NEI Nuclear Notes

Senator John McCain's tour of the Fermi 2 nuclear plant was well-covered by the press. From The New York Times , [McCain] portrayed his support of nuclear energy as part of an “all-of-the-above approach” to addressing the nation’s energy needs at a time of $4-a-gallon gasoline. He called it “safe, efficient, inexpensive and obviously a vital ingredient in the future of the economy of our nation and in our mission to eliminate over time our dependence on foreign oil.” “If we really want to enable new technologies tomorrow like plug-in electric cars, we need electricity to plug into,” he said in a statement after touring the Fermi 2 nuclear plant, its twin cooling towers spewing vapors used as a backdrop. “We need to do all this and more.” Your coverage roundup: USA Today , Detroit Free Press , The Boston Globe , The Washington Post , the New York Daily News , the Los Angeles Times , and Washington Wire ( WSJ ) . Photo: Mary Altaffer / AP

In advance of Senator John McCain's tour of the Fermi 2 nuclear plant this afternoon, the Obama campaign's press office has just released this statement Barack Obama supports safe and secure nuclear energy. Nuclear power represents more than 70 percent of our noncarbon generated electricity. It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power as an option. However, before an expansion of nuclear power is considered, Obama thinks key issues must be addressed including: security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage, and proliferation. Barack Obama introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate to establish guidelines for tracking, controlling and accounting for spent fuel at nuclear power plants. To prevent international nuclear material from falling into terrorist hands abroad, Obama worked closely with Sen. Dick Lugar (R - IN) to strengthen international efforts to identify and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction. As preside...

With Senator John McCain touring the Fermi 2 nuclear plant in Newport tomorrow and Senator Barack Obama delivering a major energy speech today in Lansing, the state of Michigan, and its 17 electoral votes, is center stage this week in the presidential campaign. The pull quote from Obama's address In addition, we’ll find safer ways to use nuclear power and store nuclear waste. And we’ll invest in the technology that will allow us to use more coal, America’s most abundant energy source, with the goal of creating five “first-of-a-kind” coal-fired demonstration plants with carbon capture and sequestration. Of course, too often, the problem is that all of this new energy technology never makes it out of the lab and onto the market because there’s too much risk and too much cost involved in starting commercial-scale clean energy businesses. So we will remove some of this cost and this risk by directing billions in loans and capital to entrepreneurs who are willing to create clean ene...

Yesterday on WNYC-FM's Brian Lehrer Show, Gwyneth Cravens, author of Power to Save the World: The Truth about Nuclear Energy , made a joint appearance with Jim Riccio, Nuclear Policy Analyst for Greenpeace . Normally, I'd suggest that you take a listen, but given the fact that Riccio spent most of the interview talking over Cravens and not letting her get a word in edgewise, I'm afraid there's not much to recommend it. However, there was one point of contention between the two guests that I think bears closer examination. At one point during the interview, Cravens made the point that there hasn't been any other core meltdowns of a commercial nuclear reactor in the U.S., at which point Riccio started berating Cravens about Fermi 2, and how she should have read a book by John G. Fuller called We Almost Lost Detroit concerning the accident. Fermi 2 is a 1,098 MWe General Electric boiling water reactor owned by DTE Energy and currently still in operation. There has ...