NEI Nuclear Notes

We’d be remiss not to note an exceptionally good op-ed from NEI’s President and CEO, Marv Fertel, over at the Hill . He actually returns focus to the energy bill, which has been hibernating after passing the House while health care took center stage, and proposes some ideas that bolster the nuclear energy industry without breaking the bank at Monte Carlo. The timing’s about right – energy will return to view in the next few weeks – so let’s look at the bullet points: • Ensure that the volume of loan guarantees available for new reactors is comparable to other carbon-free electricity sources and refining the Department of Energy loan guarantee program in key areas that are slowing implementation of the program; • Provide new tax stimulus for investment in new nuclear energy facilities, new nuclear component manufacturing and workforce development; • Expand the existing production tax credit to all new reactors that produce electricity by 2021; • Reduce the time to mark...

Rasmussen and Zogby both have polls out that aim to figure out how Americans feel about the climate change legislation travelling through Congress. If Rasmussen happened to call you, you were in a bad mood : In late June, Rasmussen Reports surveyed 1000 adults. The poll showed that only 12% of respondents were strongly in favor, while 25% were strongly opposed. And 42% said that the measure would hurt the economy, while only 19% said it would help. And you were much happier when Zogby caught up with you: Now comes a competing poll from Zogby, which presents a far different picture. In this poll, a stunning 45% of the 1005 respondents were strongly in favor of the climate bill. Only 19% strongly opposed it. What does this mean? Well, Business Week’s John Carey thinks that Zogby put the most positive spin possible on their questions while Rasmussen aimed at “objectivity” – good luck on that one! Carey concludes that “the public really doesn’t yet know what to think....

The Washington Times, which acts in DC as a counterweight to the more liberal (and far more influential) Washington Post, writes today about a report (the full report in PDF) from the Energy Information Administration on the Waxman Markey climate change bill. For the nuclear industry, its conclusions are pretty spectacular, especially since EIA’s reports are heavily referenced in Congress and help set energy policy. We’ve been reading through it – it’s pretty deep dish – but the bottom line is that nuclear energy – well, let’s let the Times tell you : To satisfy House Democrats' low-cost solution to global warming, Americans would have to double their reliance on nuclear energy by 2030 - a target the nuclear industry says is unlikely and that many environmentalists and Democrats dislike. Now, you might say, Hey, that second part isn’t so good. If we leave out environmentalists for the moment – so predictable, so useful to reporters - the point here is really that a bran...

The Senate Environment and Public Works committee took up the energy bill this morning and honed in quickly on nuclear energy – honed in on it so insistently, in fact, that if President Barack Obama really wants bipartisan support for the bill – which squeaked by in the House – speaking out for a more prominent role for nuclear energy might be a way to achieve it. But Republicans, as we’ll see, were not the only ones positively focused on nuclear. The panel included Energy Secretary Steven Chu, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The latter two became a little stranded with only a few questions asked of them, especially Salazar, but these hearings tend to go where they will. Let’s start with opening statements from the committee members and our old friend, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.): “Why are we ignoring the cheap energy solution to global warming, which is nuclear energy. If what we're really intereste...

Today sees the vote in the House on the Clean Energy and Security Act, aka Waxman-Markey aka the climate change bill, likely to be a very near thing on a very tight vote margin. As you might imagine, this is last ditch time for those who want the bill and those who don’t. Greenpeace says no : Since the Waxman-Markey bill left the Energy and Commerce committee, yet another fleet of industry lobbyists has weakened the bill even more, and further widened the gap between what Waxman-Markey does and what science demands. As a result, Greenpeace opposes this bill in its current form. Which sounds to us like Greenpeace’s lobbyists need a good talking-to. Heritage’s Ben Lieberman says no : Inflicting economic pain is what this is all about. That is how the ever-tightening emissions targets will be met. Well, it probably isn’t about inflicting pain. The goal would seem to be to avoid inflicting pain. The New York Times is going for yes : The bill...

We haven’t been the happiest persons on our increasingly watery planet with the Waxman-Markey energy bill, but neither have we been the unhappiest. After all, the bill set ambitious targets on greenhouse gas emission reduction and nuclear energy is a sure, even the surest, way to meet those targets. But nuclear energy was a – little – perhaps a bit – unacknowledged in this obvious role. Steve Kirsh in the Huffing Post put it this way : Both Secretary Chu and the President of MIT point out that nuclear has to be a key part of the energy mix going forward. We can't supply all our clean energy needs relying on just renewables. Yet this bill has over 932 pages, and the word "nuclear" only appears twice. That seems pretty odd considering that 70% of our CO2-free power is from nuclear. Even more odd considering we haven't built a new nuclear plant in 30 years and it's still 70% of our clean power! So true. (Kirsh has a lot more to say on this, all on poi...

Hat tip to NNN reader Walker for passing along this Dallas Morning News Editorial that somehow didn't make it into our media clips. From Friday, May 8th: First step toward a balanced energy policy ...The [ Waxman-Markey ] bill is long on environmental policy mandates but short on energy. For instance, there's no mention of nuclear energy in the more than 600 pages, nor does the bill provide critical details about the cap-and-trade mechanism proposed to reduce CO{-2} emissions. [snip] No energy or environmental bill can be complete without a serious and comprehensive strategy to develop nuclear energy, essentially a carbon-free but reliable power source. [ Ed: emphasis added ] U.S. electricity use is projected to increase 45 percent by 2030. This means nuclear and other cleaner energy alternatives are necessary to wean the nation from coal and other fossil fuels, which today account for about 85 percent of U.S. energy production. Congress should not squander an opportunity t...