Looks like Obama supports nukes after all. Having read all the posts here that Obama was a nuke hater, I came to believe that as fact. I guess it is not true, though. Can't say the same for the rest of the Dems, but Obama is voting with dollars. Any comments? Can't wait to see how you guys spin this one into another anything but Obama rant.
Obama Said to Seek $54 Billion in Nuclear-Power Loan Guarantees
bloomberg.com
Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, acting on a pledge to support nuclear power, will propose tripling loan guarantees for new reactors to more than $54 billion, two people familiar with the plan said.
The additional loan guarantees in Obama’s budget, which will be released on Feb. 1, are part of an effort to bolster nuclear-power production after Obama called for doing so in his State of the Union address Jan. 27. Today, the Energy Department plans to announce creation of a panel to find a solution to storing the waste generated by nuclear plants.
“To create more of these clean-energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives,” Obama said in his speech. “That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear-power plants in this country. ”
For the 2011 budget, the department will add $36 billion to the $18.5 billion already approved for nuclear-power plant loan guarantees, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the budget hasn’t been released. The program was started in 2005 by Congress to encourage new plant construction, but the department has yet to issue a loan guarantee.
Nuclear plants accounted for 20 percent of U.S. power generation in 2008, according to the Energy Department.
Industry groups such as the Washington-based Nuclear Energy Institute have said the loan guarantees are critical to reviving the industry because most companies can’t afford the capital investment in a facility that can take a decade to complete. The institute in a December report put the cost of a reactor at as much as $9 billion.
Southern Co.’s Reactors
Southern Co. of Atlanta expects to be the first to get a loan guarantee, in two or three months, which may help it finance two additional nuclear reactors at its two-unit Vogtle plant in Georgia, Chief Executive Officer David M. Ratcliffe said in an interview Jan. 27.
The Energy Department will announce formation of a panel that will study alternatives to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, according to an administration official. Obama has said he would halt work on the Nevada project and find another solution to handling spent nuclear fuel.
Energy Department Spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller said she couldn’t comment on the budget. Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, didn’t immediately return a phone call. A White House spokesman declined to comment. |
