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Compare Republican nuclear propaganda to independent journalism
Nuclear power will propel U.S. forward
By Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) - 02/16/12 10:38 AM ET
The last time a nuclear reactor was approved, the year was 1978. Jimmy Carter was president, the Bee Gees dominated the Billboard Top 100, Animal House debuted at the top of the box office, and a gallon of gas cost 63 cents. A new generation of reactors is long overdue.
Today, U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu toured Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro, the first U.S. plant to win approval for the construction of nuclear reactors in more than three decades.
This is the first step towards what Republicans and many Democrats alike hope will mark the reemergence of nuclear power as a viable energy source. A majority of Americans agree. A 2011 national survey found that 71 percent of the public favors nuclear energy as one way to generate electricity. Eighty-four percent believe nuclear energy will play an important role in meeting U.S. electricity needs in the future....
By Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) - 02/16/12 10:38 AM ET
The last time a nuclear reactor was approved, the year was 1978. Jimmy Carter was president, the Bee Gees dominated the Billboard Top 100, Animal House debuted at the top of the box office, and a gallon of gas cost 63 cents. A new generation of reactors is long overdue.
Today, U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu toured Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro, the first U.S. plant to win approval for the construction of nuclear reactors in more than three decades.
This is the first step towards what Republicans and many Democrats alike hope will mark the reemergence of nuclear power as a viable energy source. A majority of Americans agree. A 2011 national survey found that 71 percent of the public favors nuclear energy as one way to generate electricity. Eighty-four percent believe nuclear energy will play an important role in meeting U.S. electricity needs in the future....
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-a-environment/211117-rep-phil-gingrey-r-ga
Nuclear power
The 30-year itch
America’s nuclear industry struggles to get off the floor
IN HIS state-of-the-union message last month, Barack Obama said that America needs “an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy.” Mr Obama boasted about a wind-turbine factory in Michigan, America’s abundant supplies of natural gas and the millions of acres opened for oil exploration. He urged Congress to pass tax incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy and to end oil-company subsidies.
... nuclear power faces strong headwinds. A poll taken last year showed that 64% of Americans opposed building new nuclear reactors. The NRC’s last new reactor approval predates Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, all of which dented public support (and not just in America either: nuclear power supplies three-fourths of France’s electricity, yet in one poll 57% of French respondents favoured abandoning it). America’s anti-nuclear movement has been as quiet as its nuclear industry, but as one comes to life so will the other.
...Safety, then, may well result in delays and cost-overruns: two factors not entirely unfamiliar in building nuclear plants. The cost of Vogtle’s first two reactors was initially pegged at $660m; they ended up costing a cool $8.7 billion, with electricity rates for Georgians spiking as a result. A study by Mark Cooper, an economic analyst at Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment, found that in constant dollars the cost of nuclear power roughly quintupled between the 1970s and the early 1990s. Mr Cooper also found that initial cost projections tended dramatically to underestimate actual costs, as the Vogtle experience would seem to bear out.
That is only part of the problem. Last August, when the head of America’s largest nuclear utility said that this was not the time to build new nuclear plants, the main reason he gave was not political opposition or the threat of cost overruns, but the low price of natural gas. “Shale [gas]”, said John Rowe, head of Exelon, “is good for the country, bad for new nuclear development.” The Energy Information Administration, a statistics agency, forecasts that shale-gas production will nearly triple by 2035, keeping its production cost at a stable and economical $5 or so per thousand cubic feet until the end of 2023. Nuclear power, after all, needs to compete against other energy sources. That being so, Mr Rowe put the odds of a real nuclear renaissance at 5:4 against.
The 30-year itch
America’s nuclear industry struggles to get off the floor
IN HIS state-of-the-union message last month, Barack Obama said that America needs “an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy.” Mr Obama boasted about a wind-turbine factory in Michigan, America’s abundant supplies of natural gas and the millions of acres opened for oil exploration. He urged Congress to pass tax incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy and to end oil-company subsidies.
... nuclear power faces strong headwinds. A poll taken last year showed that 64% of Americans opposed building new nuclear reactors. The NRC’s last new reactor approval predates Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, all of which dented public support (and not just in America either: nuclear power supplies three-fourths of France’s electricity, yet in one poll 57% of French respondents favoured abandoning it). America’s anti-nuclear movement has been as quiet as its nuclear industry, but as one comes to life so will the other.
...Safety, then, may well result in delays and cost-overruns: two factors not entirely unfamiliar in building nuclear plants. The cost of Vogtle’s first two reactors was initially pegged at $660m; they ended up costing a cool $8.7 billion, with electricity rates for Georgians spiking as a result. A study by Mark Cooper, an economic analyst at Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment, found that in constant dollars the cost of nuclear power roughly quintupled between the 1970s and the early 1990s. Mr Cooper also found that initial cost projections tended dramatically to underestimate actual costs, as the Vogtle experience would seem to bear out.
That is only part of the problem. Last August, when the head of America’s largest nuclear utility said that this was not the time to build new nuclear plants, the main reason he gave was not political opposition or the threat of cost overruns, but the low price of natural gas. “Shale [gas]”, said John Rowe, head of Exelon, “is good for the country, bad for new nuclear development.” The Energy Information Administration, a statistics agency, forecasts that shale-gas production will nearly triple by 2035, keeping its production cost at a stable and economical $5 or so per thousand cubic feet until the end of 2023. Nuclear power, after all, needs to compete against other energy sources. That being so, Mr Rowe put the odds of a real nuclear renaissance at 5:4 against.
http://www.economist.com/node/21547803
And bear in mind this description of Japan's nuclear industry. The description is a perfect fit for what we now have in this country.
Japan Ignored Nuclear Risks, Official Says
By HIROKO TABUCHI
TOKYO — In surprisingly frank public testimony on Wednesday, Japan’s nuclear safety chief said the country’s regulations were fundamentally flawed and laid out a somber picture of a nuclear industry shaped by freewheeling power companies, toothless regulators and a government more interested in promoting nuclear energy than in safeguarding the health of its citizens...
By HIROKO TABUCHI
TOKYO — In surprisingly frank public testimony on Wednesday, Japan’s nuclear safety chief said the country’s regulations were fundamentally flawed and laid out a somber picture of a nuclear industry shaped by freewheeling power companies, toothless regulators and a government more interested in promoting nuclear energy than in safeguarding the health of its citizens...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/world/asia/japanese-official-says-nations-atomic-rules-are-flawed.html?_r=1
