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Safe, clean nuclear energy

BBC Link

President Obama has announced more than $8bn (£5bn) of federal loan guarantees to help build the first new nuclear power stations in the US for 30 years.

The president said the project would create "thousands of construction jobs over eight years, and then hundreds of well-paid jobs" when the facilities become operational.

Agreed - go nuke!

Yup, it's about time. Worst mistake we made was moving away from nuclear energy so many years ago. It can and is done correct and safely so there's no reason not to do it. France's support of nuclear energy has really helped to make a lot of inroads in how to deal with the waste that is generated from nuclear power as well. Until there's a better option, and we're decades away from one, we should make as much electricity from nuclear power as possible.

This is one good thing about Obama being president. If a Republican suggested this, the left would have blown a gasket.

Baldy wrote:This is one good thing about Obama being president. If a Republican suggested this, the left would have blown a gasket.

Agreed - this had to come from a Democrat. Bush talked about this but it never got anywhere. Of all the things Obama can deliver, I hope this ends up being one of the things he actually does - breaking the logjam from the far left that has stopped this from being a reality for the past 30 years.

I agree with all of the posts above.

Personally I think this is just lip service and he will do nothing to take it any farther but if he does this will be the first thing hes done that will actually create some jobs in this country.

Great, I hope the plans become reality.

ALPHAGRIZ1 wrote:I agree with all of the posts above.

Personally I think this is just lip service and he will do nothing to take it any farther but if he does this will be the first thing hes done that will actually create some jobs in this country.

What else do you want him to do? He's helped a private company finance the building of two plants. Seems like the ball is in the company's court now, isn't it?

ALPHAGRIZ1 wrote:I agree with all of the posts above.

Personally I think this is just lip service and he will do nothing to take it any farther but if he does this will be the first thing hes done that will actually create some jobs in this country.

We'll see how the myriad of government regulations come into play with the construction. It is a good decision but if his government ties this up for years he'll get no credit from me.

I saw the headline 3 or 4 days ago on TheHill and I was very excited. Glad to see we are actually exploring alternative energy that is effective. Germany and Italy have been very successful in using other energy sources and I am glad Obama is not running away from nuclear.

ALPHAGRIZ1 wrote:I agree with all of the posts above.

Personally I think this is just lip service and he will do nothing to take it any farther but if he does this will be the first thing hes done that will actually create some jobs in this country.

It's just lip service at this point. Barry's budget is going to kill Yucca Mtn. We can't keep building nukes if we don't have someplace to store the waste.

HI54UNI wrote:

ALPHAGRIZ1 wrote:I agree with all of the posts above.

Personally I think this is just lip service and he will do nothing to take it any farther but if he does this will be the first thing hes done that will actually create some jobs in this country.

It's just lip service at this point. Barry's budget is going to kill Yucca Mtn. We can't keep building nukes if we don't have someplace to store the waste.

Yucca Mountain was unworkable. There are much better alternatives.

TheDancinMonarch wrote:

ALPHAGRIZ1 wrote:I agree with all of the posts above.

Personally I think this is just lip service and he will do nothing to take it any farther but if he does this will be the first thing hes done that will actually create some jobs in this country.

We'll see how the myriad of government regulations come into play with the construction. It is a good decision but if his government ties this up for years he'll get no credit from me.

Yep, this country is hard to do business in. The taxes, regulations, unions, environmentalists, etc make it very cost effective to open/move a business..............in another country.

I will be shocked if anything is accomplished in any way towards nuclear power. Its just lip service.

Sure he will act like he did all he could but the bottom line is if he doesnt lower taxes on people with money they are not going to invest it into any long term ventures. They will just sit on their money until somebody comes along to do the right thing.

Until then its Hussein Obama crashing the economy until he figures out what anyone that owns a business knows.

ALPHAGRIZ1 wrote:

TheDancinMonarch wrote:
We'll see how the myriad of government regulations come into play with the construction. It is a good decision but if his government ties this up for years he'll get no credit from me.

Yep, this country is hard to do business in. The taxes, regulations, unions, environmentalists, etc make it very cost effective to open/move a business..............in another country.

I will be shocked if anything is accomplished in any way towards nuclear power. Its just lip service.

Sure he will act like he did all he could but the bottom line is if he doesnt lower taxes on people with money they are not going to invest it into any long term ventures. They will just sit on their money until somebody comes along to do the right thing.

Until then its Hussein Obama crashing the economy until he figures out what anyone that owns a business knows.

You can't really blame it on the taxes. Effective rates in the US are lower than almost every single devloped country with some expections for certain industries (e.g. Ireland and the pharma business).

The regulatory system of nuclear power may be a different story, but tax rates won't hold this project back.

^and depending how you organize there are definitely major loopholes in the tax code. I think we can all start to worry when a VAT is passed.

GannonFan wrote:Yup, it's about time. Worst mistake we made was moving away from nuclear energy so many years ago. It can and is done correct and safely so there's no reason not to do it. France's support of nuclear energy has really helped to make a lot of inroads in how to deal with the waste that is generated from nuclear power as well. Until there's a better option, and we're decades away from one, we should make as much electricity from nuclear power as possible.

