McCain Wants 45 New Nuclear Reactors and Clean Coal
For a lot of years, I’ve respected and admired Arizona Senator John McCain, and even though he is a Republican, he seemed to be more moderate than his right-wing compatriots.
That changed today when I read that he has proposed construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030. Adding insult to injury, he told a Missouri State University audience that he’d pledge $2 billion a year in federal funds to make clean coal a reality. All in the name of reducing dependence on foreign oil and fostering a cleaner environment.
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Here we go again with the nuclear crap
He tells the worn out tale of reactors being clean and non-polluting.
Interestingly, and certainly not surprisingly, he didn’t mention anything about cleaning up the messes left by earlier uranium mining. Nor did he propose on how to get rid of, store, neutralize or make safe, the huge stockpile of nuclear waste piling up every day. And let’s not forget the environmental damage to be done by mining more uranium to feed those reactors. He gave that subject the same brush-off every nuclear energy proponent does, with the statement that more needs to be done to safely transport and store spent materials.
Don’t let anyone try to tell you the in-situ leaching process is environmentally clean. Being an underground process, it has, under certain conditions, the ability to contaminate ground water.
45 more reactors and “clean coal”, what a wonderful promise for our future.
Image: www.scoop.co.nz
In another group I belong to we are having a similar discussion. One of the participants posted the following:
“”Since my firm is active in this space, I will through my opinion in, which will surely upset some of you and generate some hate mail. Solar and wind are only financially viable and environmentally sound when they are home based, i.e. solar panels on your roof, windmill in your backyard (not kidding). In fact, that by far is the best solution to limiting the fossil fuel situation in regards to electricity production. However, government and the utilities are scared to death we will all put solar panels on our roof. Why you ask, good question. These systems have you putting energy into the grid when it is sunny and/or windy and only drawing out when it is not. In sunny and or windy areas, you could end up knocking 50% to 90% of your bill off. What that means is that the utility companies would not be charging you for that power and the government would not be taxing you for that power. If instead, they mandate 20% renewable energy with a set implementation deadline like in CA, the price of the energy becomes irrelevant and your energy costs will skyrocket, with energy producers, utilities, and the government laughing all the way to the bank. Every study I have seen says that electricity prices will go up 20% to 40% in the next couple years for this reason in CA. That does not even factor in all the infrastructure damage to the environment including transmission lines across national forests, etc. that would need to be built for solar farms, wind farms, etc. The technology of the home based applications is advancing, free from government interference, very rapidly. This will be financially viable for most people if the government does not block it. Please note this is just a thumbnail of the situation and I don’t have time to get into a lengthy give and take on this, but trust me gas prices is just the first wave of our self induced energy shock that we will have to endure. However, as Americans, we always have and always will overcome the incompetence of our government in may areas. We will survive, and some of us prosper.
Sincerely,
L.S.
Pasadena & Phoenix”"
Now, please don’t post your “hate mail” to him here, as he likely will not see it, and I do agree with what he is saying 100%, so you may want to post it here after all, just direct it to me…
Greasemonkey, you should find better sources of information. Political groups with an anti-nuclear bent won’t tell you the truth.
1) The subject of subsidies is sorely abused. Things that aren’t subsidies at all are attributed to nuclear. In fact, all energy sources get subsidies, even coal. For more on this topic, please see this.
2) No one is going to argue against conservation. Still, after we’ve conserved as much as we’re going to we still have to generate electricity. Furthermore, one of the most effective things we can do to reduce CO2 emissions is to convert fossil-fuel applications to electricity (battery-powered cars, for example).
3) Uranium mining requires petrofuel the same as almost everything else that moves. As we move to alternative fuels uranium mining will make the same transition. Meanwhile the supply of uranium and thorium will last thousands of years and advanced-fuel cycles multiply the supply to many thousands of years.
4) People have been tinkering with concentrated solar for decades and it still isn’t practical. Moreover, it requires clear skies to operate at all. Even in the Southwest US you can go days at a time without clear skies. We can’t run an economy on an energy source that’s only occasionally available.
5) In the long term, at which point analysts predict the population will top out at 9+ billion, the only option that makes sense is the widest range of choices possible. In the very long term, that range ought to include fusion and synthetic motor fuels.
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