McCain Advocates Nuclear Energy
Posted June 17th, 2008 at 8.37pm in Energy and Environment.
John McCain delivered his energy and climate speech this afternoon in Houston, and he rightly espoused policies to commence offshore drilling and significantly expand domestic nuclear capacity. As he stressed the difficulty of addressing climate change, he made a compelling case for building new commercial nuclear plants:
In Europe and elsewhere, they have been expanding their use of nuclear energy. But we’ve waited so long that we’ve lost our domestic capability to even build these power plants. Nuclear power is among the surest ways to gain a clean, abundant, and stable energy supply, as other nations understand. One nation today has plans to build almost 50 new reactors by 2020. Another country plans to build 26 major nuclear stations. A third nation plans to build enough nuclear plants to meet one quarter of all the electricity needs of its people — a population of more than a billion people. Those three countries are China, Russia, and India. And if they have the vision to set and carry out great goals in energy policy, then why don’t we?”
He also criticized Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for not supporting new nuclear plants. The numbers McCain spoke of certainly are not unrealistic for the United States, and there are a number of policy implementations that can move nuclear power in the right direction. Especially if constraining carbon is a policy objective, a broad nuclear expansion is critical to mitigate the economic effects of a cap-and-trade bill.
As Heritage Research Fellow Jack Spencer illustrates, there are a number of free-market steps to take in order to create a sustained reemergence of nuclear energy. These steps will ensure that not just a handful of reactors are built in the next decade, but that nuclear power has an opportunity to succeed long-term.
- Author: Nick Loris
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June 18, 2008 Rod Adams writes:
Senator McCain should recall that there is at least one sector of the American nuclear industry that kept building and refining its designs. His former employer, the US Navy, has purchased at least one reactor every other year for the past 20 or so years.
Commercial ships used to be a strength of the American economy, but we lost our relative advantage in shipbuilding. Perhaps we could combine our expertise in nuclear ship propulsion with the remaining capability that we have to restore our shipyards to world wide prominence.
There would certainly be an investment required, but considering the fact that a large commercial vessel can burn between $500,000 and $1 million worth of oil every day at current prices, there is plenty of room for the possibility of major returns on that investment. (The fuel for a nuclear plant large enough to power that same ship would cost about $30,000 per day.)
Then there is the emissions advantage to consider - a study release late last year computed that ships - which often burn high sulfur, residual oil - contribute to the early death from air pollution of 60,000 people every year.