In 1979, Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon produced a frisson of fear with
their starring roles in "The China Syndrome," a fictional evocation of
nuclear disaster in which a reactor meltdown threatens a city's
survival. Less than two weeks after the blockbuster film opened, a
reactor core meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear power
plant sent shivers of very real anguish throughout the country.
What nobody noticed at the time, though, was that Three Mile Island was
in fact a success story: The concrete containment structure did just
what it was designed to do -- prevent radiation from escaping into the
environment. And although the reactor itself was crippled, there was no
injury or death among nuclear workers or nearby residents. Three Mile
Island was the only serious accident in the history of nuclear energy
generation in the United States, but it was enough to scare us away from
further developing the technology: There hasn't been a nuclear plant
ordered up since then.
Today, there are 103 nuclear reactors quietly delivering just 20 percent
of America's electricity. Eighty percent of the people living within 10
miles of these plants approve of them (that's not including the nuclear
workers). Although I don't live near a nuclear plant, I am now squarely
in their camp.
And I am not alone among seasoned environmental activists in changing my
mind on this subject. British atmospheric scientist James Lovelock,
father of the Gaia theory, believes that nuclear energy is the only way
to avoid catastrophic climate change.
[...]
Wind and solar power have their place, but because they are intermittent
and unpredictable they simply can't replace big baseload plants such as
coal, nuclear and hydroelectric. Natural gas, a fossil fuel, is too
expensive already, and its price is too volatile to risk building big
baseload plants. Given that hydroelectric resources are built pretty
much to capacity, nuclear is, by elimination, the only viable substitute
for coal. It's that simple.
The article goes on from there and debunks many popular myths about
nuclear power. It's a great read.
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