Here's some grand foresight from the author of Terrestrial Energy:
... Sometime in the next 18 months, Obama will finally bring his carbon emissions program to Congress. At that point, the Democratic Party will split in two. Senators and representatives from Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois, which get huge portions of their electricity from coal, will never consent to hiking their electrical bills in the midst of a near-Depression.I think he'll be right. Many European and Asian countries have already gone through this energy debate exercise and concluded that they need to build many more nuclear plants. It's only time until the U.S. comes to the same conclusion...
Obama and Democratic liberals will be at wit's end. After twenty years of yammering about global warming, they will find themselves unable to do anything about it. Will they skulk off in defeat, blaming the Bush Administration? Perhaps. But I think there's a more likely scenario.
Someone in the administration -- probably Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who knows in his heart that wind and solar can't cut it -- will suggest that that a carbon tax be coupled with the revival of nuclear power. Suddenly, the dam will break. NRC regulatory mazes that are still trying to protect us from Three Mile Island will be swept aside. Construction schedules will be accelerated. (The TVA just built a new reactor at Watts Bar in three years and under budget, using a license granted in the 1970s.) Tens of thousands of construction jobs will be created overnight. The French and Japanese will provide the financing. We may even revive the steel industry in the process.
Then, after decades of backing and filling, the nation will at last be back on the road to creating a stable and economical energy infrastructure. It'll be the best thing that's happened to American industry in twenty-five years.
Comments
John Tjostem
So why isn't the nuclear industry putting full page adds out in major news papers (newspapers around the country could use the money)calling out the US congress, Senate, and the Obama administration to fight seriously against global warming and for energy independence in the US by aggressively pushing legislation to dramatically increase nuclear power plant construction in the US through both private and public financing and to reprocess spent fuel in order to dramatically decrease radioactive waste while producing more clean energy.
The nuclear industry has to be willing to fight for itself in the media. Otherwise, the president may interpret this silence along with the loud voices of the anti-nuclear factions as evidence that the nuclear industry really doesn't have confidence in the energy products that they're offering the American people.
In American business, silence is not 'Golden'; silence can be a business disaster. That's why successful businesses constantly and aggressively advertise their products. If the nuclear industry seriously wants the Obama administration to fight for them then they have to be willing to fight for themselves!
Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid!
And there's no doubt in my mind that a majority of the American people are behind expanding the nuclear industry in the US if the nuclear industry is willing to fight for itself!
Marcel F. Williams
http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/
Not only would this be politically impossible, but the bureaucracy is far too entrenched. I can't imagine NRC going along with this. If anything, things continue to get worse (albeit only slightly and slowly). Three years to review a COL for a carbon copy reactor??!!
No, our salvation is going to be the fact that fossil fuels are finally being held to account, and will face requirements more on a level with ours. Once the playing field is finally more fair and level, nuclear will easily prevail.
If one is looking for an alternative to cap-and-trade, this would be another (more possible) alternative, which doesn't cost any section of the country more than the others. A simple, outright ban on new non-sequestered coal (and possibly gas) plants. Everyone would have to pay the same (increased) amount for a new power plant. Even this would be much more likely than a major rollback in nuclear regs.
Jim Hopf
Moreover, the USNRC is not the major problem for the reactor vendor's schedules. Their major problem is completing their designs, which is required before the USNRC will give them a combined construction and operating license. Because it is much better to start construction after design is complete, the USNRC requirement is in the best interests of the reactor vendors and their customers.