The State of the Union

Here’s the energy portion of President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address. The third paragraph is the keeper: in discussing more jobs – the theme of this year – Obama led with nuclear energy:

Next, we need to encourage American innovation. Last year, we made the largest investment in basic research funding in history, an investment -- an investment that could lead to the world's cheapest solar cells or treatment that kills cancer cells but leaves healthy ones untouched.

And no area is more ripe for such innovation than energy. You can see the results of last year's investments in clean energy in the North Carolina company that will create 1,200 jobs nationwide, helping to make advanced batteries, or in the California business that will put 1,000 people to work making solar panels.

But to create more of these clean-energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives, and that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.

It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.

It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean-coal technologies.

And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.

Full transcript and video here. NEI’s response here.

Comments

Phil said…

And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.

Wow! What a loaded sentence! Is the implication that "clean energy" is not profitable without incentives?

If so, I agree.

And I doubt the wisdom of such incentives., particularly given that nuclear technology is tested and true, ready to run, today, right now.

"Clean coal technologies" may as well be "fairy dust technologies, but I suppose the political reality is that you have to pander to the Coal lobby.

January 28, 2010 at 10:59 AM

Anonymous said…

nuclear technology is tested and true, ready to run, today, right now

In a broad general sense, maybe. But most Gen III+ designs -- the ones being used for the next generation of plants -- have not yet been built, anywhere in the world.

There are exactly as many operating EPRs and AP1000s as there are operating clean-coal plants.

February 2, 2010 at 11:41 AM

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