By Ravi Bhatia – Talk Radio News Service

In a news conference Monday, Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) introduced their alternative to the Kerry-Boxer climate bill. The “Clean Energy Act of 2009” would allocate $100 billion in loans for technology-neutral, carbon-free electricity over the next 20 years, with the goal of doubling nuclear production during that time.

The legislation would invest $1 billion over five years on enabling the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review new nuclear reactor designs. Hitachi and General Electric are two companies that have worked on a design that would create reactors that use fewer pumps and would cut the construction time of a nuclear power plant to 42 months.

Both senators argued that their bill could easily attract bipartisan support, unlike the cap and trade plan, which they said encourages the outsourcing of American jobs. Webb said he was particularly concerned with the complexity of cap and trade, claiming that that there is “no way to fully measure [its] potential impact on the economy.”

“[Our bill] is measurable, achievable, targeted,” Webb said.

While the Webb-Alexander bill primarily focuses on nuclear energy, it would also fund what Alexander calls five “Mini-Manhattan Projects,” which would invest in clean coal, advanced biofuels, advanced batteries, solar power, and nuclear fuel recycling.

Webb, whose opposition to the Kerry-Boxer legislation is a serious blow to the oft-debated bill, said that he and Alexander would continue to oppose it even if their legislation was included.

International attorney Robert Amsterdam says that most Brazilians he spoke with during his recent visit to that country expressed outrage over the fact that their President, Luiz Lula, has embraced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a nuclear energy trading partner. Ahmadinejad will visit Brazil next month. Lula is expected to visit Iran sometime thereafter. (:26)

 

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By Ravi Bhatia, Talk Radio News Service

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed Friday the U.S agenda for the upcoming United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), touching on issues such as the Obama administration’s missile defense strategy, the conflict in the Middle East, nuclear proliferation and the threat posed by Iran.

While she read her speech at the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C., she discussed the “ambitious” intentions of the Obama administration at next week’s UNGA in New York, and alluded to a long term goal of a world “with no nuclear weapons.” While fielding questions, she reflected on the state of American foreign policy today.

“For many years, [the U.S] outsourced our policy and concerns about the nuclear program to others to try to intervene with and persuade Iran to change course,” she said. “So we were on the sidelines…we were just trying to figure out how to get other people to go on the field and deal with this problem and look where we are today. We’re really nowhere.”

Clinton also discussed the Obama administration’s missile defense strategy, which was retooled to focus on defending the United States and its allies in Europe from short and mid-range missile attacks. The strategy rejects the Bush administration’s plan to station interceptors in the Czech Republic and Poland that were intended to stop long-range missiles that the current administration believes Iran does not have. Since Poland and the Czech Republic will no longer have land-based interceptors, the new plan eases pressure on Russia, displeasing some Republican members of Congress upon Obama’s announcement of the strategy on Thursday.

“This decision was not about Russia,” she said. “It was about Iran and the threat its ballistic missile program poses. Because of this position, we believe we will be in a far stronger position to deal with that threat and to do so with technology that works and a higher degree of confidence that what we pledge to do we can actually deliver.”

She later discussed Iran and the repercussions the country must face for not revealing its intentions to the international community for nuclear technology.

“Our concern is not Iran’s right to develop peaceful nuclear energy, but its responsibility to demonstrate that it’s program is intended exclusively for peaceful purposes,” she said. “This is not hard to do. The Iranian government seeks a sense of justice in the world, but stands in the way of the justice it seeks.”

In response to a question from Brookings Institute President Strobe Talbott, Clinton also discussed the U.S. government’s strategy for restructuring the country’s health care policy.

“It’s interesting that what we are proposing is fundamentally so conservative compared with so many of our friends and allies around the world, who do a much better job then we do in covering everybody and keeping costs down,” Clinton said. “And yet some of the political opposition is so overheated. We have to calm down here, take two aspirin, go to bed, think about it in the morning. But I’m optimistic.”

Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) says that the United States needs leadership from the President in order to promote nuclear energy (0:30).

 

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By Sam Wechsler- Talk Radio News Service

Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) announced Monday his plan to build 100 new nuclear power plants in the next 20 years in order to create jobs, clean the air, and solve global warming. His blueprint is part of Senate Republicans’ fourfold plan for more clean energy: 100 new nuclear power plants, electric cars and trucks, offshore exploration of natural gas and oil, and doubling energy research and development to make renewable energy affordable.

Alexander criticized the Waxman-Markey Bill by saying, “What started out as an effort to address global warming by reducing carbon emissions has ended up as a contraption of taxes and mandates that will impose a huge and unnecessary burden on the economy.”

Alexander expects the 100 nuclear reactors to cost $700 billion in total, less than the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act cost. He also expects almost all of the money to come from private investment, some from foreign governments and manufacturers. Only the first dozen reactors would be with government money via loan guarantees, which would cost taxpayers no money at all.

He believes that nuclear energy is the best option for clean energy, partially due to its lack of interference with the ecosystem. “The great American outdoors is a revered part of the American character. We’ve spent a century preserving it; there is no need to destroy the environment in the name of saving the environment,” he said. The Senator later argued that a one square mile nuclear power plant would produce the same amount of energy as a 30 square mile solar plant, or 270 square miles of 50 story wind turbines.

