The American Spectator

Pete| 2.16.10 @ 4:15PM

What's the catch? You know he didn't suddenly become intelligent about energy.

Warrior| 2.16.10 @ 5:28PM

The eco-terrorist groups, who for some strange reason receive government grants, will ensure enough litigation to ensure the projects never get started.

Pete| 2.16.10 @ 5:37PM

This is what I assumed...so why would anyone in the GOP give him any credit for what is so obviously a cheap trick? I'd like to see some R get up and state this succinctly. For example:

"It's an empty gesture - totally meaningless unless he also does x,y,z to eliminate the baseless environmental lawsuits which which will inevitably neuter this and any other attempt at a practical solution to our energy needs. Frankly, it is insulting for him to even say something like this with a straight face."

Ben| 2.16.10 @ 4:17PM

Nuclear power is a fools errand. It costs more to extract the resources from the ground, which is far more scarce than any other currently used resource, and produces waste that can't safely be stored or transported for thousands of years. How does that make better sense?

L. Ross| 2.17.10 @ 1:24PM

Ben, Ben, Ben:

Part of nuclear power's high cost is a direct result of people who I assume think like you. Breeder reactors can drastically reduce our uranium and plutonium usage, but people in the whacko lobby think it is too dangerous.

As far as the "intense danger" posed by nuclear waste, it is time to educate yourself. Intensely radioactive compounds have very short half-lives, measured in seconds to days. That is why they are intensely radioactive. Slightly radioactive compound have half-lives measured in hundreds to thousands of years. Do we really need to live in terror of the exposure equivalent of a couple of chest x-rays?

Northport Dave| 2.16.10 @ 4:29PM

Nuclear power isclean and efficent, as far as storage of spent fuel rods they have locations for that. Nukes are used in Subs and Naval ships in the USNavy with zero percent fatalities in the last few decades, other than Russian vessels.

Maintance is key and oversite of construction without pay offs and organized crime (cement) and a non union site that would reduce the cost by 30% !
just my humble opinion,, I'm still paying for a nucleear plant that they built 25 miles awAy but wouldn't put online due to NIMBY and poor planning for a detailed evacuation plan.

DAC| 2.16.10 @ 4:39PM

Ben, you are hopelessly ignorant; the French (to our shame) and the Japanese recycle over 90% of the volume of each nuclear fuel pellet used, rather than storing it next the reactors as we do (because nobody's had the courage to reverse a Jimmy Carter policy that never worked). The energy content of standard uranium oxide nuclear fuel--and uranium is plentiful in the American West, Canada, Australia, and other less pleasant places--dwarfs that of fossil fuels (I won't bother dismissing the expensive frauds of wind and solar).

To Mr Klein's points, though, the catch is that Dear Leader Obama's eco-commie environmentalist allies are going to file so many lawsuits to block the construction and licensing of the new plants, that federal loan guarantees won't matter. It's a purely political gesture, a feint to entice the Republicans to prop up his completely discredited "climate change" fraud. Nothing, I mean nothing, this cretin does is honest or without sleazy political calculus. The interest of his country and its energy consumers is the furthest thing from his fevered statist brain. After all, more and cheaper energy--what nuclear can and does deliver--is antithetical to his and his minions' desire to ration and control, in energy no less than medical care. Don't be fooled.

Bill, from WV| 2.16.10 @ 5:29PM

Obama, can beat his chest in public giving mouth service support to nuclear energy because he knows that his environmentalist base will tie the construction of ANY nuclear plants up until the next millennium!
Then, he will stand before his teleprompter and tell us all well I did the best I could I tried!
MRD

Dan| 2.16.10 @ 5:50PM

For the power companies:
WHY NOT SELL BONDS?
I work for a company where we design and build hospitals all across the countries. These facilities cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Where do you think the money comes from to pay for them? The hospitals have some money to start, and they get people to invest in the success after their expansion. There are plenty of people out there who don't feel so safe putting their pensions in the market right now, so why not something as safe as a utility? The only real risk factor is a population migration away from the area the reactor is supposed to power. (ie. stay out of CA for a while.)

Once a power plant of this sort is constructed, it's going to be around for a LONG time and it will definitely continue to service the grid it's connected to. Investors that are in it for the long term can be pooled to see the construction of such facilities, as long as the bureaucratic red tape can be torn away long enough for it to get built.

It would take some major effort on the part of bureaucrats to truly insure against enviro-whackos getting a judge from slapping an injunction on the project, or existing oversight organizations from slowing down construction, but with enough effort, these plants could be marketed as a safe investment.

I'd say the early builders would have a better chance of success. In our industry, building in California is a nightmare thanks to the oversight agency, OSHPD, which over doubles the amount of time to get approval before we can start construction, and does the same during construction. My advice is invest and build soon before the bureaucrats try to meddle.

Ken (Old Texican)| 2.16.10 @ 5:52PM

Ladies and gentlemen,
I am delighted. You guys nailed it.

The stupids in our country elected this knothead.
I'm very glad.

If we can survive it, literally, it is the best mirror we could have erected.

Symrian| 2.16.10 @ 7:09PM

Sadly, the rude awakening America needed wasn't going to happen any other way. Not after decades of dumbing down and indoctrination. Experience is a great teacher, and at this point in our history, the only one that will do.

I sure wish we could have done it another way though. I just don't see how.

Ken (Old Texican)| 2.16.10 @ 7:46PM

Symrian, welcome.
I'm with you....darn it.

Hard knocks still seems to be the best teacher to dummies.

PCC| 2.16.10 @ 8:28PM

According to the BBC, the catch is that Obama is tying support for the re-introduction of nuclear power to passage of a carbon tax or cap-and-trade.

In which case, this proposal is already DOA.

John| 2.16.10 @ 9:10PM

Obama still does not address where will the spent rods be stored since he ordered Yuca Mountain closed.

Stan Redmond| 2.17.10 @ 10:27AM

Translated...

President Obama has pledged 8.3 billion in taxpayer backed loans for nuclear energy. Every penny of this 8.3 billion will be distributed by energy companies to the Sierra Club, Green Peace, Audobon Society, Environmental Defense Fund, thousands of environmental attornies, NAACP, land use lawyers, and thousands of other liberal anti nuclear power groups. Once the 8.3 billion dollars has been properly dispersed and nuclear power has proven it can't work, the energy companies will then be required to pay back the federal government (not the taxpayer) for the 8.3 billion dollars in loans.

WHAT A SCAM!!! If Obama were serious, and I wish he were, he would also announce land grants for mining uranium and ores on federal lands, environmental lawsuit moratoriums, and appoint a special commision to eliminate the bureaucratic barriers to building new power plants. Also, he would give the same tax incentives given to useless windmills and solar panels (that don't work). This is NOTHING but a 8.3 billion dollar transfer of wealth to liberal special interest groups and when the money runs out, and it will, without a single shovel load of dirt moving, liberals can cry that even with 8.3 billion dollars nuclear power can't work. This is scary and to liberals a cheap price to pay to drive the last nail in to US nuclear power.

Oldefarte| 2.17.10 @ 10:50AM

Going nuclear is a great LONG TERM strategy, but will not relieve the supply/price economic stress at present. Domestic oil/gas drilling would immediately supply high paying jobs, reduce enery costs to Americans and defund foreigners' funding of Muslim terrorism from their oil royalties!!!!!