Obama's Atomic Blunder: He's driven a deep wedge between himself and the environmental movement

[Better Believe It]

Obama's Atomic Blunder
by Harvey Wasserman
February 17, 2010

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

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.

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.

In 2005 the Bush Administration set aside some $18.5 billion for reactor loan guarantees, but the Department of Energy has been unable to administer them. Obama wants an additional $36 billion to bring the fund up to $54.5 billion. Proposed projects in South Carolina, Maryland and Texas appear to be next in line.

.... the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has reported that at least 27 of America's 104 licensed reactors are now leaking radioactive tritium. The worst case may be Entergy's Vermont Yankee, near the state's southeastern border with New Hampshire and Massachusetts. High levels of contamination have been found in test wells around the reactor, and experts believe the Connecticut River is at serious risk.

Obama has now driven a deep wedge between himself and the core of the environmental movement, which remains fiercely anti-nuclear.

Please read the full article at:

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

[JCMach1]

1. What left constituency hasn't he stabbed in the back?

[Brickbat]

2. Beat me to it.

[Echo In Light]

18. Because it's a phony 'oppositional' party for a phony rep democracy

[invictus]

20. +1

[earth mom]

30. [phone]! nt

[Blue_In_AK]

34. You are correct, in my opinion.

I was just trying to think this morning of what hopes of the progressive left he has actually fulfilled during this first year. The way he continues to trend rightward is troubling to me. I had my doubts even during the campaign, but I had so hoped I would be wrong.

[n2doc]

62. laid out

[theophilus]

3. Well, I'll wait until one of these new plants is actually running before I get too upset.

Meantime, lots of folks will be employed. I would love to see coal use drop off to just about zero. We might have to put a few nukes on line to help keep the black poison buried. That's my opinion, but I hope they get fusion going and it becomes apparent that these talks of new nuke plants was just a ploy to defuse criticism. We'll see in ten or twenty years.........

[polichick]

4. Honestly, it's stupid beyond words for Obama to support nuclear power...

...and offshore drilling without getting concessions from the right on cap and trade or a carbon tax.

This guy either doesn't really mean what he says about green energy, or he's the worst negotiator in the universe.

[theophilus]

8. We could be seeing him work the "long" game. We haven't seen that sort of thing

enough to recognize it, possibly. The great danger is, of course, that there will be no improvement in a number of areas and a Republicant will get in in 2012. If that happens, no long term benefits.
He is a centrist and will honk off both ends of the political spectrum regularly. We'll see if he holds the center and what good that does anybody......

[polichick]

12. There's no excuse for agreeing to those things without concessions...

...on green energy policies. Voters want a strong, sure leader who isn't afraid of being a tough negotiator.

[theophilus]

13. If "voters" want changes in energy policies they better start putting pressure on

their elected "representatives". Obama wants the change to come from the bottom up, I think. Time might run out before the voters push enough Repugs and Blue Dogs to change their ways, though.

[polichick]

14. Voters put Obama there to fight for the change he campaigned on...

It's now his job to stand up to Republicans and Blue Dogs, not kiss their special interest butts.

If he can't cut it, he'll be fired in 2012.

[joeybee12]

52. If Obama wants change to come bottom-up, then he didn't read the job

description before he applied.

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. The center cannot hold; things fall apart. nt

[JVS]

38. As a supporter of nuclear power, I agree. You gotta get the points where you can.

[Winterblues]

5. I read an article in Mother Jones last year saying the head of the Sierra Club

supported Nuclear Power. The risks of waste exposure were less than the risks of the Climate Change Crisis that is looming.. I think they may find many more Liberals support Nuclear Power than they believe.

[NJmaverick]

7. I think you're right, but there are many that look for any excuse or reason

to try and bash President Obama

[Jennicut]

16. Yes, we do.

[Better Believe It]

28. No you don't! Read the Sierra Club news release.

[Better Believe It]

27. The Sierra Club is opposed to the nuclear power loan guarantees. Read their news release here

IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 16, 2010
CONTACT: Josh Dorner, 202.675.2384

Sierra Club Responds to President Obama's
Announcement of Nuclear Loan Guarantees

Washington, D.C.--President Obama today announced the awarding of some $8 billion in loan guarantees for the construction of two new nuclear reactors at an existing Southern Company facility in Burke, Georgia. The President's Budget envisions the awarding of $54 billion in loan guarantees for the construction of new nuclear plants. The Sierra Club offered the following comments in response.

Statement of Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director

"We are pleased that President Obama reiterated the need to put a price on carbon and build a clean energy economy with more renewable energy and greater energy efficiency. While we remain wholeheartedly behind the president's overall vision for America's energy future, there are areas of disagreement and loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants are one of them.

