Learsy: India Nuclear Deal Good for U.S. and the World

Over at the Huffington Post, long-time energy industry observer Raymond J. Learsy writes that Congress ought to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the nuclear energy deal with India:

Critics have charged that the president was so eager to sell the Indians nuclear fuel and technology that he caved in to all their demands, permitting them to maintain an uninspected nuclear weapons program along with the civilian program to be supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Other critics warned that Iran and North Korea would use the deal as an excuse for pursuing their own nuclear weapons programs as though either nation needed any further excuse to pursue its nuclear ambitions.

But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has convincingly argued that there's no comparison between the two rogue nations and democratic India. She says clean nuclear energy could cut India's emissions of carbon dioxide by 170 million tons a year, as much as the Netherlands produces. She points out that satisfying much of India's "massive appetite for energy" with nuclear plants will make the country less dependent on imports of oil and gas (read Iran). It is India's ambitious goal to generate 25% of its vastly larger electricity needs in 2050 through nuclear power, from its current 3% The deal could create thousands of jobs in the United States, she says, and India's technological talent can help develop sophisticated new solutions in the global push for safe, clean nuclear power. It would be harbinger of a new and meaningful cooperation between the two largest democracies in the world.

Our old friend Norris McDonald likes the idea too.

UPDATE: More positives from Mimic Lyric.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Environment, Energy, Politics, Technology, India, Electricity

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