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
Forbes magazine editor-in chief and publisher, Steve Forbes, a former presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000, looks at the future Obama administration in this week's issue. The pull quote:
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I do hope that Forbes is right about Obama's position on nuclear issues. I am also cautiously optimistic in that area. Obama's got a first class brain, and if he's given enough information to judge an issue like nuclear power on the merits, he will--hopefully.
He isn't a Boomer who grew up during the years of atomic testing and missile crises and hopelessly conflates nuclear weapons with nuclear power, a major factor that made some of the Boomers rather anti-nuclear. So I think he's reachable for the purpose of turning his skeptical support into warm support for nuclear...if you give him the evidence and the facts to make such a choice.
On another note, my generation, we'll be on Obama's staff...you should reach out to us...because you'll find that though we're progressive and liberal, we're also willing to try new things, including those things rejected by our parents...like nuclear power, provided somebody makes a case to us. For example, engaging progressive bloggers and younger opinion leaders on nuclear issues might pay quite good dividends--especially about using nuclear power as an answer to climate change, and the like.