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Liveblogging: NEI's John Kane on C-Span's Washington Journal

By Eric McErlain
John Kane, NEI's Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, is appearing on C-Span's Washington Journal this morning at 9:10 a.m. U.S. EDT. He'll be talking about the Energy Bill. Joining him on the program will be Navin Nayak of U.S. PIRG. I'll be following the interview here in the office, live, and be offering running commentary and supporting documents.

To watch, click here. To listen via C-Span Radio, click here. Be sure to hit refresh in your browser periodically, so you get to see all the latest information that I'll be posting.

UPDATE: Moderator mentions the role of U.S. Senator Pete Domenici in the energy bill. For more information on his book on nuclear energy, click here.

Nayak is brining up the issue of waste -- and for the industry the answer is Yucca Mountain. As to cost, we handled the issue of the cost of new nuclear build a few weeks ago, here. And besides, if nobody wants to invest in nuclear energy, then why is Warren Buffet thinking about it?

Safety and security is now being brought up, and the best place to start with that debate is probably our roundup of posts on Time's article on nuclear power plant security. For our archive on safety, click here.

The moderator just brought up the fact that President Bush is going to give a speech at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant later today.

Nayak is calling nuclear, "a polluting energy" claiming that it has to leverage other polluting technologies in order to run itself. Unfortunately, the research concerning lifecycle emissions disputes that claim.

Nayak says that energy isn't a "left-right issue". We agree.

Why is nuclear a better bet right now than renewables? This slide deals with something called "capacity factor" -- an important measure of efficiency. As for Nayak's claim about public opinion, those results are disputed by our own research.

The conversation has turned to the Price-Anderson Act. Click here for a fact sheet.

Nayak says that nuclear energy won't have any impact on America's dependence on foreign sources of energy. But what about nuclear-generated hydrogen?

John is now talking about the new licensing process for nuclear power plants.

Segement concludes. Thanks for sticking with us.

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