Obama's Atomic Blunder

[amborin]

Obama's Atomic Blunder

by Harvey Wasserman


As Vermont seethes with radioactive contamination and the Democratic Party crumbles, Barack Obama has plunged into the atomic abyss.

In the face of fierce green opposition and withering scorn from both liberal and conservative budget hawks, Obama has done what George W. Bush could not---pledge billions of taxpayer dollars for a relapse of the 20th Century's most expensive technological failure.

Obama has announced some $8.3 billion in loan guarantees for two new reactors planned for Georgia. Their Westinghouse AP-1000 designs have been rejected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as being unable to withstand natural cataclysms like hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.

The Vogtle site was to originally host four reactors at a total cost of $600 million; it wound up with two at $9 billion.

The Southern Company which wants to build these two new reactors has cut at least one deal with Japanese financiers set to cash in on American taxpayer largess. The interest rate on the federal guarantees remains bitterly contested. The funding is being debated between at least five government agencies, and may well be tested in the courts. It's not clear whether union labor will be required and what impact that might have on construction costs.

The Congressional Budget Office and other analysts warn the likely failure rate for government-back reactor construction loans could be in excess of 50%. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu has admitted he was unaware of the CBO's report when he signed on to the Georgia guarantees.

Over the past several years the estimated price tag for proposed new reactors has jumped from $2-3 billion each in some cases to more than $12 billion today. The Chair of the NRC currently estimates it at $10 billion, well before a single construction license has been issued, which will take at least a year.

Energy experts at the Rocky Mountain Institute and elsewhere estimate that a dollar invested in increased efficiency could save as much as seven times as much energy than one invested in nuclear plants can produce, while producing ten times as many permanent jobs.

Georgia has been targeted largely because its regulators have demanded ratepayers put up the cash for the reactors as they're being built. Florida and Georgia are among a small handful of states taxing electric consumers for projects that cannot come on line for many years, and that may never deliver a single electron of electricity.

Two Florida Public Service Commissioners, recently appointed by Republican Governor Charlie Crist (now a candidate for the US Senate), helped reject over a billion dollars in rate hikes demanded by Florida Power & Light and Progress Energy, both of which want to build double-reactors at ratepayer expense. The utilities now say they'll postpone the projects proposed for Turkey Point and Levy County.

snip

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/17-5

[liberal N proud]

1. Shit, someone will blow everything he does out of proportion

Anything to attack the character of President Obama

[amborin]

2. anything

to deny the truth

[vegiegals]

3. What is out of proportion?

[Enthusiast]

5. Seems to me that he again

caved in to support the Republican position on nuclear energy.

When was the last time a reactor was built here? And you are telling me it's just dandy that Obama, a Democratic President, is going to push for expanding nuclear energy? Obama spoke like nuclear energy is a perfectly fine alternative to other renewable energy sources. Again, OBama with the corporate line.

And this, in your mind, is just an attack on the character of President Obama?

The Democratic Party is going to be a party that, unlike the Republicans, takes environmental issues seriously. Or they are going to become more GOP-like.

I won't support a party like that. Millions of us will leave.

[Crabitha]

6. You could always join the tea party.

Take a look at the reality. The UK has 14 nuclear power plants that appear to be working very well for them. Germany has them too. Germany also has wind plants.

While we in America are so busy attacking each other without first researching what they're arguing about, we're going to continue to fall behind in science and technology.

If you're so concerned about having nuclear energy plants, does that mean you support the ridiculous proposal of building more coal and lignite powered plants? What is your solution? The UK and Germany and the rest of western Europe believes that clean energy is more important than the 1970s mindset that has people terrified of nuclear power plants.

I admit I'm somewhat nervous about nuclear power plants but on the other hand, having coal plants is killing our planet. So should we just keep going the way we are and bury our heads in the sand?

