Sen. John McCain Proposes Major Nuclear Energy Initiative

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Related subjects: Carbon Emissions, Energy Supply, J.E. Robertson, Sustainable Development, U.S. Environment, U.S. Politics, Vote 2008 Comments Off

23 July 2008 :: J.E. Robertson

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), just one week after backing Pres. Bush’s proposal to initiate new offshore oil and natural gas drilling in currently protected areas, has proposed a major nuclear power initiative, modeling his plan on France’s highly developed nuclear power grid. He also accused his rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) of opposing new offshore drilling, new nuclear plants, and the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuels. McCain wants to build 45 new nuclear power plants in order to produce more electricity from non-carbon-based sources, and claims the new plants would not be an environmental danger.

McCain told an audience attending a town-hall meeting event in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, that his plan was the best way to speed new energy to the American economy and that it would create 700,000 new jobs. If undertaken, his plan would not produce new energy during his first term. At best, on a timescale that meets the fastest in the world in French nuclear plant production, the first plants might be operable within the following four-year presidential term. Whatever the potential long-term benefit to the US economy, energy output would not be affected in a way that would bring energy and/or fuel prices down in the near term.

The Arizona senator’s plan would also end a near 3-decade moratorium on the building of new nuclear plants, a ban imposed due to concerns about major accidents, public health and environmental concerns. The Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania, which was contained and resulted in no major risk to the public, had created a national scare, and the Chernobyl incident in the then Soviet Union, released a massive amount of radioactive materials into the atmosphere, affecting much of central and eastern Europe, nearly all of Russian territory, and in lower doses, the entire northern hemisphere.

There is a deeply ingrained opposition to expanding nuclear production in US politics, built up since the Three Mile Island scare and solidified by virtue of what was perceived as a threat removed by the end of the Cold War. McCain is banking on the advice of some economists and pro-nuclear advocates who say the climate is now ripe for restoring the United States’ nuclear industry, at a time when energy prices are soaring and fuel costs are at historic highs.

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Rapid growth in China and India means the strain on carbon-based fuel supplies is unlikely to soften, and the economic reasoning seems obvious: non-combustible domestically-sourced energy to help break the petroleum addiction. But critics are quick to add there are a lot of myths bound up with this reasoning. For one, nuclear energy is not the easiest to produce or bring online, and it is not guaranteed to give us more energy than renewable resources.

Second, nuclear energy is not entirely domestically sourced: the uranium or plutonium needed to produce the nuclear reaction must be mined, and much of it is internationally sourced. And third, industry does profit, but the process over time does not pay itself back; it consistently produces a net loss when accounting for subsidies, construction, maintenance, industry, profits, decomissioning and long-term treatment and storage of waste.

The construction and maintenance of a nuclear power industry is as much of a drain as it is a benefit to the overall economy, so energy prices overall do not come down. And, Sen. McCain has been called to task before for his support for the nuclear energy industry, precisely because it depends so heavily on subsidies, which he has so vocally opposed throughout his crusade against unnecessary government spending and/or “earmarks”.

But none of this may be as important as the political imagery. Sen. McCain hopes to be able to seize the spotlight, as the candidate willing to push for aggressive energy action on all fronts, and he has already said he seeks to paint his rival as a naysayer, precisely what Obama attempts not to be. Sen. Obama’s campaign has presented an aggressive energy plan that contemplates interim measures to increase supply, but focuses on renewables to build the future energy economy. He also opposes new offshore drilling, saying it will not have a downward effect on prices and will take too long to bring online.

The debate about energy comes just as oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens has launched a national campaign to use a massive wind-power initiative to revolutionize the American energy economy, and former vice president Al Gore has called for a national effort to transfer all US energy production to “carbon-free” modes of production within 10 years. If Pickens or Gore get some of what they’re calling for, and automakers innovate to keep pace with consumer interests, the need to rely on fuel sources currently considered dominant, like coal and oil, may be an obsolete question.

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