NEI Nuclear Notes

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) unveiled the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2012 today to steer the country in a direction of reducing overall carbon emissions. The bill aims for large power companies to begin increasing their electricity output from low-carbon sources like wind, solar, nuclear energy and natural gas by 2015, with the overall goal of producing 84 percent of their overall electricity from low-carbon sources by 2035. The chairman explains : “The goal of the CES is ambitious – a doubling of clean energy by 2035. But analysis has shown that the goal is also achievable and affordable. Meeting the CES will yield substantial benefits to our health, our economy, our global competitiveness and our economy,” Bingaman said. A fact sheet on the bill says the CES will only apply to retail utilities, not small utilities, and will be measured by the number of credits given to generators of clean energy. In other words, the higher th...

The most striking element (from an energy perspective, certainly) of the State of the Union speech was President Barack Obama’s embrace of a clean energy standard. Recognizing that nuclear energy and natural gas can play significant roles in carbon emission reduction took the idea mainstream whereas it had previously been of interest mostly to energy wonks and policymakers. The change has been noticed. Here’s the Washington Post : The first is establishing a clean-energy standard expected to require that American utilities derive a certain amount of the electricity they provide from clean sources - the president mentioned 80 percent by 2035. Last year, Democrats opposed including nuclear energy or natural gas in that mix; Tuesday night, Mr. Obama included both. The Post really isn’t right that Democrats opposed nuclear energy. There was no clean energy standard bill last year and Democrats were not opposed to including nuclear in such a mix. Both major bills in the House (Wa...

This comment from President Barack Obama struck us as a little odd: He said Congress needs to pass a bill that includes Republican preferences such as incentives for nuclear energy and "clean coal" technology, as well as Democratic proposals for incentives to develop alternative energy sources like solar, biodiesel and geothermal energy. "I think that on energy, there should be a bipartisan agreement that we have to take a both/and approach rather than either/or approach," Mr. Obama said. Obama usually seems exceptionally clued in on partisan premises, but we’re not sure we’d divide the Republican and Democratic energy preferences this way – this formulation seems left over from the 70s. We think Congress has demonstrated a fairly comprehensive embrace of clean air technology regardless of party affiliation. Maybe the comment seems odd given the President’s own touting of nuclear energy during the State of the Union. Obama usually has this about righ...