Do not hold your breath; Harry Reid has used his powers as Senate Majority Leader to derail the storage of nuclear waste at Yucca (allowing it to pile up at individual nuclear power plants, tempting terrorists). This is just one step Democrats have taken to destroy our nuclear power industry-and abandoning an export market that nations such as Russia and China are developing and that France has already developed.
Now we have news that Sweden, of all places, is engaging in nuclear power plant development . Germany will probably reconsider its opposition to new nuclear power plants and its plans to decommission its current nuclear power plants. If the founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, can admit the error s of his ways and support nuclear power, when will Democratic leaders?
The Democrats worship at the shrine of the electric car-an icon of their faith. Has anyone ever asked how this electricity will be generated? It can’t all come from natural gas since the pipeline network is not robust enough to supply all our needs and the Not-In-My-Back-Yard Syndrome has prevented the expansion of the pipeline system. Aside from this, there have been numerous roadblocks that have prevented offshore oil exploration and development as well as the development of our vast oil shale and coal reserves.
Sweden says it will overturn a ban on building new nuclear-power stations, in a further sign of how concerns about climate change and energy security are fueling a nuclear renaissance across Europe.
Swedes voted to phase out nuclear power in 1980, shortly after the Three Mile Island accident in the U.S. Since then, two of the country's 10 reactors have been shut down. But Sweden's coalition government said on Thursday that it will present a bill to parliament in March calling a halt to the phase-out and allowing nuclear construction, as part of a new climate and energy policy.
Sweden now has 10 reactors, which produce just under half of the country's electricity.
If lawmakers approve the bill, Sweden will join a growing list of countries rethinking their opposition to nuclear energy, as unease about global warming and oil prices outweighs fears about the safety of nuclear installations. Unlike fossil fuels, nuclear plants don't emit much of the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change.
The shift took on greater urgency after the European gas crisis last month, when a pricing dispute between Russia and Ukraine led to a halt in supplies of Russian natural gas to Eastern Europe in midwinter, prompting fresh calls for the European Union to diversify its sources of energy away from Russia.
The spat "helped people to understand what security of supply means ... and how risky it is to be so dependent on imports for your energy needs," said Luis Echávarri, director-general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Nuclear Energy Agency,
Barack Obama advocates that America reduce its dependence on overseas sources of energy. Solar power and windmills are inefficient-and the NIMBY syndrome has prevented the development of these technologies (examples include the Kennedy’s opposition to the Cape Wind project off the coast of their estate and environmentalist opposing the building of solar farms in the deserts because of the ecological impacts on the flora and fauna).
Windmills just are not efficient. Not only is wind inconsistent in most areas but the electricity is difficult to store, and people oppose the running of power lines across America. Indeed, they are the childish things that Barack Obama called for us to set aside in his inaugural speech.
Share