Ron Paul on Nuclear Energy

Jay Taylor of the Web site 321 Gold interviewed Congressman Ron Paul back in 2006 and asked him what he thought of nuclear energy:

Do you anticipate that nuclear energy will provide some solutions to higher energy prices? China and India are building nuclear plants, and they have a large number of new plants planned for the future. Do you favor this form of energy?

CONGRESSMAN PAUL: I think it will come. I think it is a good answer. I have a nuclear power plant in my district. It is another answer when energy prices go too high. I think we are going to win on that issue, although we have lost for a good many years, and there have not been any new nuclear power plants. When push comes to shove, I think the American people are going to say, "I want my house heated and lit up with electricity." So I think we are finally going to reject some of these arguments against nuclear power, because they are not very convincing."

Thanks to the African-American Environmentalist Association for the pointer.

Comments

Anonymous said…

That's an interesting source, especially considering the enormously disproportionate impact that blacks face from coal-fired plants (asthma rates, cancer, etc etc).

Would be great to see the black community en masse get on the freedom bandwagon. Government is certainly NOT their best friend, as history shows.

September 7, 2007 at 2:35 PM

Unknown said…

i cant understand why Ron Paul would be for nuclear power, since it couldn't exist without Government subsidies.

October 5, 2008 at 5:20 PM

B. Varughese said…

Ron Paul supports Free Market Nuclear Energy, not subsidized. In fact he wants the entire energy market to be free... In fact he want EVERYTHING to be free market!!!

November 3, 2008 at 8:37 PM

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

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...

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

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...

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

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...

NEI Nuclear Notes

Search This Blog