Nuclear Energy

Bigger isn't better Re " 'Megamansion' upsets the mansion," March 22 Funny that people with houses that are 7,800 square feet find themselves in such a tizzy over the proposed construction of an 85,000-square-foot family compound. How appalling that they were ever allowed to start the trend in the first place. Where will all the water, electricity, lumber, concrete and gas continue to come from? I am advised to limit electrical use in my 1,400-square-foot home during peak hours.

To all those who may be concerned that the catastrophic events at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will derail the heralded renaissance of nuclear power in the U.S., you can relax. The reason is simple: There is no renaissance. Not even Exelon Corp., the nation's biggest nuclear generation company, has been holding its breath for a surge in orders or appreciable increase in new generating capacity. The reason has little to do with an unreasoning public's fear of nuclear meltdowns and radiation poisoning, and almost everything to do with pure economics.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Tuesday restated the Obama administration's commitment to keeping nuclear power in the mix of renewable sources under development in the U.S., but treaded carefully around questions of how the nuclear disaster in Japan might affect that effort. "The administration believes we must rely on a diverse set of energy sources, including renewables like wind and solar, natural gas, clean coal and nuclear power," Chu said before a House subcommittee. "The administration is committed to learning from Japan's experience as we work to continue to strengthen America's nuclear industry.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called on leading economic powers to gather next month and discuss the global consequences of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear threat that have plunged Japan, the world's No. 3 economy, into crisis. An emergency meeting of the Group of 20 economic and energy ministers was proposed by France on Monday night at a session of the Group of 8 powers in Paris. Monday's meeting had been convened to craft a strategy for deterring bloodshed and unrest in Libya.

They're scared. And they're skeptical. The government in Tokyo may be reassuring a nation already reeling from the worst earthquake in its recorded history that Japan is not about to experience a full-blown nuclear disaster. But the closer you got to the Fukushima nuclear complex, where officials are struggling with the specter of meltdowns at two of its six reactors, the less people were buying it. Photos: Scenes from the earthquake On National Road 4 on the city's outskirts, Mari Kano was crawling through congested traffic Sunday morning with her two young children in tow, baskets of clothes and toys in the back of her station wagon.

The upcoming launch of Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant has sparked fresh worries in the Persian Gulf about a possible atomic accident, but also will usher in an era of business opportunities for the oil-rich and strategically vital region. Most experts see little chance of a Chernobyl-like accident at Bushehr that would spread a vast radioactive cloud. But gulf residents remain concerned about what they describe as a lack of transparency on the plant and the safety records of Iran as well as Russia, which completed the plant and will help run it for at least a year.

Lou Zeller, veteran anti-nuclear activist, rolled into this out-of-the way east Georgia community on a Saturday morning in a Honda pickup sporting an Obama sticker. Yet here he was, come to wage war on the president's vision for an American nuclear renaissance. Zeller, 61, parked in a grassy lot next to Fairfield Missionary Baptist Church, a simple whitewashed building on a two-lane country road. Just over a ridge, two puffs of steam billowed from the cooling towers at the Vogtle nuclear power station.

A year ago in Prague, President Obama laid out his vision for a nuclear-free world, telling his international audience that the United States has a "moral responsibility" to lead in eliminating atomic weapons. His Nuclear Posture Review released Tuesday is a strong start down that long road, and although it is tempered by political realities, it creates momentum. On Thursday, Obama returns to Prague to sign a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia to draw down the two countries' nuclear stockpiles by nearly a third over several years to about 1,550 warheads each.

Nuclear power's place Re "Nuclear power isn't 'green,' it isn't safe and it isn't cost-effective," Opinion, March 5 Those who profit from nuclear power plants seem to have co-opted part of the media space to continue the falsehoods of "safe, clean" nuclear power. Nuclear power is not safe (ask worried workers at San Onofre) and not clean (when the polluting fossil fuels required for the whole nuclear fuel cycle are considered). It is never cost-effective, as no commercial company will touch a nuclear project without massive government subsidies and government insurance.

President Obama's announcement that the federal government would guarantee loans for two advanced-design nuclear plants in Georgia was good news. The commitment jump-starts the U.S. nuclear energy industry at a time when we have begun to understand that nuclear energy has a substantial role to play in combating climate change and supplying power. More important for the near term, the administration is putting nuclear energy at the center of its push to revitalize the economy. In his State of the Union address, Obama called for "a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants" to create more "clean-energy jobs."