Senate Appropriators Add $50 Billion Nuclear Waste To Recovery Plan
Senate Appropriators Add $50 Billion Nuclear Waste To Recovery Plan
On Wednesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to increase nuclear loan guarantees by $50 billion in the economic recovery package (S. 336). This staggering sum “would more than double the current loan guarantee cap of $38 billion” for “clean energy” technology:
TITLE 17—INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY LOAN GUARANTEE PROGRAM
The Committee also recommends an additional $50,000,000,000 to support the deployment of eligible technologies under the Section 1702(b)(2) of EPACT 2005 that will contribute to transforming the energy sector. This funding will add to the existing loan guarantee authority provided in other appropriations bills to support self-financed loan guarantees. The Committee is aware of the strong interest in the program and the large number of pending applications.
In contrast, the committee allocated only $9.5 billion exclusively for “standard renewable energy projects.” Although the loan guarantee program covers nuclear technology, carbon capture and sequestration for coal plants, as well as renewable energy, the vast bulk of requested loans — $122 billion — are for new nuclear power plants. This $50 billion nuclear throwaway nearly matches the total allocation for genuinely clean energy in the House version of the stimulus package: only $52 billion in total for smart grid, renewable energy, and energy efficiency investments.
Unlike renewable energy and energy efficiency technology, investments in the nuclear industry generate few jobs or economic growth. The nuclear industry has developed through massive federal subsidization from research to deployment over decades. Such a massive expenditure of nuclear pork has no place in the economic recovery bill. Brent Blackwelder of Friends of the Earth, who discovered the nuclear pork, called the appropriations “unconscionable“:
Now is not the time for another bailout boondoggle. Nuclear power is the most expensive form of energy there is. It takes 10 years or more to build a reactor, so it is impossible to claim with a straight face that this preemptive bailout has anything to do with creating jobs. Senate appropriators’ decision to include such wasteful spending in the stimulus is an example of Washington at its worst.
A proposed $2 billion in manufacturing tax credits in the Finance Committee mark only applies to production of components for renewable energy, electric or hybrid-electric car storage systems, grid and efficiency components, carbon capture and storage equipment and renewable fuels. Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) are working to change the manufacturing tax incentive so that it is "technology neutral."
First comes efficiency, efficiency, efficiency and then comes renewables, and once you’ve tried everything else twice as hard as you ever thought possible, then and only then should you consider the the really expensive options that need a lot of technological advances, like nuclear and coal with carbon capture and storage.
12 Responses to “Senate Appropriators Add $50 Billion Nuclear Waste To Recovery Plan”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Wonk RoomContact Us
Donate
What a waste.
Watch them spend this money, and come up with a bunch of half-finished nuclear plants.
Solar is the way to go.
January 30th, 2009 at 12:03 pmI don’t know why you have such a problem with all this stimulus spending on coal and nuclear. Think of all the jobs that could be created cleaning up coal sludge spills and storing nuclear waste.
January 30th, 2009 at 3:41 pmI’ve heard that Obama is heavily supported by the nuclear industry…much like energy, there are no completely clean politicians.
January 30th, 2009 at 4:25 pmNuclear is alot of trouble for a glorified steam engine. Lets look at making electricity through wave energy. At least the east, west, and south could benefit. Then there is no waste, fumes, or nukes to store.
January 30th, 2009 at 6:27 pmThe Sierra Club just sent out a letter to its members asking them to support clean energy in the Senate bill, specifically mentioning that coal subidies should be taken out, and saing NOTHING about nuclear. WHAT IS THIS???
January 31st, 2009 at 1:21 pmHere in Ontario (Canada), the province is about to approve a 26 billion dollars bailout to the nuclear industry. It has been plagued over the years with huge spending overruns for maintenance, poor efficiency and many known and unknown leaks in the air and water by nuclear plants. Nuclear energy is dangerous, pollute (it takes a lot of cement,which is the second most polluting industry),and destroy the environment (mining for uranium). Alternative renewable energy creates a lot more jobs and better jobs that can be spread all over the province instead of being centralized in one area. So why are we investing in a industry that does not make any economic or environmental sense……
January 31st, 2009 at 1:46 pmWhat a foolish and dangerous waste of money! And, it is bound to cost far more, with huge unneccessary risks taken , just for perhaps as many jobs as cleaner, environmentally far more sensible alternative energy sources and stimulus packages for homeowners buying energy efficient systems and having them installed.
February 4th, 2009 at 2:47 pmIn contrast, the committee allocated only $9.5 billion exclusively for “standard renewable energy projects.” Although the loan guarantee program covers nuclear technology, carbon capture and sequestration for coal plants, as well as renewable energy.
February 4th, 2009 at 10:59 pmWhy would the Appropriations Committee vote to increase nuclear industry loan guarantees by $50 billion on one hand — while, on the other hand, Harry Reid is promising to kill Yucca Mountain by strangling it to death with budget cuts?
So the plan is to INCREASE the use of nuclear power without having a clue as to where they intend to store the waste?
What kind of a lopsided plan is this? What am I missing here?
February 6th, 2009 at 6:31 pmSolar is the way to go?
Surely you jest. Solar still has many technical problems that aren’t easy to solve, with the main one being storage. How do you feed power to the grid at night? What about when you get a 2-3 day weather pattern where there’s a drop in sunlight availability.
Solar works well with other units that can be turned on/off at will (i.e. coal & natural gas). Wind combines nicely with solar, too, but it has many of the same issues that solar has – you can’t get your power reliably.
February 13th, 2009 at 2:09 pmOoops…forgot to finish my earlier post.
You need a mix of power sources.
Solar & wind are “ideal” from a green perspective, but suffer from high costs and reliability issues. They’re currently pretty expensive (in terms of capital investment for how much power they produce), but that’ll come down with time).
Nuclear is pretty darned clean, but suffers from a huge fear factor.
Natural gas is ok for pollution, but relies on the oil & gas industry. For the time, there seems to be enough natural gas in the US to supply our own needs, but that may not be able to go on forever.
Coal is horrible for pollution, but we have enough coal in the US to be independent for many, many years to come.
The problem I see with a lot of people is that they’re unwilling to face the technical limitations of wind & solar and blindly believe that those two technologies can solve all of our problems.
You need a mixed approach.
February 13th, 2009 at 2:16 pmRegardless of how you feel about the environmental effects of nuclear energy and how many jobs it will create, it is by far the cheapest way to effectively get power to the masses.
Solar panels don’t have the capacity to effectively create the amount of energy that we use today, nor are wind farms a feasible alternative because of the huge amounts of land needed for them to produce the kind of energy that our country has grown accustomed to, thus you have two options: You can build nuclear plants that will shut down the coal plants in a decade at the most, or you can wait for solar and wind to become more efficient and keep drilling for coal in the process and maybe get rid of the coal plants within the century.
From an economical standpoint, nuclear energy is going to drop the price of the electricity that you are paying for, so in the end, it’s like the gov’t is giving the money to the taxpayers. I know that that last one is a stretch, but it really will lower bills. I moved from an area where nuclear was used to an area supplied by coal and my electricity bills doubled…Food for thought
February 17th, 2009 at 3:27 pm