Obama; first president to build nuclear reactors in over 30 years

President Obama announced on Tuesday, February 16, that $8.3 billion in guaranteed loans has been appropriated to build two nuclear power plants in Burke, Georgia, and put 3,000-4000 people to work, but he had no clear plan on how the nuclear waste would be stored.

According to Carol Browner, assistant the president on Climate and Energy, Obama will be appointing a “blue-star panel” of bipartisan members to come up with a way to safely store and ultimately dispose of, radioactive nuclear waste.

A task that has eluded lawmakers in the past.

Yucca Mountain in Nevada was expected to become the major repository of U.S nuclear waste, but it was defunded this year and was taken off the table after almost a decade of preparation.

White House spokesperson, Robert Gibbs, said that Yucca Mountain was rejected, “because of the science.”

Therefore, a national repository for nuclear waste does not exist and there are hundreds of nuclear reactors across the United States that have been storing the waste on site.

Currently, nuclear power generates approximately 20% of all the US supply, but many of the power plants are old and out dated.

Recently, the Nuclear Regulatory Council spokesman Neil Sheehan said conservative estimates show that leaks have occurred in at least 27 of the nation’s 104 commercial reactors at 65 different plant sites. He said the list likely does not include every plant where fuel has leaked, due to unreported incidents.
The Hanford Nuclear Reactor site in Washington state just got renewed funding in the 2010 budget, which will allow continued clean up on the worlds most contaminated nuclear site. The reactors were closed down after the cold war, but 53 million tons of uranium nuclear waste remains in 170 underground storage tanks.

The Columbia River still has levels of contamination that is 1500 times the standard of drinking water in many areas. A mass class action law suit by thousands of area residents that spent unknowing years with uranium pollutants in their air, water, and food--is still underway in 2010.

Environmental experts agree with President Obama when he says, “the fact is, changing the ways we produce and use energy requires us to think anew, it requires us to act anew, and it demands of us a willingness to extend our hand across some of the old divides."

But there are differences of opinion on what sources to invest in that will benefit the environment, the economy, and the increasing global population.

Stephen Smith, director of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy told CNN that it may be true that nuclear power doesn’t pollute the air, but there are faster, better, safer ways to reduce U.S. carbon out put.
“Increased energy efficiency is one thing that could be done immediately,” said Smith. He feels, as many do, that wind, solar, and geothermal are also sources of energy that could create jobs faster--and reduce greenhouse emissions sooner--than nuclear power. Smith said not having a clear plan to safely dispose of the waste currently sitting in underground storage is bad enough, but building more nuclear plants without a central repository is unwise.

Furthermore, most experts feel that a massive increase in nuclear power plants will be prohibited by the high cost (6-10 billion per reactor), concerns about uranium supplies, shortage of key building materials, huge volumes of water needed amid increasing shortages, and very long construction times,

Tuesday, Carol Browner confirmed the long construction time, when she said the bull dozers were already underway in Georgia and the preparation process would take from 16-18 months. Once the permits are cleared by the Nuclear Regulatory Council, assuming they will be, the construction could take up to 6-8 years.

But the president thinks the rest of the world is passing us by on nuclear power: “There are 56 nuclear reactors under construction around the world: 21 in China alone; six in South Korea and five in India," said Obama.

Has he asked them how they dispose of their waste?

As the popularity of the president erodes more every day, some environmentalists feel that Obama is giving too many concessions to the Republicans in his effort to reach bipartisanship in congress.
“We can’t allow our differences to keep us from making progress,” said Obama, but his efforts seem to fall on stubborn conservative ears.

Republican minority leader, John Boehner grudgingly responded to the president’s nuclear reactor announcement by saying, “it’s a small first step, but much more needs to be done.”

Then Boehner, launched into his usual talking points about big government spending and the lack of jobs, as if eight years of the Bush administration had no responsibility in the current situation.

President Obama will have the distinction of authorizing the building of nuclear reactors for the first time in 30 years, since the Three Mile Island reactor meltdown in 1979.

What concessions will he get from the Republicans? Probably very few.