Skip to main content

More on RFK Jr. and Wind Power

By Eric McErlain
In response to our post on Friday regarding Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s position on the offshore wind farm at Cape Cod, The Energy Blog had this to say:
I don't think that Kennedy is necessarily typical of environmentalists, but he certainly does nothing positive for their image.

I do believe that global warming is an urgent environmental concern and believe it cannot be solved with renewable energy alone and that both clean coal technologies with sequestration and nuclear power have a role to play in solving this problem in the short term. There is probably not enough time for either renewable energy or conservation to halt or reverse the effects of global warming before it may cause irreversible damage. Therefore we must take all possible steps to mitigate global warming. Deploying nuclear energy and clean coal technologies does not mean that any efforts should be spared in pursuing renewable energy or conservation. In fact efforts in these areas should be accelerated as much as possible.
Those last two sentences sound a lot like what we wrote last month:
Saying that the world has to decide between nuclear energy or renewables is a false choice. The fact of the matter remains that future energy demand will rise so much, that there will be more than enough room for nuclear energy and renewables in the marketplace. It's just that over the next few decades, we're going to need baseload power generation, and right now, the only technology that can provide that baseload power is nuclear energy.
Looks like there's more agreement on this issue than some folks might realize.

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