NEI Nuclear Notes

The bipartisan push for a nuclear title in the Senate’s climate change bill picked up considerably today: Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) is helping to negotiate a nuclear energy amendment that could help bring aboard swing votes who support the industry. Architects and backers of the nuclear effort include Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who are seeking more federal financial backing and other support. Lieberman caucuses with the Democrats and of course he and Sen. McCain had a go at a climate change bill in the last Congress. Sen. Graham penned with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) the editorial discussed in a post below. You can search for Sen. Carper on this site, too. He’s a pretty reliable advocate for nuclear energy. In other words, this isn’t a remarkably surprising group. What is surprising is that they are crossing the aisle so early and so productively. Carper yesterday declined to endorse the idea that the NRC review proc...

Just in case you thought we’d have to wait a bit for some comment on the Kerry-Boxer climate change bill introduced yesterday, think again. Here’s Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska): “We’ve got to be honest with ourselves if we are truly going to decrease emissions,” Murkowski said.  “Nuclear energy must be a part of our energy mix if we are going to do so.” We guess some of our readers consider that Republican boilerplate, but remember that the bill itself is very friendly in its preamble to nuclear energy. Since Murkowski is on a committee that gets a crack at this – Energy and Natural Resources - look to her (among others, of course) to push for the nuclear imperative. --- And she’s not the only one. Here’s Sen. John McCain (R—Ariz.): The bill introduced Wednesday by Sens. John Kerry , [D-Mass.], and Barbara Boxer , [D-Calif.], has "nothing about nuclear power," McCain complained in the interview, which was part of the "First Draft of History" forum ...

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...

On Monday I posted on the RNC's first TV ad to be released during this presidential campaign. Today, Factcheck.org , the nonpartisan group funded by the Annenberg Public Policy Center , takes a look. An excerpt from their article, " A False Accusation About Energy " No to "Nuclear"? We’ve been through this. Obama has not said a flat-out "no" to nuclear, as the ad claims. Instead he has said he is in favor of nuclear energy if it is clean and safe, saying in his energy plan that "it is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power from the table." But it’s true McCain is more aggressive in his support of nuclear power, giving it a prominent place in his energy plan , with the goal of creating 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 and as many as 100 total. Obama’s energy plan contains no such initiative.

As an admitted media-obsessed political junkie, I enjoy watching any political ad; if there were campaign ads out there by candidates running for dog catcher, I'd probably watch 'em. With advertising budgets a bit bigger and the stakes a whole lot larger, the presidential campaign ads are, for me, must-see viewing. The first RNC TV spot to be released , " Balance ," has really caught my eye. Perhaps it was just pure nostalgia - that 1970's Social Studies class filmstrip aesthetic really took me back. (Here's a helpful Wiki link to " Filmstrip " for those under the age of 30.) More likely it was the ad's claim that Obama has said "No to Nuclear Power." The creators cite a Newton, Iowa Town Hall event from Dec. 31, 2007 as the source for quotation. A couple of quibbles: the event happened on Dec. 30th , not the 31st. More significantly, the full transcript shows Obama supporting nuclear energy at the end of his response to the questione...

After you've read the John McCain quote in the post below, you may  wonder if, by proposing to put used nuclear fuel, including that of the United States, into some kind of international repository, he is falling prey to the worst NIMBY argument imaginable or acknowledging that other countries, notably Russia, have offered to serve as just such a repository. Frankly, we don't know, but his comments did highlight the NIMBY issues that can infect any effort, however benign it might otherwise seem. Take, for example, wind power, which doesn't generate anything that needs to be recycled or stored but does require expansive land masses on which to plant windmills . Artist Grahame Sydney yesterday said nuclear power in New Zealand was preferable to a huge wind farm on the Lammermoor Range in Central Otago. Well, we can't fault Mr. Sydney for bad taste in energy choices. Let's see what else he has to say: "If given the option between 176 turbines on the...

In a New York Times Editorial running this morning, The Post-Bush Climate , we find this nugget, His [McCain] plan differs in other respects, too. He decided at the last minute to delete from his speech a proposed tariff on countries like India and China that defy international agreements on emissions, partly because the tariff could be misconstrued as hostile to free trade, which Mr. McCain supports. The Senate bill contains such a provision. Meanwhile, Mr. McCain is much more enthusiastic, and in our view rightly so, about nuclear energy as a cleaner power source than the Senate sponsors or the two Democratic presidential candidates are. Since 2005, we've been running a feature on this blog titled, " Another Blogger for Nuclear Energy ." Perhaps it's time to start "Another Editorial Board for Nuclear Energy." Welcome aboard, NYT.

