NEI Nuclear Notes

NEI has been supportive of the US-India nuclear trade agreement and worked to help it along its winding trail through the international and national thickets where it could. The Indians have noticed this, as this story from NDTV demonstrates: Nuclear Energy Institute, the policy arm of US nuclear energy industry, has welcomed the Congressional ratification of the historic US India Civilian Nuclear Cooperation Agreement and said that it has the potential to strengthen the American economy. "The agreement holds the potential to strengthen the US economy while fostering within India increased use of nuclear energy to cleanly provide the reliable electricity that is so vital in modern society," said Frank Bowman, president and chief executive of the Nuclear Energy Institute. ...  [NEI] was part of the US nuclear industry delegation, which visited India last year to have a preliminary round of talks with the Indian Government officials and also the private...

Kirk Sorensen has the story : The following legislation has been introduced in the US Senate today by Senator Orrin Hatch and Senator Harry Reid: A BILL To amend the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to provide for thorium fuel cycle nuclear power generation. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the "Thorium Energy Independence and Security Act of 2008". SEC. 2. FINDINGS. Congress finds that— (1) the United States and foreign countries will require massive and increasing quantities of energy during the 20-year period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act to support economic growth; (2) nuclear power provides energy without generating unacceptable quantities of greenhouse gasses; (3) the generation of nuclear power in the United States and many foreign countries has been discouraged by concerns regarding—(A) the proliferation of weapons-useable material;...

If you watched last night's VP candidate debate hoping to hear a discussion about nuclear energy in the U.S., you were a little disappointed. Indeed, the only mention of the issue came during this exchange between Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin over climate change. Biden : Well, I think it is manmade. I think it's clearly manmade. And, look, this probably explains the biggest fundamental difference between John McCain and Barack Obama and Sarah Palin and Joe Biden -- Gov. Palin and Joe Biden. If you don't understand what the cause is, it's virtually impossible to come up with a solution. We know what the cause is. The cause is manmade. That's the cause. That's why the polar icecap is melting. Now, let's look at the facts. We have 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. We consume 25 percent of the oil in the world. John McCain has voted 20 times in the last decade-and-a-half against funding alternative energy sources, clean energy sources, wind, sol...

We always found at least one aspect of Soviet culture amusing and that was its tendency to use the most muscular language imaginable to make its points. "Cast off your chains," "Proletarians of all nations, unite," and our favorite, "Let live forever in the people's memory the unparalleled achievement of the Leninist guard of October." Piquant, yet slightly salty - makes you want to beat up a landlord or something. So while roaming around the Web to see how Indian newspapers were responding to the news of the US-India nuclear agreement, this popped right out: "India is committing to buy a minimum 10,000 MW from the dying US nuclear industry, which has not received any new order for the last 30 years." True, not as pithy as Let live forever, etc. but that "dying U.S. nuclear industry" seemed familiar. "Dying" was a big go-to word for Soviets when describing the west in general and the U.S. specifically - along with ...

Google.org (not the Google.com everyone is familiar with) just released a plan "to wean the U.S. off of coal and oil for electricity generation by 2030." I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with their plan because even though nuclear power is somewhat a part of it, Google doesn't give nuclear power much consideration. What's their plan? In order to achieve much of their goal, Google.org calculates that the U.S. should build 380 gigawatts (GW) of wind, 250 GW of solar and 80 GW of geothermal by 2030. This is a total of 710 GW of renewable capacity which would generate 56% of the country's electricity. As well, efficiency is projected to reduce electricity demand 33% by 2030 while plug-in vehicles increase demand by 8%. Their plan will supposedly cost a total of $4.4 trillion while saving $5.4 trillion through efficiency gains and avoided fossil-fuel use. The efficiency and renewable capacities alone are estimated to cost nearly $2.5 trillion. What do the nu...

Friends of the Earth , a grassroots environmental activist organization, has initiated a new national ad campaign focused on nuclear energy. Against the backdrop of the nation’s banking crisis, the campaign alleges that the Energy Department’s federal loan guarantee program will necessitate a “preemptive government bailout” for the nuclear energy industry. The campaign kicked off with a YouTube ad claiming that federal loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants will risk billions of taxpayer dollars on projects that have a 50 percent default rate. The ad likens this potential “bailout” to the proposed $700 billion rescue package being considered by Congress to alleviate the financial stress caused by the subprime mortgage crisis. What our Friends don’t mention is that the loan guarantee program is not just for nuclear power – in fact, the program allows DOE to grant federal loan guarantees to all projects that avoid, reduce or sequester greenhouse gas emissions by employing a new...

The McCain campaign press office has just released this statement, "Yesterday, the U.S. Congress passed legislation clearing the way for the U.S.-India Civil-Nuclear Agreement to come into force. Governor Palin and I congratulate the Congress on moving this important legislation forward. India has been a responsible democracy and this agreement allows it to become further integrated into the global effort to control proliferation of dangerous technologies. The agreement will also allow the U.S. and India to cooperate in taking maximum advantage of new technologies that can provide energy without relying on greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels. "Our friendship with India is rooted in the norms and values we hold in common with the great democracies of Asia. Indian Prime Minister Singh has called liberal democracy 'the natural order of social and political organization in today's world.' When Governor Palin met with Prime Minister Singh in New York last week, they o...