Obama's State of the Union address was a pleasant surprise for nuclear proponents, but a not so pleasant one for critics in both parties
One of the most active debates
surrounding U.S. politics is whether U.S. President Barack Obama is
doing too much or too little to break away from stale politics on
both sides of the aisle. In his first traditional State
of the Union address, U.S. President Barack Obama talked about a
number of controversial topics, including one that's very familiar to
DailyTech readers -- nuclear
energy.
Nuclear power came to the U.S. following the
second World War, with the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 a bill
championed by a Democratic controlled U.S. House of Representatives
and signed into law by Harry Truman, a Democratic president.
Republican leadership contributed significantly to civilian nuclear
development as well, with the first commercial nuclear power plant
opened under President Dwight Eisenhower. With John F. Kennedy
and Lyndon B. Johnson -- Democratic presidents -- the commercial
nuclear industry expanded dramatically in the 1960s.
What was
once an issue that enjoyed bipartisan support, however, split along
party lines in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Democrats, who
increasingly drew support from the growing "green"
environmentalist movement listened to concerns from their base about
toxic nuclear waste. Accidents like the Three Mile Island
incident of 1979 cemented the party's opposition to nuclear
expansion.
Today the nuclear industry has moved beyond its
"dirty" past; countries like Japan and France enjoy
relatively clean,
safe, and cheap nuclear energy. You could tear down every
nuclear reactor in the U.S. and replace them five to ten fold with
these modern designs, while keeping waste levels constant -- or even
shrinking them. However, nonsensically some in the
environmentalist movement have fought adoption of modern designs out
of a outdated mistrust, ultimately hurting both the environment and
the U.S. public.
U.S. Barack Obama in his address Wednesday
night indicated that he looks to silence his party's opposition to
the now green and clean energy source and push the U.S. to embrace
the benefits of modern nuclear power. Addressing the
nation, he described, "To create more of these clean energy
jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And
that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power
plants in this country."
Those words come as a shock to
many conservatives and liberals alike, as many assumed Obama to be be
anti-nuclear due to his seemingly pointedly silence about nuclear
energy during his election campaign. He faces tough skepticism
from his own party on the move. As recently as the 2008
election, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a prominent Democratic,
has been a critic of nuclear energy. She stated during a 2008
interview, "I am agnostic about nuclear. I am very skeptical
that nuclear could become acceptable in most regions of the country,
and I am doubtful that we have yet figured out how to deal with the
waste."
Others on both sides of the aisle have voiced
similar concerns.
Still, Democrats are warming to the idea of
nuclear power, as are some in the environmentalist movement.
The real question now becomes whether Obama can push nuclear power
past its opponents. President George W. Bush also was a proponent of
nuclear energy, but a combined lack of decisive action on his part
and legislative opposition led to the nation making little real
progress on nuclear power during his eight year presidency.
Can
Obama do better? That's an intriguing question. The
nation in 2008 received 19.6 percent of its power from nuclear
sources. If groups like The Clean and Safe Energy Coalition
have that number could soon rise significantly, with new construction
of dozens of plants. The group says
that 32 new plant proposals are pending. Can those proposals
make it past the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission? That remains to be seen. But
it is clear for now that momentum is mounting for the U.S. to catch
up to the rest of the industrialized world in clean nuclear energy --
a notion supported by President Obama and many conservatives and
democrats alike.
"I'm an Internet expert too. It's all right to wire the industrial zone only, but there are many problems if other regions of the North are wired." -- North Korean Supreme Commander Kim Jong-il
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