"We need to prioritize the cleanest, cheapest, safest, and fastest ways to reduce emissions and nuclear power is neither clean, cheap, nor fast, nor safe. Putting taxpayers on the hook for billions, particularly when the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office puts the risk of default at over 50 percent, is not the best use of limited government resources. The $8 billion in loan guarantees announced today are unlikely to cover even half the final cost of the two reactors to be built. Retrofitting our homes and commercial buildings would result in significantly greater emissions reductions almost immediately--at far less cost--and would also cut energy bills in the long-run.

"Studies also show that investments in outdated energy sources like oil, coal, and nuclear power create far fewer jobs per dollar than investments in energy efficiency and clean energy.

"The loan guarantees announced today may ease the politics around comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation, but we do not believe that they are the best policy."


# # #

http://action.sierraclub.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=160601.0

[Winterblues]

39. You are correct I was confused, it was the head of Greenpeace not Sierra club

"Some prominent envronmentalists, including a former Greenpeace director Patrick Moor, say nuclear is the energy source of the future."
From Business News

[Better Believe It]

57. Patrick Moore and Greenpeace are against building nuclear power plants

"Nuclear power plants are, next to nuclear warheads themselves, the most dangerous devices that man has ever created. Their construction and proliferation is the most irresponsible, in fact the most criminal, act ever to have taken place on this planet."
Patrick Moore, Assault on Future Generations, 1976


Nuclear Power: A Dirty and Dangerous Distraction
Greenpeace USA
February 17, 2010

President Barack Obama announced more than $8 billion in federal loan guarantees for the construction of the first nuclear power plant in the United States in nearly three decades. Greenpeace is extremely disappointed in the President’s decision to back nuclear power. It’s a dirty and dangerous distraction from the clean energy future he promised America.

Obama's budget proposal for 2011 would add $36 billion in new federal loan guarantees to $18.5 billion already budgeted but not spent – for a total of $54.5 billion. The new $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees will go toward the construction and operation of a pair of reactors in Burke County, Georgia.


Serious Economic Drawbacks

Wall Street will not back nuclear power. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office has already determined that these loans stand a greater than 50% chance of default. Even the president said during his speech that nuclear energy has some “serious drawbacks.” Last year Moody’s Investment Services called new nuclear power a “bet the farm risk” and Citi has called new nuclear power a “corporation killer.” Warren Buffet’s corporation Mid American has already determined that new nuclear power doesn’t make economic sense. The President should have listened to ‘the World’s Greatest Investor’ rather than nuclear industry lobbyists.


Serious Environmental Drawbacks

Nuclear power is neither safe nor clean. There is no such thing as a "safe" dose of radiation and just because nuclear pollution is invisible doesn't mean it's "clean." If a meltdown were to occur the accident could kill and injure tens of thousands of people, leaving large regions uninhabitable. After the events of September 11th, the risk of a nuclear reactor meltdown must encompass not only the potential for an accident but also the very real possibility of sabotage.

And if all that weren't enough, more than 50 years after splitting the first atom, science has yet to devise a method for adequately handling long lived radioactive wastes. For years nuclear plants have been leaking radioactive waste from underground pipes and radioactive waste pools into the ground water at sites across the nation. Recently, radioactive contamination was found in drinking wells at Exelon's Braidwood nuclear plant. Sadly, this is only one example, there are many more all across the country.


Green Energy

Nuclear power undermines the real solutions to climate change by diverting urgently needed investments away from clean, renewable sources of energy and energy efficiency. In contrast to nuclear power, renewable energy is both clean and safe. Renewable energy can produce six times the more energy than current global demand which is why we don't need any more nuclear or coal plants.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/nuclear-power-a-dirty-and-dan


------------------------------------------------------

Greenpeace has always fought - and will continue to fight - vigorously against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. The only solution is to halt the expansion of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing plants.

We need an energy system that can fight climate change, based on renewable energy and energy efficiency. Nuclear power already delivers less energy globally than renewable energy, and the share will continue to decrease in the coming years.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/nuclear

[liberal_at_heart]

46. The Columbia River here in the state of Washington is in danger from nuclear waste

I think that liberals are burying their heads in the sand so they can get some momentum going on Climate change legislation. They are being short sighted and it will cause environmental damage. I guess the environment is just another issue the democrats are going to abandon.

