From the NEI Clip File

Here are some news clips we're reading at NEI today:

Talks on the energy bill continue, with the current issue being debated is the gasoline additive MTBE. A new blog we've discovered, The Austin Review, is looking at the box some environmentalists find themselves in when it comes to global warming and nuclear energy.

Environmentalists are pressing U.S. Senator Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) on the relicensing of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant. Still Corzine seems to recognize that nuclear energy has to stay on New Jersey's agenda:

But Corzine also said he recognized the benefits of atomic energy in helping reduce the country's reliance on fossil fuels.

"Anyone who truly cares about the environment knows we have to do something about global warming, which for a shore-based environment is an absolute super-risk," he said.

Congressman Rush Holt (R-N.J.) writes in the Philadelphia Inquirer that the U.S. should be investing more in fusion research over and above its commitment to the ITER project in France:

We need a strong program in fusion research. Some have advocated cutting the domestic U.S. fusion program and using the funds for ITER instead. This would truly reduce the United States to a bit player in fusion energy. We need to use ITER to benefit our own fusion program, and, if ITER is successful, build a demonstration fusion power plant in the United States.

Finance24.com says the good times are rolling in the American market for uranium:

Uranium prices have tripled from three years ago, so exploration will probably increase dramatically, Tom Pool, chairman of U.S. consulting firm International Nuclear Inc., said Monday at the Global Uranium Symposium 2005 held in Wyoming.

"Next year could be a banner year for drilling companies in the Western U.S.," he said. The United States had eight uranium explorations before a price collapse in the 1980s. Currently it has only one.

A few days after officially acquiring Kewaunee nuclear power plant, Dominion announced its intention to get the plant relicensed:

The Kewaunee Power Station will operate for another 28 years or longer if new owner Dominion Resources Inc. has its way.

David Christian, senior vice president and chief nuclear officer, said Tuesday the company will be applying to extend the nuclear plant'’s operating license past its expiration in 2013.

And finally, a Russian official with the IAEA is predicting more growth for commercialnuclearr electrical generation worldwide:

About 130 new nuclear power plants may be built in the world in the next 15 years, a deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency said at an international conference in Moscow Wednesday.

Yury Sokolov told the conference, Multilateral Technical and Organizational Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle to Strengthen the Non-Proliferation Regime, that 440 nuclear power plants produced 16% of the world's electricity.

"Their capacity may increase to 427-430 gigawatts in the next 20 years," he added.

Check back tomorrow for our next clip file.

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