According to Alexander, an exaggerated fear of nuclear technology and a failure to appreciate the density of its energy are holding back nuclear energy’s progression.

“Nuclear power is the obvious first step to a policy of clean and low-cost energy,” said Alexander.

Members of the Senate Republican Conference have adopted the challenge of creating 100 new nuclear plants in the United States in the next 20 years. The main objective of the proposal is to produce more American energy while using less.

“If climate change is the inconvenient problem of the day, then nuclear power is the inconvenient answer,” said U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Senate Republican Conference Chairman.

Alexander said it is “hard to imagine” why the most urgent solution would not be how to produce more nuclear energy in the next 20 years. He said without nuclear power, the U.S. would not have a chance of a clean air economy.

David Blee, executive director of the U.S. Transport Council, discussed the building process of the 100 new nuclear plants. There is currently only one nuclear energy plant under construction in the United States, TVA’s Watts Bar unit 2.

Blee said that nuclear energy is the “most potent clean energy baseload power option, the most powerful stimulator of jobs per megawatt and enjoys record performance reliability, safety, economics and strong public support.”

However, nuclear energy was removed from the stimulus package and there is not a nuclear title in the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s recently passed clean energy bill.

“To me this is almost a P.R. situation. I don’t think Americans are aware of the potential associated with nuclear power.” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Sharon Squassoni, a senior associate in the Nonproliferation Program, explains the conflicts of replacing oil dependency with nuclear energy.

 

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“Nuclear energy is not just another way to boil water,” said Charles
Ferguson, Phillip D. Reed senior fellow for science and technology at
the Council on Foreign Relations. Ferguson was part of a panel at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace discussion addressing
concerns about the “Nuclear Renaissance” being “glamorized” in the
next administration.

Sharon Squassoni, a senior associate in the Nonproliferation Program,
said, “to reduce dependency on foreign oil, nuclear power is not the
way… Nuclear energy only produces electricity, for now. This
inherently limits its ability to substitute for oil. In the U.S., oil
is only used for about 1.6 percent of electricity generation. When you
look at oil producing nations in the Middle East, a lot more of their
electricity generation comes from oil—it’s about in the 30 percent
range.”

Squassoni argued that in order to pursue nuclear energy, we’ll have to
live with foreign dependence. Squassoni said this is due to “the
location of uranium and the structure of nuclear fuel supply. It’s not
just uranium mining and milling. Its conversion, fuel fabrication, and
enrichment, so the structure of the nuclear supply industry is very
much concentrated in a hand full of suppliers. ”

Dr. Alan Hanson, Executive Vice President of Technologies and Used
Fuel Management of AREVA NC Inc., believes we need to diversify our
fuel supply between countries around the world. When we build nuclear
plants in foreign countries, Hanson said we should “B.O.O.: Build,
Own, Operate,” meaning until we can train their workers adequately and
with environmentally friendly culture, we should maintain operation.
This cooperation would require global interdependence on nuclear
energy.

Hanson said since a large portion of the funding for nuclear energy
comes from financing, our economy might make it hard to accomplish
such measures. He said we won’t really know the cost, competitive or
not, until after they’re built. This requires a lot of confidence in
the next administration, whose leading candidates have somewhat
similar policies on the matter.

Ferguson explained that while Obama and McCain have rather similar
policies on the need for constructing and renewing more nuclear
reactors in the next couple of decades, McCain has more specific goals
of how many reactors and where. Ferguson said the main factor they
differ on is finding nuclear waste repositories. While McCain supports
the nuclear waste repository in the Yucca Mountain ridge, Obama does
not. Ferguson also said McCain supports a market based decision on
fuel supply, while Obama wants to put funding into diversifying fuel
sources.

The Nuclear Energy Summit featured four speakers to discuss future domestic nuclear deployment, domestic and global nuclear plant development, environmental improvements, and how to build a skilled labor force for the task. The resounding consensus agreed that there is a “bright future ahead for nuclear energy” to “sustain U.S. global leadership as a priority.” James Conca is the Director of the Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center in New Mexico. He advocated a sustainable energy plan for the globe by 2040 by using one-third fossil fuels, one-third renewable fuel, and one-third nuclear fuel. Everyone agreed on one thing: “It’s going to cost a lot no matter what you do.”

Sen. Barack Obama’s energy plan is “more robust” than Sen. John McCain’s plan said Obama Senior Campaign Adviser Kenneth Berlin at a discussion forum. He said that Obama’s plan was more aggressive in combatting climate change, and radical change in energy policy was needed because “we are falling behind.”

Berlin said that both campaigns have made energy reform a big part of their campaign. According to Berlin, One difference between Obama and McCain is that Obama’s goal would be to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent while McCain only wants to reduce those same emissions by 60 percent.

There are some myths about Obama’s energy policy said Berlin. Obama has “strong support for clean coal technology,” which Berlin said has been lied about in this campaign. He also said that Obama does support the development of nuclear power if the United States can deal with the issue of proliferation, and find a clean and secure way to get rid of nuclear waste.