Skip to main content

Hillary Clinton on Nuclear Energy

By Eric McErlain
Grist has put together a page detailing the environmental positions of all the candidates for the Democratic nomination for President, and is also fronting an interview with Senator Hillary Clinton on her environmental positions. Here's her take on nuclear energy:
Q. What about nuclear power?

A. I am agnostic about nuclear. I am very skeptical that nuclear could become acceptable in most regions of the country, and I am doubtful that we have yet figured out how to deal with the waste. But I keep being given information about research that is being done to resolve the waste problem. I know that will continue because that has a lot of economic power and resources behind it. But until we can figure out what to do with the waste and overcome the political objections, we should not be putting a heavy emphasis on nuclear.
For previous posts on Clinton's position, click here and here.

Thanks to Ben Smith for the pointer.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
What does Sen. Clinton think we should "put a heavy emphasis on" then? Are we going to hear the same old conservation mantra? If so, fine, but now square that with continued use of fossil energy for the balance, as well as projected growth in demand, especially if vehicles go electric this century. Going to hear the same old free-energy fantasies about renewables? If so, great, let's hear where the facilities will be located, how much land will be covered over, and how intermittency will be buffered without some gee-whiz technology that's still in the lab and/or way too expensive to implement.
August 13, 2007 at 10:41 AM
Anonymous said…
Amen, brother. Woman speaks with forked tongue.

She is just another talking head that is part of the "no solutions" committee.

To say that she is "agnostic" is a downright lie. Look at her record with respect to Indian Point. She has been doing everything that she can to cause a permanent shutdown of Indian Point in representation of her people.
August 14, 2007 at 10:55 AM
Anonymous said…
I was hoping that Hillary knew that without nuclear, non carbon emitting energy cannot compete with coal on the global scale and that we will all die soon when the planet over heats. However, she believes the same crap that the NIMBYs (not in my backyard) down the street believe: nukes are too scarey and I don't want a plant near my kids. What about when the planet dies? Would that be better than some glass-covered marbles of waste a mile below the desert?
August 28, 2007 at 12:10 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

By
Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...
23 comments
Read more

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

By
Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...
7 comments
Read more

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

By
You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...
6 comments
Read more