Skip to main content

Bodman: America Needs "Resurgence" of Nuclear Power

By Eric McErlain
In a speech at the Commonwealth Club last month, Energy Secretary Sam Bodman outlined six steps America has to take in order to ensure energy security. Guess what was on the list:
The second major thing that needs to happen is the resurgence of nuclear power.

Nuclear power presently supplies 20 percent of America's electricity. It is manifestly safe. It is clean. It is efficient and affordable. And it produces no greenhouse gases, which has to be a consideration at a time when concerns about GHG emissions and global climate change are running high.

As with refineries, no new nuclear power plants have been built in the U.S. in decades, a vestige of the incident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979. That episode spurred a number of safety and regulatory changes. As a result, nuclear power is even safer and more efficient than a quarter century ago. And it is still just as clean, which is why we need nuclear power to remain a key component in our power mix.

The energy bill Congress passed last week contains a number of provisions to ensure that this happens -- provisions that will augment the efforts of our Nuclear Power 2010 program to license new processes and site new facilities.

In particular, the energy bill includes a provision called for by President Bush establishing federal insurance to protect new reactor projects from economic harm resulting from regulatory and legal delays.
To read the rest, click here right now. For the Commonwealth Club's excellent speech archive, click here.

Technorati tags: , , , , , ,

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

By
You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap...
1 comment
Read more

Wednesday Update

By
From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nuclear Utility Moves Up in Credit Ratings, Bank is "Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy"

By
Some positive signs that nuclear utilities can continue to receive positive ratings even while they finance new nuclear plants for the first time in decades: Wells Fargo upgrades SCANA to Outperform from Market Perform Wells analyst says, "YTD, SCG shares have underperformed the Regulated Electrics (total return +2% vs. +9%). Shares trade at 11.3X our 10E EPS, a modest discount to the peer group median of 11.8X. We view the valuation as attractive given a comparatively constructive regulatory environment and potential for above-average long-term EPS growth prospects ... Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy. SCG plans to participate in the development of two regulated nuclear units at a cost of $6.3B, raising legitimate concerns regarding financing and construction. We have carefully considered the risks and are comfortable with SCG’s strategy based on a highly constructive political & regulatory environment, manageable financing needs stretched out over 10 years, strong partners...
Post a Comment
Read more