[FarCenter]

6. Nuclear power is a better option than burning more fossil fuels

[timeforpeace]

9. Really? Does anyone really care about the greenhouse effects and carbon emmissions? Who?

[theophilus]

11. I do. n/t

[theophilus]

10. I agree but Fusion would be super plus better. n/t

[FarCenter]

17. Levitating magnet brings space physics to fusion

Progress is being made, but it is not there yet. Fission reactors will have to be a bridge for several decades. Technology replacement cycles in power technologies are very long.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/fusion-ldx-0125.html

The new results come from an experimental fusion reactor at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center on the MIT campus, inspired by observations from space made by satellites. Called the Levitated Dipole Experiment, or LDX, a joint project of MIT and Columbia University, it uses a half-ton donut-shaped magnet about the size and shape of a large truck tire, made of superconducting wire coiled inside a stainless steel vessel. This magnet is suspended by a powerful electromagnetic field, and is used to control the motion of the 10-million-degree-hot electrically charged gas, or plasma, contained within its 16-foot-diameter outer chamber.

The results, published this week in the journal Nature Physics, confirm the counter-intuitive prediction that inside the device’s magnetic chamber, random turbulence causes the plasma to become more densely concentrated — a crucial step to getting atoms to fuse together — instead of becoming more spread out, as usually happens with turbulence. This “turbulent pinching” of the plasma has been observed in the way plasmas in space interact with the Earth’s and Jupiter’s magnetic fields, but has never before been recreated in the laboratory.

[Jennicut]

15. Some liberals agree with that. It is not so cut and dried.

[Tom Rinaldo]

40. Being shot in the leg is a better option than being shot in the stomach

And some would also argue that Joe Lieberman is a better option than Sarah Palin.

But to your point, that all depends. For instance it depends on whether or not the expansion of nuclear power usage enables terrorists to successfully target one or more nuclear facilities. It depends on whether human error or sabotage (for either political or deranged reasons) causes a severe nuclear accident or two, it depends on whether major water tables become highly contaminated sometime in the next few centuries, and it depends on how stable our civilizations are over the next X thousand years to prevent wide scale and wide spread release of highly toxic radioactive elements into the environment from improperly secured or maintained radioactive wastes. Radioactivity directly effects DNA, which impacts all life.

[asjr]

19. If it stops the degradation of mountain tops by

coal companies I will be all for it.

[Better Believe It]

59. It won't.

[Mari333]

21. people who build them better be UNION people. you dont want nuke plants

being built by unskilled non union workers. period.
and this is in Georgia, so that concerns me.

[conscious evolution]

35. The nuke plants built at the same site in the eighties

were started by union contractors.They screwed things up so bad they had to bring in non union contractors to bail them out.

[Mari333]

36. you dont want a weld on a containment unit to be done by an unskilled worker

and unions like the pipefitters are skilled.

got a link btw?

[conscious evolution]

49. No link

I only worked on the project.

[Better Believe It]

60. Sure you did.

[cali]

22. oh for the love of reason. Vermont is not seething with radioactive contamination

and I'm a Vermonter that wants to see VY shut down in 2012. That kind of hysterical bullshit is NOT persuasive.

[Better Believe It]

24. So what "hysterical bullshit" did you detect in the following comments?

"Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has reported that at least 27 of America's 104 licensed reactors are now leaking radioactive tritium. The worst case may be Entergy's Vermont Yankee, near the state's southeastern border with New Hampshire and Massachusetts. High levels of contamination have been found in test wells around the reactor, and experts believe the Connecticut River is at serious risk.

A furious statewide grassroots campaign aims to shut the plant, whose license expires in 2012. A binding agreement between Entergy and the state gives the legislature the power to deny an extension. US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has demanded the plant close. The legislature may vote on it in a matter of days."

I couldn't find anything suggesting Vermont is "seething with radioactive contamination" in the above.

Did I miss something or did you spot something that isn't there?

[cali]

25. What part of Vermont isn't seething with radioactive waste didn't you grasp?

That was the hysterical bullshit I was referring to. If you want to inform yourself about what's really going on re VY, here you go:


http://vtdigger.org/category/energy-and-the-environment/

digger has the most complete coveage of the leaks at VY- and it's highly critical. Having said that, the hysterical crap about VT seething with radiocativity is just that- hysterical crap.

[Better Believe It]

29. The one that wasn't in the article which you pretended to be commenting on

Do you wish to refute anything in the article?

I'm listening!

[cali]

31. aaargh. I made my point. I'm refuting the idiot claim that VT is seething

with radioactive waste. That claim was in the article, sweetie. And his claim of high levels of tritium is hardly specific. Now I want VY shut down because it's an aging structure that's had multiple (minor) problems, but the moronic claims of seething radioactive waste are bullshit, dear.

[Better Believe It]

33. You called me "sweetie"! Did you send me a valentine during the fund drive?

:)

That claim was not in the article I posted.

Perhaps you choose to respond to an article you haven't read.

[The2ndWheel]

26. There's no environmental movement

Not a successful one anyway.