And yes, I agree this is just another attack on President Obama. The Freepers are very much more adept at spreading this sort of infighting amongst Democrats than I would ever have imagined. I was just silly enough to believe that Democrats on the whole were better educated and well, just smarter than the average Republican and tea party goer and Freeper but it appears we've fallen for all their tricks. Yes, let's turn on the President and our own party so we can get the Republicans or worse the Tea party republicans into office as quickly as possible because that makes much more sense.

You would think, reading in this forum, that President Obama is the first president in history who didn't pass every single bit of legislation in his first twelve months in office that he campaigned on. Take a look at what he HAS done. Okay, I'm disappointed about DADT and the growing war in Afghanistan. But I'm not ABOUT to turn my back on my party or my president because he has only worked on what our country's hugest problems (economy) are before working on DADT and other things. For gods sakes, wake up people.

You seem to think the president should be your personal messiah. Well he's not. He's passed ARRA which has saved and created over 2 million jobs. GDP is up. The Lily Ledbetter act was passed, credit care reform was passed. The Iraq was is ending. We didn't sink into a depression. What is it you want? Oh yeah, your own personal messiah.

[girl gone mad]

7. It isn't only an issue of safety,

it's also a matter of cost being completely out of proportion to benefit. This simply looks like more political grift.

Germany has had many problems with their reactors over the past decade, and a few have been taken off line for periods of time due to defects. They've faced construction problems, exploding costs and even design faults that weren't discovered until the late stages. I would be careful in holding up the European experience with nuclear reactors as if it is a model we should follow. Let's not forget that France had to shut down several reactors due to inability to cool their reactors sufficiently, and they are still struggling to come up with a solution to the problem which could wind up a real ecological disaster. And why is it the same people who talk about the our looming peak oil crisis ignore the realities of peak fissionable materials?

We should be promoting conservation and renewable green energy, not heavily subsidizing an outmoded and wasteful industry.

[amborin]

20. very bad for taxpayers:

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/02/obama-goes-nuclear

[Enthusiast]

9. You, with 26 posts, are lecturing me?

You forgot to say all I want is a pony.

I want more coal fired plants because I don't want nuclear? Are you insane?

How about we build a nuclear waste facility in your area?

I never did see Obama as a Messiah.

Why would I join the Tea Party when I differ with them on every issue.

I'm a Democrat. Who in the fuck are you?

[Daveparts still]

10. Why is it?

That when the Bush Administration first set aside $18 billion for Nuclear plants in 2005 it was a bad idea, but now when Obama want to carry it out we are attacking his character?

Why is it when McCain? Palin proposed 45 nuclear plants and off shore drilling it was a bad idea and candidate Obama was against it?

Democrats are always fighting among themselves the Reprublicans are the party of old rich white men the Democratic party is everyone else.

President Obama has sided against almost every piece of legislation that he has campaigned on. He said that health care reform had to have a public option he campaigned on single payer. Then he said he is willing to accept a bill without a public option.

The stimulus bill was 35% tax cuts and the President says they he's pround of that. You know who ran for office on tax cuts? John McCain. The stimulus bill was never intended to back stop employement but to generate employment. The situation is critically worse than they are letting on.

Then there's Obama laughing off huge bonuses paid by banks that cooked the books to show huge profits in the fourth quarter and huge losses in the first quarter.

In Iraq we have a promise to look at further withdrawls in 2011. Let me ask you a question? If the invasion of Iraq was illegal in the first place, why are we still there? Why are we spending billions to build facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan? What's different in the Obama policy besides the name on the mailbox. The Bush administration doubled the defense budget does Obama plan to reduce that? No, he continiues to expand it, you know who wanted to expand the military? John McCain, is that a personal attack?

On DADT do understand that Harry Truman ended racial descrimination in the military with a ball point pen? He signed an executive order, do you think that was popular?

There seems to be a cadre of Big Brother worshipers, when Bush proposed it it is bad when Obama proposes the exact same thing it is good and we are attacking Big Brother because we are thought criminals. But I know a Trojan Horse when I see one.

