NEI Nuclear Notes

Former Vice President Al Gore has never been the biggest advocate of nuclear energy: In 2009, he said he saw it playing "a somewhat larger role" in the energy mix because of climate change and efforts to cut carbon emissions. "I'm not a reflexive opponent of nuclear. I used to be enthusiastic about it, but I'm now skeptical about it," he told the Guardian at the time. But at least three years ago, not it biggest detractor, either. I think it’s fair to say that he is currently indifferent to it. "It will play a role, but probably a limited role. I think the waste issue can probably be solved, and Fukushima notwithstanding, the safety of operation issue can probably be solved. But the cost is absurdly high and still rising," he wrote during a question and answer session on Reddit to promote his 24-hour Climate Reality webcast on the links between fossil fuels and extreme weather. That happened Wednesday into Thursday. If the webcast...

Hard not to be pleased by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon’s decision to support a new unit at the state’s Callaway nuclear plant, announced a couple of months ago. But at his state of the state address, he went much, much further: Every business in Missouri needs reliable, affordable energy to grow and prosper. And every Missouri family needs reliable, affordable energy to heat and cool their homes. In November, I announced a historic agreement that will transform the economy of our state - creating thousands of jobs and benefitting millions of Missouri consumers of electric power. That agreement put the wheels in motion for the construction of a second, state-of-the-art nuclear power plant in Callaway County. Missouri has some of the lowest electric rates in the nation. That's attractive to businesses and families. But as our energy needs grow, we need to be looking now for new sources of clean, abundant and affordable power. Building a second nuclear plant ...

In The American magazine, Vaclav Smil (a Distinguished Professor at the University of Manitoba) wrote a "big idea" piece titled " Moore’s Curse and the Great Energy Delusion " (nothing to do with Patrick Moore). Smil's piece rebuts Al Gore's claim that the US can completely transition to wind and solar in ten years, but also goes on to convey the bigger idea which is that energy transitions take decades to happen not years. Below are many nuggets from his piece that readers will enjoy. (I almost pasted the whole thing because I think it's that good but of course you readers may not go to the article then.) Enjoy! During the early 1970s we were told by the promoters of nuclear energy that by the year 2000 America’s coal-based electricity generation plants would be relics of the past and that all electricity would come from nuclear fission. What’s more, we were told that the first generation fission reactors would by then be on their way out, replaced by...

An economist, an engineer, and a physicist are marooned on a deserted island. One day they find a can of food washed up on the beach and contrive to open it. The engineer said: "let's hammer the can open between these rocks". The physicist said: "that's pretty crude. We can just use the force of gravity by dropping a rock on the can from that tall tree over there". The economist is somewhat disgusted at these deliberations, and says: "I've got a much more elegant solution. All we have to do is assume a can-opener." In an op-ed appearing in the August 31 Washington Post , David A. Fahrenthold discusses the practical realities glossed over in former vice president Al Gore's call for converting to "clean electricity" in 10 years. Central to Mr. Fahrenthold's piece is the recognition that the nation's electrical infrastructure represents the cumulative investment of trillions of dollars. Replacing this massive amount of capit...

Back in May, we started to follow the story about how the Vermont State Senate was planning on starting a "clean energy" fund with $25 million in additional tax money from Vermont Yankee . After Governor Jim Douglas vetoed the legislation , proponents of the tax mounted an effort to override the veto -- an effort that I was unaware was supported by former Vice President Al Gore. He explained his support on June 14th in the following video address -- one which clearly experienced some technical difficulties: A "terrific" law, eh? Can someone please explain to me why placing additional taxes on one form of clean electrical generation in order to subsidize another can possibly be "terrific"? Lucky for the ratepayers of Vermont, the override attempt fell 12 votes short .

Slate is asking the question: Who is a better spokesman for the environmental movement, former Vice President Al Gore or California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ? The answer may surprise you.

Appearing on this week's edition of America's Business hosted by NAM's Mike Hambrick, Newt Gingrich had this to say about nuclear energy : You have, by the way, for those people who say they are worried about global warming, you have the same kind of hysterical emotion caused by the movie, "The China Syndrome" about nuclear power. It turns out – and I think this is a great irony to pose to people like Al Gore -- if the United States had followed the French in a clean nuclear strategy, and we were producing the same amount of electricity from nuclear that the French are, we would be generating two billion -- not million -- two billion, two-hundred million tons a year less in carbon.

During his testimony before the U.S. Senate Energy and Public Works Committee , former Vice President Al Gore had this exchange with Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) on nuclear energy. Near the start of the video, Craig accused Gore of gutting funding for nuclear R&D during the Clinton Administration. As you can see, Gore claimed not to know what Craig was talking about, and said that he'd respond directly at a later time. Here's graphic that NEI developed to demonstrate exactly what happened to the DOE R&D budget during the Clinton years: Interesting. UPDATE: More from Congressman Mike Simpson (R-ID) .