[earth mom]

32. I wonder what Gore thinks of his endorsement of Obama now?

:argh:

[sandnsea]

50. Al Gore is not against nuclear power

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/17/eveningnews/main4270123.shtml

[Tom Rinaldo]

56. Fair enough. But he's not exactly Pro Nuclear either

"Couric: What about nuclear power? I ask, what about nuclear power, because countries like France get something like 75-to-80 percent of their power from nuclear.

Gore: France is unique. It's a special case. We have a lot of nuclear plants in the U.S., and … I'm not anti-nuclear. I'm a little skeptical that's it's gonna play a much bigger role than it does now. I think it'll continue to play a role. But the problems with nuclear are it's very expensive. It takes a long time to build. And these nuclear plants only come in one size, extra large.

And utilities don't want to commit all that money for 15 years to get a plant that's rising in cost. And of course the fuel also has some problems, because if it gets out to other countries that can't be trusted, it feeds the problem of proliferating nuclear weapons."


And it should be pointed out that in this 2008 interview Gore was discussing his call for America to shift completely to renewable energy sources within 10 years, and nuclear wasn't part of that plan:

"Former vice president Al Gore laid down a green gauntlet Thursday, challenging the nation to produce all our electricity from renewable sources, such as wind mills and solar panels - and do it within a decade. In Washington CBS News anchor Katie Couric spoke one-on-one with Gore, whose environmental work earned him a Nobel Prize."

[sandnsea]

65. He thought it would "continue to play a role"

So it wasn't like he was ready to shut the whole industry down. I don't know what Obama is faced with on this issue, why he decided to put this money into nuclear, but it's likely Gore would have had to deal with a lack of electricity or meeting climate change standards or whatever the problem is. I know he's invested billions in solar and wind too, and in retrofitting buildings, and improving coal mining, but none of that gets more than a peep around here. I suspect Gore would have come to the same conclusion on nuclear power. We have to move ahead or be left in the fossil fuel ages.

[democracy1st]

K & R

[democracy1st]

37. K & R

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

41. Under Bush, we'd have called it (rightfully) corporate welfare.

[Codeine]

44. Easy way to fix that.

Nationalize the nuclear industry and make it a government project.

I really don't care how we do it or who gets rich as long as we can stop burning fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow while maintaining a high standard of living for ourselves and extending that standard to the rest of the world.

[sandnsea]

51. Are subsidies to wind and solar "corporate welfare"? n/t

[Codeine]

42. Bullshit.

Many environmentalists see nuclear as by far the best realistic option to supply us with the energy we need near-term while transitioning to a renewables- and fusion-based future. Environmentalists are not monolithic, and we're not all hysterical fear-monkeys.

[Tom Rinaldo]

45. Bullshit on calling those who disagree with you hysterical fear-monkeys

It would be just as valid and meaningful for me to call those taking your position corporate boot lickers. Back off on the smears.

[Codeine]

47. Look upthread and at other DU nuclear power discussions.

Those of us who support nuclear energy are branded - constantly and invariably - across DU as being shills, corporatists, paid operatives of the nuclear energy, and right wingers. Such claims are Standard Operating Procedure by the Luddite Brigade when it comes to the question of nuclear energy.

[Tom Rinaldo]

53. "the Luddite Brigade"? And you want me to take your complaint seriously?

A lot of name calling takes place on DU from every conceivable direction. You may well get called names but you are doing exactly the same thing. "Two wrongs don't..."

[Codeine]

55. I never claimed moral high ground.

:shrug: Their positions are irrational, illogical, and based entirely on fear. I see no need to take them seriously beyond working to defeat them.

[Tom Rinaldo]

58. I see...

...nice to know that you view me as an irrational illogical fear monger. I still don't assume you're a corporate shill though.

[Nikki Stone1]

43. The green movement was co-opted by GE Nuclear. Remember Al Gore's Live Earth was sponsored by GE

No surprises here.

[liberal_at_heart]

48. The republicans are the kings of non regulation and the democrats are too scared to regulate

This will lead to environmental damage.

[Codeine]

54. Nuclear is a heavily-regulated industry --

unlike the fossil industry who pump millions of tons of poisons, including radioactive poisons, into our lungs every year.

[Better Believe It]

63. On the "fight" between the dirty coal and nuclear power industry I say plague on both your houses!

I don't think that the nuclear power industry is the lesser of the two evils.

[uponit7771]

61. HUGE UNREC for the antiabortion mindset of antinuke power folk

[Better Believe It]

64. I believe that most of us support free choice in abortions. I certainly do.

You seem to be comparing apples and oranges.

There is a difference between supporting a womens right to have an abortion and opposing the construction of nuclear power plants.

Do I need to explain the difference?