Oh boy! 50 billion greenbacks for new nukes!
How much you got in that there Energy Bill for solar? Wind? Geothermal? Tidal? Co-generation?
How about for Conservation? Retrofitting America’s leaky doors, windows attics and basements? Research on new automotive fuels?
Oh, here’s some funds for all that: $7 billion for renewable energy. Hmm, so all those other forms of independence-supporting energy will get 12% of the pie, while nukes will draw on a suitably robust, manly, nuclear 88%.
For once, it’s nice giving credit to the New York Times Why? For front-paging this story about the
one-sentence provision buried in the Senate’s recently passed energy bill, inserted without debate at the urging of the nuclear power industry, could make builders of new nuclear plants eligible for tens of billions of dollars in government loan guarantees.
Lobbyists have told lawmakers and administration officials in recent weeks that the nuclear industry needs as much as $50 billion in loan guarantees over the next two years to finance a major expansion.
The biggest champion of the loan guarantees is Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy Committee and one of the nuclear industry’s strongest supporters in Congress.
Well, Domenici. As long as he’s in charge, I feel much better! A real stand-up guy, nothing but integrity of the highest order.
Someone is bound to tell me that "loan guarantees" are nothing to get worked up about -- just the standard U.S. government instrument of support for the "free market" operation of intelligent choices for our nation.
Here’s the word on how the marvelous free market will operate, in the special case of our nation’s next generation of shiny nuclear power plants:
Power companies have tentative plans to put the 28 new reactors at 19 sites around the country. Industry executives insist that banks and Wall Street will not provide the money needed to build new reactors unless the loans are guaranteed in their entirety by the federal government.
Guaranteed in their entirety! By the federal government. Jeez, that’s great! This federal government is quite generous. Wonder where it gets all that kind of free dough!
And even more amazing, is who this federal government selects as the recipients of their (our) spectacular no-fault lending: the biggest, foulest, loot-concentrating, poison-spewing corporations on Earth!
Well hold on now, pardner, I can hear you saying - - at least these big energy companies know how to deliver the goods. After all, they have shareholders to answer to. They sure do - - just like those clever fellers at W.P.P.S.S. ("Whoops," the Washington Public Power Supply System) back in the 1980s:
In January 1982, the WPPSS board stopped construction on Plants 4 and 5 when total cost for all the plants was projected to exceed $24 billion. Because these plants generated no power and brought in no money, the system was forced to default on $2.25 billion in bonds. This meant that the member utilities, and ultimately the rate payers, were obligated to pay back the borrowed money. In some small towns where unemployment due to the recession was already high, this amounted to more than $12,000 per customer.
Jeepers! That was 1982. Old times, old technology, old economy. And we didn’t know so much about global warming and carbon dioxide. We didn’t know what we know today: that NUKES are CLEAN, and also SECURE because we grow all our own URANIUM right here domestically! And the new nukes with their new designs will be so much safer.
Well, that could be. But they will be built and operated by people (We’re still using the same old design for people.) and if the Energy Bill already passed by our dynamic Democratically controlled Senate gets approved by the House without changing that one $50 Billion Nuke Loan Guarantee sentence, you can bet your bottom dollar that we’ll all be listening to chorus after chorus of that fantastic motto, often repeated by Bart Simpson and his dad: "Mistakes were made."
May I please direct your attention to a few alternatives!
Rocky Mountain Institute and Amory Lovins
E. F. Schumacher: Small is Beautiful
Buckminster Fuller Institute
Thanks for reading!