McCain's French Romance

Senator John McCain, in announcing his global warming plan in Portland, Oregon last week, once again defended his support for more subsidies for nuclear power, saying that the pending Warner-Lieberman bill doesn't subsidize nuclear "far enough, in my estimation." He made these remarks just after he said, opposing subsidies for solar power, "I'm a little wary -- I have to give you straight talk -- about government subsidies..."

So how does McCain justify his double standard for nuclear power? He likes to claim that it is a proven clean technology, and cites as evidence France, where he claims nuclear power generates 80 percent of the electricity. (This fondness for things French is yet another aspect of McCain that may seem to depart from Republican orthodoxy.) But a recent analysis by Lawrence Solomon shows that citing the French experience is yet another example of McCain having failed to keep up with events.

Solomon explains the sordid story of France's nuclear romance. It's technical, but if you want to know why nuclear power is -- even for its wildest fans -- a limited part of our energy future, worth reading. But the bottom line is that nuclear power effectively bankrupted Electricite de France, the French power company. As a result, 61 percent of the population of France favors a complete phase-out of nuclear power -- a larger anti-nuclear constituency than in the U.S., where experience with nuclear and its economic problems is much more limited.

These facts aren't state secrets but easily obtained by anyone whose interest in nuclear power is as long-standing as McCain's. But while McCain has been ardently shilling for nuclear subsidies for a long time, he seems to have stopped learning much new about its economic realities a long time ago -- actually back in the 1970s, when the industry still claimed its power would be "too cheap to meter" instead of proving to be, as Amory Lovins likes to say, "too expensive to matter."

Comments

[joebhed]

The 2005 NEPA gave nuclear power - the supposedly proven technology - even bigger subsidies than to solar, wind and energy efficiency. So, is John McCain just looking for an even bigger campaign donation from the Nuclear Energy Institute and Exelon than it gave to Obama?
The nuclear industry in this country is a fish out of water.

While a number of US and foreign plant designers got their blueprints approved during the past generation and a half, what we haven't done is to replenish the needed engineering and technical skills that are needed to actually build one of these new-fangled, innovative contraptions.

We would need to be "borrowing" expertise, both from existing plant operators and from overseas.
This doesn't begin to address the competition for basic raw materials and qualified labor that will befall the wrong-headed nuclear revival.

We will have about a fifty percent over-supply of deadly nuclear waste that wouldn't fit into Yucca Mountain if it were ever licensed. We have no place to put the waste by-products from the next generation.
We will need a commitment to store the waste on-site in perpetuity, or until some other solution is at hand.
France?
It's a government-run industry.
They can do whatever they want.
They have not solved the nuclear waste problem any more than we Americans.
No Nukes.
Nationalize coal.
Clean coal when it's available, not before.
Illegalize mountaintop mining.
Put the miners in charge of mine safety.
Let's get on with it.

[Doofus]

The somewhat relevant 'technical' part of the Solomon piece is (only) this:

'The company (Electricite de France) had a 800-billion-franc debt, old reactors
that faced expensive decommissioning, and unresolved waste disposal costs.'

There's no point in installing new reactors of an old design that would continue
to exacerbate the waste problem, but there *is* good reason to put up new
reactors of new design that eliminate or minimize waste. It's disingenuous not
to mention this. The country needs huge quantities of new energy, if we are to
move away from extraordinary dependence on oil. Nuclear can be a way to go.

[joebhed]

OK, I'll bite.
And, what are those "waste-eliminating or reducing" nuclear technologies that can bring timely energy security to this country?

[noneIn2008]

The problem is once fully developed solar can only provide a couple % of our power. Wind a couple %. Hydro will shrink? Nuclear is the cleanest option.
If France phased out nuclear, where will they get their power? Coal and Oil.

[GRLCowan]

The US nuclear power industry is larger than the French on in absolute terms, and has been saving the citizens a billion dollars a week in natural gas costs. This is somehow displeasing to such as Lawrence Solomon, who also is, or pretends to be, much amused by the global warming hoohaw. Natural gas is a big carbon emitter, so that makes sense.

If gas dollars could vote, the left would be well advised to listen to Pope, et al.

--- G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html

[burnt]

That he spoke these lies in Portland is significant. The failure to safely contain nuclear waste on the Hanford Reservation in Washington is what McCain ignores... and specifically the US Government's unwillingness to effectively address the problem.

When first constructed, the containers were supposed to safely hold the waste long into the future. Unfortunately, many failed and have leaked over decades into the ground. In addition, a great deal of nuclear waste was just buried without containment, using geological forecast that the it would remain within a small area.

The problem is that the radioactivity has filtered down to the water table and has been flowing underground to the Columbia River for a very long time... which happens to run right by Portland. The failure of our political leaders to clean up their mess is unconscionable... and now they want us to believe once again that this is a "clean" and "safe" energy.

Radioactive waste, either in the ground, water or air, does not respect boundaries. Do you want your health to be put a risk this way? Oh... that's right... it's not in your backyard. Wake up. This is everybody's problem.

[Gma11]

Thanks for the information. It is impossible to keep up with such details. When I can come to HuffPost for such info, I can cut through the garbage so much easier.

And I find out about "news" that hits the corporate media at least a week ahead-of-time!