Lost in President Obama’s rhetoric that the science is settled on climate change, the president is willing to shut down Yucca Mountain without scientific justification. Today, the Department of Energy (DOE) filed to withdraw the application for the geologic repository Yucca Mountain that was supposed to begin collecting used fuel in 1998. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 set January 31, 1998, as the deadline for the federal government to begin disposing of used fuel. More than a decade after the deadline, the government has still not settled on …
The Heritage Foundation’s stance against expanding subsidies for nuclear energy has once again been manipulated by the anti-nuclear crowd to infer that we are anti-nuclear. This time, Harvey Wasserman on The Huffington Post wrote that Heritage, along with some other groups, believe that nuclear energy is “too expensive to matter.” To be clear: We are not anti-nuclear. The Heritage Foundation has written in study after study over the past three years that we not only believe that nuclear energy can be a critical part of America’s energy future but that …
Facing new polling showing that 52% of the American people believe that he does not deserve a second term in office, President Barack Obama attempted to reach out to conservatives yesterday by promising $8.33 billion in federal loan guarantees for a pair of nuclear reactors in Georgia. The President told an enthusiastic audience of union officials in Lanham, MD: “Those who have long advocated for nuclear power — including many Republicans — have to recognize that we will not achieve a big boost in nuclear capacity unless we also create …
President Obama announced $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees today to commence projection construction on two nuclear reactors in Burke County, Georgia. This is good news. Congress has authorized $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear energy projects under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which also provided other subsidies for nuclear power to help mitigate the effect of decades of regulatory risk for approximately the first six nuclear reactors built in the U.S. While the administration should be applauded for finally getting this program off the ground and getting …
The Department of Energy finally announced the formation of its blue-ribbon commission on nuclear waste. The commission, co-chaired by former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft has been charged with reviewing the nation’s nuclear waste policies and providing recommendations for moving forward. If carried out properly, the commission could provide an historic opportunity, helping the U.S. set a new approach for managing its nuclear waste. Despite the broad support that nuclear energy currently enjoys, until the nation comes up with an economically rational and sustainable …
Yesterday the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment unanimously approved legislation to ban the importation of foreign radioactive waste for disposal in the U.S. Congressman Bart Gordon (D-TN) introduced H.R. 515: Radioactive Import Deterrence Act in January of 2009 and the bill could soon be up for a vote in the House of Representatives. The full committee will vote on the bill tomorrow with a full House at some future point after that. When the subcommittee approved the legislation Gordon said, We’re the only …
Relying heavily on the slots and roulette tables to bring in revenue, it’s no surprise this recession hit Nevada’s economy especially hard: The Silver State’s unemployment rose to 12.5 percent in July, while joblessness in especially hard-hit Las Vegas surged to 13.1 percent. It’s the highest jobless rate both statewide and locally since the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation began tracking data in 1976. Bill Anderson, chief economist with the employment department, said Nevada remains mired in the longest, deepest recession since World War II, and recent labor-market …
Speaking at a Congressional hearing in support of a massive, costly energy bill that would attempt to slow global warming by reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, Al Gore likened climate change legislation to some of the largest events in U.S. history: I believe this legislation has the moral significance equivalent to that of the civil rights legislation of the 1960’s and the Marshall Plan of the late 1940’s. I am here today to lend my support to one of the most important pieces of legislation ever introduced …
What’s one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. When it comes to nuclear waste, where the government sees a problem, Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions sees a dollar sign. And what’s best is that the government can’t stop them: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says it doesn’t have the authority to prevent foreign radioactive waste from being imported into the United States. The NRC wrote in an April 9 letter to Reps. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) and Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) that the Atomic Energy Act doesn’t distinguish between domestic and foreign waste. The …
In economics, one of the first lessons is that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But what the federal government has been doing to the nuclear energy industry and the nuclear energy ratepayers is just about the closest one can get to a free lunch. Charged with managing nuclear waste in the United States, the federal government has not collected one atom of spent nuclear fuel. Instead, the government has collected a whole lot of money. About $30 billion from U.S. nuclear-power ratepayers. Fed up, states governments are …
