Posted on 06/22/2005 9:56:33 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
"There is a growing consensus that more nuclear power will lead to a cleaner and safer nation," President Bush said on Wednesday during a trip to a nuclear power plant in Maryland.
"It is time for this country to start building nuclear power plants again," he said to applause at the Calvert Cliffs plant.
"We're taking practical steps to encourage construction of new plants, Bush said, as he pressed Congress to send him an energy bill by August.
President Bush joked that he didn't understand all the buttons and dials in the control room of the Calvert Cliffs plant -- but he said he does know that when the people of Maryland flip a switch and see their lights come on, they need to thank the people working at the nuclear plant.
He said nuclear power is the one energy source that is "completely domestic, plentiful in quantity, environmentally friendly, and able to generate massive amounts of electricity."
The 103 nuclear power plants currently operating in America produce about 20 percent of the nation's electricity, Bush noted, without producing a single pound of air pollution or greenhouse gases.
In terms of safety, times have changed since the 1970s, Bush said. Advances in technology have made nuclear plants far safer than they were before. Yet no new plants have been built in the U.S. since the 1970s.
In his speech, President Bush noted that Americans are using energy faster they they're producing it. "We really haven't confronted this problem," he said, noting that he's been asking Congress to send him an energy bill for the past four years. All he's gotten is debate and politics but no results, he said. "So now's the time...for Cognress to stop the debate, stop the inaction, and pass an energy bill."
The House has passed an energy bill and the Senate needs to do so, the president said -- before the Senate's August recess.
President Bush said gasoline prices will not drop when he signs a bill. But making the nation less dependent on foreign oil will make life better for future generations, he said.
Gasp!
The enviro-weenies probably have their shorts in a knot over this.
I REALLY hope they can get this going.
Actually there is no responsible environmentalist who could have a problem with Nuke plants, it's only morons without a scrap of scientific understanding who go willy over the notion of nuclear power. Nuclear is a perfect environmentally sensative form of power generation, and I've never met anyone R or D who knew what they were talking about and opposed it, only paranoid weenies.
Hmmm ... cut back funding for "safe" alternative energies like solar and encourage spending more money on "dangerous" alternative energies like nuclear. Ridding ourselves of dependence on foreign oil is a *top* priority ... huge ... especially as China enters the competition for demand. But is this the "best" way to go about doing it? Three Mile Island? Chernobyl? I'd take a "solar disaster" over a "nuclear disaster" any day. We just need the next great evolutionary jump in solar technology.
Chernobyl was caused by an intentional melt down, 3 mile island was only a partial meltdown, and modern Nuclear plants, you know ones built between the last one we built more than 30 years ago and now, are scads safer. It is a safe highly efficient source of energy. You haven't even named a nuclear disaster most people born after Reagan was elected would recall. That should tell you about the incidence of catastophy.
What solar power? What are you talking about? How many MWh are produced by solar generators? Are you one of those misinformed dopes that thinks solar power is viable? Maybe you should build a power plant that runs on harmonious feeelings, or from moonbeams. Dar.
Plus the fact that French (even they get it right once awhile) uses nuclear power..
My only objection to nuclear power is that taxpayers are expected to subsidize them. Private insurance companies will not insure them against catastrophic events, and if they did, they would charge premiums so high as to make Nuclear power more expensive than coal, oil, etc... Which is why nuclear power companies are insured by govt. bodies backed up by our tax dollars against meltdown.
Nuclear power, in a free market, is not economically viable yet.
How true.
I like the idea of nuclear/desalination plants off the coasts.
You solve the problems of both electricity & water with one plant.
I agree with him. Nuclear power is one method to reduce the reliance on Middle Eastern and OPEC oil.
We tax payers have paid for power generation for eon's yet availability goes down and prices come up. One think to look at near/at our military bases is the nuclear ships the enter port. Insteand of turning off the reactors, leave them on and power the local cities.
One carrier in San Diego could almost power the entire city and since we have paid for the construction of this mobil nuclear plant, we can use it at home.
If I've left out anything, it doesn't matter because they oppose it too.
I'm joining the green party.
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