[Demeter]

12. Yeah, and the Medditeranean and the Coast of Somalia Are Awash in Toxic Waste

What a great idea! NOT!

[Zoeisright]

15. The solution is green renewable energy.

I am sick to death of that false dichotomy "What do you want, nuclear or coal?"

That is a stupid question. The answer is "neither". Investing in green power the way we invested in nuclear and coal is the only way to go. The nuclear power industry has been subsidized by $300 BILLION dollars, and that doesn't count private investment. People who claim that nuclear is the only way to go because solar 'isn't feasible' are foolish. Repukes killed solar power, then claim it isn't feasible, just like they try to kill government, then claim it doesn't work. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Meanwhile, more uncontainable nuclear waste is piling up, and accidents are just waiting to happen.

Imagine where we would be if we had put that much money into solar.

[Syntheto]

8. The worst part is...

...reading recent supporting articles that claim that the fear of runaway nuclear power plants and the reality of dealing with radioactive waste has been hyped by an overactive and shrill environmental movement in America.

So, is the administration saying that nuclear plants are much safer than we've been led to believe? Are they saying that the environmental and anti-nuke movement in America has been wrong for the last forty plus years, and furthermore, that they've been unduly frightening the population with their scare stories?

That just begs the question: "if nuclear power is so wonderful, then why the fuck haven't we been building nuclear power plants, and generating power 'too cheap to meter' for the last fifty years, freeing ourselves from the yoke of foreign oil and the violence that's always occurred to secure it?"

If the answer is truly that 'enviromentalists' by their actions have denied America access to this clean and wonderful energy source that harnesses the basic power of the atom, then what does that say about the Left? Forgive me, but it seems to me that the environmental movement, which has always been strongly anti-nuclear, is, or has been up until now, a major pillar of the progressive movement. Is the administration throwing the environmental movement under the bus now?

If France and Great Britain have such a wonderful nuclear power set up (Windscale notwithstanding) why the fuck are they sucking up to the poobahs in Petroaslamabad?" Maybe it's because nothing currently is as safe and efficient as a gallon of petroleum, refined by modern methods.

Obama and his crowd have not only dropped the ball, they've booted it out into the stands. They've run out of ideas, and it's very sad. Nuclear power is like keeping a pistol in your house with a three year old. You can do all the safety things you want but just one mistake, one lapse, one distracted moment that causes you to deviate from your checklist, and you have the potential for a terrible catastrophe. And before somebody flames me about their gun-handling statistics and takes it personally, I'd just like to say that out of a hundred thousand (and probably much less) people who have guns, especially easy to handle pistols, with small children, STATISTICALLY one of those kids is going to be killed, despite all the safety precautions being taken, and you all know it.

I'm not in with the enviro crowd, but if I was, I think I'd put it right in the Administration's face: "So, Mr. Gibbs, does the administration contend that the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and all the various anti-nuke coalitions have been unnecessarily frightening the population with bogus fearmonging for the past four decades? So, does that mean the pro-nuke industry people have been right, because that's what they've been saying for all these years; that the wonderful world of nuclear power has been denied to America, the very people who first developed the technology, by hysterically shrill enviromental wackos."

To all those who think that, while if an evil Republican had come up with this nonsense, it would be BAD, the fact that our glorious St. Barry and his apostles parrot the same bullshit now renders it GOOD and RIGHTEOUS, why, I've got a patch of about a hundred square miles of uninhabited farm land just outside of Kiev, in the Ukraine I'd be happy to sell you. Go on the tour, put on the protective gear, watch the two-headed toads crossing the road; then tell us all about how wonderful nuclear energy is.

[yurbud]

14. are you being sarcastic? I grew up near the Columbia River and a nuclear waste dump

was upstream. After a lifetime of swimming in the river and eating fish from it, we found out some of the nuclear waste leeched into the water table.