We needed to move away from nuclear energy as we were doing it then. It wasn't safe and the waste could be enriched to weapons grade stuff. Things are different now and nuclear makes sense as a transitional source.

We could have a better option within one decade if we really wanted to because more energy than we could possibly use strikes the planet every day. I believe that looking back we will see that Obama's biggest mistake was in making health care his first priority. If he had made energy independence, in the form of an Apollo-style crash program, his primary objective, the Republicans would have been forced to cooperate and the savings generated through reduced defense spending alone would have been enough such that every American citizen could enjoy the kind of health care you need to be elected to Congress to receive now.

We went to the moon with less computer power on-board than the average wrist watch has today, we can have solar, wind, and geothermal energy in enough quantity to make us independent of the Saudis, and we can have it soon. Right now we have an energy policy that was written by Enron.

TheDancinMonarch wrote:

ALPHAGRIZ1 wrote:I agree with all of the posts above.

Personally I think this is just lip service and he will do nothing to take it any farther but if he does this will be the first thing hes done that will actually create some jobs in this country.

We'll see how the myriad of government regulations come into play with the construction. It is a good decision but if his government ties this up for years he'll get no credit from me.

I agree with both these sentiments. It's a great idea, but probably lip service, and if not, it'll be 5-10 years before we ever see a company break ground.

Watch the NIMBY's come out of the WOODWORK on this one...

houndawg wrote:

GannonFan wrote:Yup, it's about time. Worst mistake we made was moving away from nuclear energy so many years ago. It can and is done correct and safely so there's no reason not to do it. France's support of nuclear energy has really helped to make a lot of inroads in how to deal with the waste that is generated from nuclear power as well. Until there's a better option, and we're decades away from one, we should make as much electricity from nuclear power as possible.

We needed to move away from nuclear energy as we were doing it then. It wasn't safe and the waste could be enriched to weapons grade stuff. Things are different now and nuclear makes sense as a transitional source.

We could have a better option within one decade if we really wanted to because more energy than we could possibly use strikes the planet every day. I believe that looking back we will see that Obama's biggest mistake was in making health care his first priority. If he had made energy independence, in the form of an Apollo-style crash program, his primary objective, the Republicans would have been forced to cooperate and the savings generated through reduced defense spending alone would have been enough such that every American citizen could enjoy the kind of health care you need to be elected to Congress to receive now.

We went to the moon with less computer power on-board than the average wrist watch has today, we can have solar, wind, and geothermal energy in enough quantity to make us independent of the Saudis, and we can have it soon. Right now we have an energy policy that was written by Enron.

You are living proof that even a broke clock is right twice a day.

houndawg wrote:

GannonFan wrote:Yup, it's about time. Worst mistake we made was moving away from nuclear energy so many years ago. It can and is done correct and safely so there's no reason not to do it. France's support of nuclear energy has really helped to make a lot of inroads in how to deal with the waste that is generated from nuclear power as well. Until there's a better option, and we're decades away from one, we should make as much electricity from nuclear power as possible.

We needed to move away from nuclear energy as we were doing it then. It wasn't safe and the waste could be enriched to weapons grade stuff. Things are different now and nuclear makes sense as a transitional source.

It was never as unsafe as it was made out to be, and walking away from it did little to advance the safety knowledge. What if the world abandoned the use of chemicals after the Bhopal incident in India? Look at the tremendous increase in safety related to the manufacture of chemicals since then. Besides, the French have managed to build nuclear energy safely ever since we let the enviro lobby hijack the rigthful debate over nuclear energy, so we apparently weren't far from getting it right even back then.

houndawg wrote: We could have a better option within one decade if we really wanted to because more energy than we could possibly use strikes the planet every day. I believe that looking back we will see that Obama's biggest mistake was in making health care his first priority. If he had made energy independence, in the form of an Apollo-style crash program, his primary objective, the Republicans would have been forced to cooperate and the savings generated through reduced defense spending alone would have been enough such that every American citizen could enjoy the kind of health care you need to be elected to Congress to receive now.

I agree that Obama made a huge mistake with the health care gambit, but he also dropped the ball with the pork-filled stimulus package he allowed to pass. Basically, letting Congress dictate his agenda has been his biggest faux pas. But an energy independence plan would've been interesting, and probably a lot more stimulating that the pork that we did get. And I agree, the Republicans probably would've been on board with that. Going right away to pork spending and a full-scale revision of health care, in the middle of a horrible recession, and stick with that agenda for a year, was just a terrible mistake.

houndawg wrote: We went to the moon with less computer power on-board than the average wrist watch has today, we can have solar, wind, and geothermal energy in enough quantity to make us independent of the Saudis, and we can have it soon. Right now we have an energy policy that was written by Enron.

