The President’s Pro-Nuclear Rhetoric vs. His Anti-Nuclear Policies

President Obama released his Climate Action Plan this week, which laid out his vision for reducing climate change.

Regardless of what one thinks about climate change policy, producing more unsubsidized, affordable, clean, reliable, emissions-free power is a laudable goal. That is why, of all the recommendations that the President puts forth, increasing nuclear energy is perhaps the one thing that could actually attract bipartisan support in Washington and broad public support across the country. The problem is that he does nothing to actually move nuclear energy forward in the U.S., and most of his policies actually hold it back.

The biggest problem is his nuclear waste policy—or lack thereof. Though the pre-Obama policy to put nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain as mandated by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act needed to be amended, it at least was a policy. And that policy gave the nuclear industry and federal regulators some predictability and confidence that eventually something would be done with America’s nuclear waste.
President Obama’s decision to completely ignore the 1982 law and attempt to terminate the Yucca project has led to a complete unwinding of nuclear waste policy. This has thrust an additional layer of uncertainty onto an industry that was just beginning to emerge from a decades-long hiatus driven by cost, regulatory, and safety uncertainty.

Moreover, instead of identifying policy and regulatory obstacles that could be reformed to help nuclear be more competitive, the President is attempting to subsidize nuclear power into success. For example, instead of developing a rational, flexible, and predictable regulatory process that would allow new nuclear technologies to be efficiently introduced into the market, the President introduced a program where government bureaucrats decide what type of nuclear technology would receive taxpayer money to offset development costs. This unfair, anti-competitive approach reduces nuclear power to being little more than the subject of another big-government program whose future is dependent on perpetual taxpayer support. Nuclear can be so much more.

If President Obama really believes that nuclear power is critical to the future of the country, then he needs to leave his current policies behind and do the following:

• Restart and reform Yucca. The Administration should immediately restart the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s review of the Yucca Mountain permit. If the commission approves the permit, the permit should be transferred to a Nevada-based entity that can then negotiate directly with the nuclear industry on what, if anything, to do to move the project forward.
• Institute market-based nuclear waste management reform. The U.S. needs a market-based nuclear energy policy. This begins with a nuclear waste policy that gives utilities and other waste producers the primary responsibility for waste management and a system for financing nuclear waste disposal that allows waste producers to directly pay for nuclear-waste-related services.
• Develop a rational, flexible, and predictable regulatory regime. The nation needs a regulator that can issue permits for new plants on a predictable basis at a reasonable cost and is capable of regulating multiple types of reactors and other industrial facilities such as used fuel treatment plants................  Read More.

Obama Energy Secretary Nominee Supportive of Nuclear Power

On Monday the president nominated a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and former member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future to serve as the next secretary of energy.

If confirmed by the Senate, Ernest J. Moniz will replace outgoing Energy Secretary Steven Chu. While his background is outside of the nuclear power and waste management sectors that form a large part of DOE's work, Moniz has expressed his support for nuclear energy in the past.

He is a professor of physics and engineering systems at MIT, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1973 and also serves as the director of the university's Energy Initiative and Laboratory for Energy and the Environment. His past government appointments include a position as a DOE undersecretary from 1997 to 2001 and as an associate director for science in the Clinton administration's Office of Science and Technology Policy.

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NRC Freezes All Nuclear Reactor Construction & Operating Licenses In U.S.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Decision Follows 24 Groups' June Petition in Wake of Major Waste Confidence Rule Decision; Most Reactor Projects Already Stymied by Bad Economics and Cheaper Fuel Alternatives 

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) acted today to put a hold on at least 19 final reactor licensing decisions - nine construction & operating licenses (COLS), eight license renewals, one operating license, and one early site permit - in response to the landmark Waste Confidence Rule decision of June 8th by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. 

The NRC action was sought in a June 18, 2012 petition filed by 24 groups urging the NRC to respond to the court ruling by freezing final licensing decisions until it has completed a rulemaking action on the environmental impacts of highly radioactive nuclear waste in the form of spent, or 'used', reactor fuel storage and disposal. 

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*** COMMENTARY  *** 

As Harry Reid holds up Yucca Mountain, a perfectly dry and geologically inactive site, the nation will begin to suffer the inability to continue nuclear power operations.  The results will be runaway energy costs, reduced production capabilities, jobs losses, and an overall lowered standard of living for the people of the United States.

The Barack Obama Administration has purposely put in NRC Chairpersons that are anti-nuclear power and have thwarted the zero emission operations of our nuclear power fleet.

The halting of these new plants is a huge blunder as they create far more power, are less expensive, have far less waste, use far less fuel, are highly efficient, and exceedingly safe.

It is a shame when politics trumps common sense and intelligence.

Richard Branson urges Obama to back next-generation nuclear technology

Sir Richard Branson is urging the US government to help commercialise a controversial class of nuclear reactor, according to a letter seen by the Guardian asking for a meeting with President Barack Obama and US energy secretary Steven Chu.

The White House declined the meeting to discuss integral fast reactors (IFRs), which proponents say offer a way of dealing with nuclear waste, although no working commercial reactors are in operation.

But the move brings the intriguing prospect of a race to develop nuclear technology between Branson and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, whose new company TerraPower is developing another type of next-generation nuclear technology known as the travelling wave reactor.

"Obviously we urgently need to come up with a clean effective way of supplying our energy since not only are the dirty ways like oil running out but we need to do so to help avoid the world heating up," Branson told the Guardian.

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