There is nowhere safe to put the shit, and worse, it is an energy form that can be monopolized because it is so centralized. We should be decentralizing our energy to make it harder for companies like Enron to turn out our lights in the future or blackmail us for billions of dollars.

[amborin]

16. yes, and

speaking of the aquifer....check out Exelon

[Enrique]

21. you need to get over Obama

Wasserman has been working on this for a long long time. It has nothing to do with attacking Obama's character.

[bananas]

4. k&r nt

[damyank913]

11. The environmentalists are outta control.

They are using fear just like the repubs. But how many of them will give up their cars, or keep the thermostats turned down to 65 degrees in the winter. Very few. Think people! The green technology that you're all so high on is simply not up to par yet. We need a bridge to the time when the technology is there. We need the energy and we cannot rely on our current sources. How much disposable income will $8/gallon gas consume? That can happen in a matter of months. To make matters worse, I know folks that live on the coast that don't want the windmill farms. Eye pollution or some such drivel.

[swilton]

13. Wind, solar, geo-thermal

might be closer to up to par as you put it if we were subsidizing those industries the same way we subsidize big oil (as well as a few other disasters like King Corn).

The problem with wind power and solar power for the capitalist paradigm set is that it is energy that is 'decentralized' in other words people can have their own sources for their energy needs. This creates a major dilemma for political elites because along with the decentralization, they lose control and with the loss of control, they lose profits.

The problem with nuclear energy not mentioned by Wasserman is the overhead expense - which is exponentially greater than that of other sources of energy especially wind and solar but even coal, gas and oil.
He also doesn't detail what happens to the nuclear waste which is recycled - goes right into our nuclear weapons industry. Ever hear of depleted uranium?

[Zoeisright]

17. Bull. Shit.

The green technology WILL grow very quickly IF we would invest money in it. The nuclear industry has been the beneficiary of $300 BILLION DOLLARS of taxpayer subsidies.

It takes ten years for a nuke plant to go online. Solar and wind plants take months to produce. And solar and wind plants do not produce poisonous waste we can't dispose of with a half life of millions of years.

I am so sick of nuke nuts whining that green energy isn't feasible. It's just like repukes killing government and then whining that it doesn't work. Ever hear of a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Oh, and BTW, the fear of nuclear energy is real, backed up by research and common sense. Repuke fear is manufactured and calculated.

[Enthusiast]

18. How many Republican talking

points did you get in there? Why don't you just say "Drill baby drill!"

How many times has Rush Limbaugh told us about the "Elites" (wealthy New England Democrats) that don't want the eyesore of windmills? Is that you, Rush?

[damyank913]

19. Drill baby drill-don't let the facts screw up your reality...

America sits on a treasure trove of FUEL. Yet you would make heat and gas unavailable to a lot of ppl in this country by prematurely pushing these asinine rules. If big oil has undue influence in this country (and it does) then that is a different problem. I do not dispute that we need to go green but for years, no, decades, our govt has ignored this and now that we have a president that acknowledges this need; you ppl are jumping around FREAKING OUT that he's not moving fast enough. We need to go green, yes. We need a plan to get there. I'm not married to nuclear power-but I think green technology is not ready.
As for the windmill talk; I live in Virginia, on the coast and it is talk that I hear from ppl in my community. I don't listen to Rush-I can't stand the sound of his voice, but apparently you do. Don't hate me because I'm reasonable.

[Enthusiast]

22. You think green technology isn't ready.

I remember when Republicans voted against the original Clear Water Act and Clean Air Act nearly to a man. They said the country wasn't ready.

I remember when many voted against the meager first civil rights legislation. They said the country wasn't ready.

I remember when Barack Obama ran for president. They said the country wasn't ready for a black president.

When will the technology be ready if we don't pursue it? Yesterday I heard that 25% of existing nuclear powerplants are leaking Tritium right now. And they suggested this can't be corrected. Why in the world would we build more?