Last week, I asked Mary Quillian, NEI's Director of Business and Environmental Programs, a couple of questions about Al Gore's testimony on Capitol Hill concerning nuclear energy . Click here for the video.

From The Daily Inter Lake , (Mont.): Al Gore, the former vice president and recent Oscar recipient, sanctimoniously decrees that Americans should reduce their “carbon footprints” while he runs up electric bills that could power an entire neighborhood. He exonerates himself by purchasing “carbon offsets” from a company that he has a financial interest in. The company invests in wind power or other green projects, and presto, his conscience is clean. Just like purchasing a medieval indulgence for cleansing away sins. Gore never talks about one source of energy that would greatly reduce carbon emissions, and that’s nuclear energy. Why doesn’t Gore urge Congress to provide incentives for nuclear power development, a change that would vastly reduce the nation’s carbon footprint? Because the left has long detested and protested nuclear power plants. And Gore certainly isn’t going to counter that position, because he has become a national environmental leader. As we've noted before, not e...

As we noted earlier this week , during his testimony on Capitol Hill this week, former Vice President Al Gore went to pains to say he wasn't reflexively anti-nuclear, though he added that he believed a combination of distributed generation and "smart-grid" technology could obviate the need to build new baseload generating capacity . Mr. [Gore] worked hard to avoid sounding rigidly anti-nuclear, focusing instead on concerns about waste storage--he opposes the Yucca Mountain waste facility--and the very large capital costs involved in building new nuclear plants. Yet despite these issues, we are likely to see the first new nuclear plant in this country in two decades get its permits within a few years. The cloud of uncertainly that the recent TXU deal has cast over new coal-fired power plants will inevitably improve the prospects for new nukes. To refine a statistic tossed out by one Senator, in 2005 nuclear power contributed 68% of all the low-carbon electricity genera...

From WILLisms : We should make every common sense effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, not because bureaucrats in Brussels or Kyoto say so, not because Al Gore says so, and not because we need to "reduce our dependence on foreign sources of oil." We should do it because reducing emissions, at the local level, is good for our health. Nuclear power enables us to reduce our emissions without harming our economy. Indeed, it may boost our economy, as inexpensive, reliable energy reduces the cost of doing business and ultimately raises productivity and profitability. Atomic energy enables us to make strides toward cheaper, cleaner, more sustainable energy based on more than feel-good, pie-in-the-sky ethanol/solar/wind schemes. Moreover, we can pursue nuclear energy without harming our domestic energy industry.

I've been listening to Al Gore's testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee this morning , and he predictably left expanded use of nuclear energy out of his list of options to restrain carbon emissions. As Mitch Singer noted this morning, that's no surprise . I couldn't help but chuckle a little bit when Gore mentioned Amory Lovins in glowing terms. As my colleague David Bradish has written in the past , while Lovins might have some interesting things to say about conservation, his research in the area of nuclear energy is fatally flawed. Click here for our complete archive on Lovins. More later, I'm sure. UPDATE : Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) just mentioned the elephant in the room, namely that electricity demand will be increasing by about 40% in the coming years and that nuclear energy can play a role in providing that energy while helping to keep the air clean. He also mentioned the continued political impasse over Yucca Mountain and the billio...

NEI Nuclear Notes has visited this topic before, but it warrants looking at it again. The discussion on how best to reduce the growth of greenhouse gases (GHG) has dominated the environmental agenda in the first months of the 110th Congress. Wednesday, March 21, the first full day of Spring, promises to bring climate change to the forefront of the day's news. Former Vice President Al Gore, who testifies Wednesday on Capitol Hill, focused on ways to mitigate climate change in “An Inconvenient Truth.” In the film, Gore discussed a 2004 study entitled “Princeton University’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative,” by professors Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala . The analysis is based on the concept of stabilization “wedges,” or measures that could be used to limit and ultimately reduce GHG emissions. These measures include efficient vehicles, an increase in nuclear power to displace coal-fired plants, greater efficiency at coal-fired power plants, an increase in wind and solar power to disp...

Meet Willy Callit .

Yesterday, former Vice President Al Gore and Virgin Airways CEO Richard Bransom announced the establishment of a $25 million prize for greenhouse gas reduction : Branson, founder of Virgin Group Ltd., will award the Virgin Earth Challenge prize money to anyone who develops technology capable of removing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases at the rate of one billion tons a year. Gore will be a member of a panel of judges that makes the award. The two made the announcement at a press conference in London. That gave Michael Flagg an idea: Build more nuclear power plants. Ramp up work in South Africa on Pebble Bed Modular Reactors , build those big AP-1000's for major industrial centers and we in the U.S. start recycling used fuel rods . I just won $25 million! Party at my place when the check clears. Who needs to count the emissions prevented by new nuclear build when the exisiting fleet of plants worldwide is already getting the job done. According to NEI's own internal ...