Well, I'm not convinced that solar power and wind power are the answers, especially in the short term. Nuclear we could've had for the past 30 years if we had been more sensible in that regard. It's not just the far right that has influenced the energy policy, the far left has done their part as well to get us where we are today. But as for getting to the moon, in reality, that was a very simple thing to do compared with trying to make this country energy independent (which is a bad term anyway - we'll never be completely energy independent anyway, we're always going to want more and the best we can do is reduce our need for energy from outside the US, and frankly, that's not a bad thing - keeping up relations with other countries is certainly worthwhile and beneficial.).

GannonFan wrote:

houndawg wrote:
We needed to move away from nuclear energy as we were doing it then. It wasn't safe and the waste could be enriched to weapons grade stuff. Things are different now and nuclear makes sense as a transitional source.

It was never as unsafe as it was made out to be, and walking away from it did little to advance the safety knowledge. What if the world abandoned the use of chemicals after the Bhopal incident in India? Look at the tremendous increase in safety related to the manufacture of chemicals since then. Besides, the French have managed to build nuclear energy safely ever since we let the enviro lobby hijack the rigthful debate over nuclear energy, so we apparently weren't far from getting it right even back then.

houndawg wrote: We could have a better option within one decade if we really wanted to because more energy than we could possibly use strikes the planet every day. I believe that looking back we will see that Obama's biggest mistake was in making health care his first priority. If he had made energy independence, in the form of an Apollo-style crash program, his primary objective, the Republicans would have been forced to cooperate and the savings generated through reduced defense spending alone would have been enough such that every American citizen could enjoy the kind of health care you need to be elected to Congress to receive now.

I agree that Obama made a huge mistake with the health care gambit, but he also dropped the ball with the pork-filled stimulus package he allowed to pass. Basically, letting Congress dictate his agenda has been his biggest faux pas. But an energy independence plan would've been interesting, and probably a lot more stimulating that the pork that we did get. And I agree, the Republicans probably would've been on board with that. Going right away to pork spending and a full-scale revision of health care, in the middle of a horrible recession, and stick with that agenda for a year, was just a terrible mistake.

houndawg wrote: We went to the moon with less computer power on-board than the average wrist watch has today, we can have solar, wind, and geothermal energy in enough quantity to make us independent of the Saudis, and we can have it soon. Right now we have an energy policy that was written by Enron.

Well, I'm not convinced that solar power and wind power are the answers, especially in the short term. Nuclear we could've had for the past 30 years if we had been more sensible in that regard. It's not just the far right that has influenced the energy policy, the far left has done their part as well to get us where we are today. But as for getting to the moon, in reality, that was a very simple thing to do compared with trying to make this country energy independent (which is a bad term anyway - we'll never be completely energy independent anyway, we're always going to want more and the best we can do is reduce our need for energy from outside the US, and frankly, that's not a bad thing - keeping up relations with other countries is certainly worthwhile and beneficial.).

It could have been much safer. Things like picking a site on top of an earthquake fault, falsifying QA records.....there were plenty of problems, but the most significant was enrichable waste; we could have 30 years worth of that stuff just waiting for somebody to rip off and sell to those with bad intentions. I think we all realize that there is a wide spectrum between complete energy independence (which I think is achievable in time) and being at the mercy of the Saudis and their American proxies. The point is that we are way overdue for getting on that train.

AZGrizFan wrote:

TheDancinMonarch wrote:
We'll see how the myriad of government regulations come into play with the construction. It is a good decision but if his government ties this up for years he'll get no credit from me.

I agree with both these sentiments. It's a great idea, but probably lip service, and if not, it'll be 5-10 years before we ever see a company break ground.

Watch the NIMBY's come out of the WOODWORK on this one...

You won't have to worry about the NIMBY's in this case. Both reactors are going to be built in Georgia at an existing nuclear facility.

dbackjon wrote:

HI54UNI wrote:
It's just lip service at this point. Barry's budget is going to kill Yucca Mtn. We can't keep building nukes if we don't have someplace to store the waste.

Yucca Mountain was unworkable. There are much better alternatives.

Such as? Please elaborate.

The government promised the nuclear industry they were going to take care of the waste and they haven't followed through. Yet the nuclear industry has to jump through every hoop that the feds mandate.

HI54UNI wrote:

dbackjon wrote:
Yucca Mountain was unworkable. There are much better alternatives.

Such as? Please elaborate.

The government promised the nuclear industry they were going to take care of the waste and they haven't followed through. Yet the nuclear industry has to jump through every hoop that the feds mandate.

Nuclear power should be generated on the moon and beamed to Earth as microwaves. Low gravity and no atmosphere means it would be simple to build a magnetic rail gun that could launch the waste into the sun.

Solar power should also be collected in space, eliminating the problem of getting juice after the sun sets.

dbackjon wrote:

HI54UNI wrote:
It's just lip service at this point. Barry's budget is going to kill Yucca Mtn. We can't keep building nukes if we don't have someplace to store the waste.

Yucca Mountain was unworkable. There are much better alternatives.

Baltimore?

I can applaud the heck out of this!!!