It's been a good few months for Carly Fiorina ; the once- embattled former president and CEO of Hewlett-Packard is now an advisor and leading surrogate for the McCain presidential campaign. Fiorina has recently been mentioned as a possible running mate with Senator McCain. Today she appeared in the "B" segment on ABC's This Week . Here she is on McCain and nuclear energy, There's no question that Senator McCain has said over and over again that we have to incent innovation. So that we are building these new green technologies. We have to incent innovation around things like clean coal. And by the way, we also have to incent innovation around nuclear power. Which is clean. It's abundant. Yes, there are issues. But nuclear power, if we would step up, and adopt nuclear power in this country, that's potentially many millions of jobs. Note : Transcript is not yet available. Quotation appears at 3:43 in the video clip .

Reuters is running an article today, Nuclear energy heats up US presidential campaign , that provides a handy one-pager on the candidates and their support for nuclear energy. John McCain embraces it. Barack Obama wants to address its flaws. Hillary Clinton is cautious but not opposed. Nuclear power—controversial in the United States and throughout much of the world—is on the agenda of all three U.S. presidential candidates as they seek to diversify the country's energy mix and reduce dependence on foreign oil. Interviews with top policy advisers to the three White House hopefuls reveal a varied approach to the technology that some observers see as a necessary answer to fighting climate change and others view as expensive and dangerous. Update : Reuters has published a sidebar, Factbox , presenting each candidate's positions in more detail.

The Wall Street Journal's blog provided some insights on where the three presidential candidates stand on nuclear power. McCain: Douglas Holtz-Eakin, policy director for Sen. McCain, said nukes can’t be left out . ‘The Senate Majority leader is the problem—we have Yucca Mountain [storage facility], we have the technology. I can’t see why we don’t take advantage of that,” he said. Clinton: Gene Sperling, chief economic adviser for Sen. Clinton and a veteran of the other Clinton White House, made it clear that New York’s junior senator “ does not embrace nuclear power ,” for a host of reasons ranging from Yucca Mountain’s uncertain storage to worries over nuclear proliferation. She doesn’t want to take nuclear power—which accounts for 20% of U.S. electricity—“off the table,” she just doesn’t want to see any more of the stuff until it dies of natural causes, he said. Obama: Jason Grumet, Sen. Obama’s energy adviser, appeared to leave the door cracked open—at first . “We have to over...

From the AP : Republican presidential hopeful John McCain says the United States needs to reduce its dependence on troubled parts of the world for oil. McCain told about 200 people at the Center for Hydrogen Research in Aiken Monday the United States should look to hydrogen and nuclear power as alternatives. The Arizona senator says more nuclear power has been stymied by politics. He says an endless political fight over the storage of old nuclear fuel has made it virtually impossible to build a new plant. McCain called nuclear energy safe and non-polluting.

Senator John McCain is on the campaign trail in New Hampshire talking about energy and the environment : A key way to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, he said, would be to increase the use of nuclear power. When asked after the forum how he proposed to dispose of high level nuclear waste, McCain said, "My preference is that we store it. I always thought that Yucca Mountain was the right place to do it." "It's not a problem of technology. It's a problem of political will. We have now the worst of all worlds, because we have nuclear waste sites around every nuclear power plant in America, which provides us with the greatest challenge to our security," he said. "So I would try and resolve it and I would try to go back and revisit the Yucca Mountain issue, but I would do everything in my power to resolve it." The Senator has been pretty consistent on this issue for some time now:

Here's another YouTube find: Representatives from the Presidential campaigns of Senator Barack Obama, Senator John Edwards, Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Senator John McCain all addressing where nuclear energy fits into their vision for future energy policy . The following was shot earlier this week at the National Press Club: Thanks to Climate Progress for the pointer.

Advanced Nanotechnology takes a harder look at S.280.

Details from the Phoenix Business Journal .

Bull Dog Pundit, one of the contributors to the popular Ankle Biting Pundits , has some specific problems with Senator John McCain's position on energy policy in general , and a few concerning nuclear energy in particular: Like McCain, I’m all for more nuclear power. However, here’s the problem I see with that. There hasn ’t been a nuclear power plant built in the United States for decades. The reason? Well, for one they cost a great deal of money, but in terms of the long-terms cost savings it’s well worth the price. The other big problem with building nuke plants is that the government has so regulated the industry, that it makes it nearly impossible to get one built. Further, lawsuits by environmental groups can delay the start of construction for years. Even a site that gets the initial permit from the NRC can take decades to be built, even assuming no opposition. So what that means is that while the stated goal of greater reliance on nuclear energy is great in theory, the real...