Ohio Lawmakers Embrace Nuclear Energy

The Ohio General Assembly has sent Gov. Ted Strickland (D) sweeping energy legislation that includes Nuclear Energy in the new state definition of technologies that generate “clean” electricity. Strickland has said that he will sign the bill into law.

The definition is significant, as the bill would require that 25 percent of the electricity sold in Ohio by 2025 be generated by a combination of “advanced energy projects,” including nuclear, and renewable sources. Advanced energy projects and renewables each would be required to provide half of the 25 percent total, or 12.5 percent each. The bill establishes specific generation targets for solar energy among its renewable requirement.

The legislation, Amended Substitute Senate Bill 221, passed the Ohio House and Senate overwhelmingly and closely conforms to key clean energy objectives that the Governor outlined for lawmakers a year ago. SB 221 also would enact new electricity rate regulations and energy efficiency standards. The Governor praised the bipartisan measure before audiences in several Northeast Ohio cities, calling it a key economic development tool for the state.

(A tip of the hat to MM.)

Comments

KenG said…

I think there is less here than it originally appears. The 12.5% "advanaced energy" mandate is already met by existing nuclear units. As written it does not appear to encourage new nuclear since any nuclear construction would exceed the advanced energy mandate and take capital away from the renewable target. The 12.5% renewables will be met by heavily subsidized (or losing projects imposed on the utiities) via windmills. When the targets aren't met they will probably be conveniently forgotten.

April 25, 2008 at 8:52 AM

Sneak Peek

There's an invisible force powering and propelling our way of life.
It's all around us. You can't feel it. Smell it. Or taste it.
But it's there all the same. And if you look close enough, you can see all the amazing and wondrous things it does.
It not only powers our cities and towns.
And all the high-tech things we love.
It gives us the power to invent.
To explore.
To discover.
To create advanced technologies.
This invisible force creates jobs out of thin air.
It adds billions to our economy.
It's on even when we're not.
And stays on no matter what Mother Nature throws at it.
This invisible force takes us to the outer reaches of outer space.
And to the very depths of our oceans.
It brings us together. And it makes us better.
And most importantly, it has the power to do all this in our lifetime while barely leaving a trace.
Some people might say it's kind of unbelievable.
They wonder, what is this new power that does all these extraordinary things?

A Design Team Pictures the Future of Nuclear Energy

For more than 100 years, the shape and location of human settlements has been defined in large part by energy and water. Cities grew up near natural resources like hydropower, and near water for agricultural, industrial and household use.

So what would the world look like with a new generation of small nuclear reactors that could provide abundant, clean energy for electricity, water pumping and desalination and industrial processes?

Hard to say with precision, but Third Way, the non-partisan think tank, asked the design team at the Washington, D.C. office of Gensler & Associates, an architecture and interior design firm that specializes in sustainable projects like a complex that houses the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys. The talented designers saw a blooming desert and a cozy arctic village, an old urban mill re-purposed as an energy producer, a data center that integrates solar panels on its sprawling flat roofs, a naval base and a humming transit hub.

In the converted mill, high temperat…

Seeing the Light on Nuclear Energy

If you think that there is plenty of electricity, that the air is clean enough and that nuclear power is a just one among many options for meeting human needs, then you are probably over-focused on the United States or Western Europe. Even then, you’d be wrong.

That’s the idea at the heart of a new book, “Seeing the Light: The Case for Nuclear Power in the 21st Century,” by Scott L. Montgomery, a geoscientist and energy expert, and Thomas Graham Jr., a retired ambassador and arms control expert.

Billions of people live in energy poverty, they write, and even those who don’t, those who live in places where there is always an electric outlet or a light switch handy, we need to unmake the last 200 years of energy history, and move to non-carbon sources. Energy is integral to our lives but the authors cite a World Health Organization estimate that more than 6.5 million people die each year from air pollution. In addition, they say, the global climate is heading for ruinous instability. E…

NEI Nuclear Notes

Search This Blog