Obama on nuclear: Confused or concise?

Obama on Nuclear

President Barack Obama last week announced $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees for the construction of two nuclear reactors in Burke County, Georgia.

For some this was good news with many people still of the opinion that investments in controversial power sources such as nuclear are vital to immediately start cutting carbon emissions, while the renewable energy sector continues to grow. In total 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 US.

As Obama said himself, "nuclear power plants offer one of the best alternatives for providing a clean source of electricity to meet the rising demand," I paraphrase slightly but that was the general point he was eager to make.

Concerns remain

However concerns remain over his overall policy on nuclear power. For example how can one fail to be left confused when, after championing the development of new nuclear power plants, the Obama administration also moved to shut down the nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.

Now, it would perhaps be naive to suggest that the sudden focus on nuclear power is an effort to win over Republicans, but that is certainly the opinion of some worried Democrats. But when you consider how unpopular Obama's version of the cap-and-trade bill was, one wouldn't be to surprised to see him on the look out for new friends.

So often in environmentalists' good books during his election campaign, Obama seemed genuinely reluctant to pursue an energy policy that would leave more radioactive waste in America soil for thousands of years. But now that he's in office he appears to have had his head turned, and much like his inconsistent stand on offshore drilling this leads to mixed messages which in turn breeds bad policies.

Scaled-down nuclear power

But it looks as if nuclear power has a future in the US, and recently the Wall Street Journal even reported on a scaled-down version of nuclear power generation.

The new type of nuclear reaction described by the WSJ as "smaller than a rail car" and one-tenth the cost of a big plant. The Tennessee Valley Authority, First Energy Corp. and Oglethorpe Power Corp. have apparently signed an agreement to seek federal approval for the new reactor. Officials say the reactor would cost about $750 million, compared to a large reactor that could cost between $5 billion and $10 billion and can be retro-fitted to existing plants.

Obama needs to stop giving to the nuclear sector with one hand and taking with the other. He either needs to fully commit to a nuclear policy or show some serious faith in alternative fuels and invest federal cash elsewhere.

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Daniel Jones

Daniel is a Politics and Philosophy graduate from Cardiff University where he also worked as a section editor on the award winning student newspaper. After university he joined an IT support company where he was a B2B online writer. He loves anything to do with sport and joined GDS in July 2009.

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