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.
Semantics.
Pretty irresponsible isn't it? But it maximized profits.
How did this maximize profits? Are you slow or something? When you spit unused fuel out your gas tank does that SAVE you money? Did it ever occur to you that, in suspision there could someday be a Nuclear war it might be handy to have a bunch of warhead material on hand? It sure has occured to IRAN AND NORTH KOREA!
????? Are you against cars?
Coal plants are cheaper to build but power from nuclear plants is produced at far lower costs than coal. Look at the run up in coal prices and you'll see that it isn't as cheap as it used to be.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/coalnews/coalmar.html
No free lunch on these, either:
Only Two Things Wrong With Coal, You Can’t Mine It, And You Can’t Burn It
So say the wackos, anyway. Time to go back to the caves and bearskins.
Do they factor in the recylcing costs of coal mines, or the cost of land use for them, or the transportation cost for coal, or the pollution cost?
That amounts to 7,400,000 deadly "lighters" produced every single year
Which would take generations to fill a single average strip mine.
And you actually think that nuke power plants yield bomb quality fissionable material? Yes, someone is slow here.
That's not what I said. Though there are certainly some negative aspects to our car centered society.
That is why I asked you to clarify.
...just like highway deaths are downplayed.
????? Are you against cars?
I'm sorry, I asked a question, I did not say that you "said" anything.
Let me be more explicit. What exactly is downplayed about highway deaths?
How many movies and memorials and political statements and political carreers and MIA flags and on and on and on have occured due to Vietnam. Answer, innumerable. It took Vietnam over 10 years to kill 54000 people. We lose that on the highway every 16 months. You seldom hear a peep.
No as I said it is CLOSE to, the junk they call 'spent fuel' is EASILY processed into weapons grade material. THIS WOULD BE WHY WHEN SADAAM WAS BUILDDING A NUCLEAR REACTOR IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT THE ISRAELIES BOMBED IT.
There ya go. THAT is what I was wondering if you were thinking. Twenty-two years ago, as president of the newly formed MADD chapter, in my interview in the newspaper and tv stations, I used the Vietnam stats to compare the (then) 26,000 highway deaths to drunk driving.
Absolutely.
Have you seen the mess horses leave behind?
You're kidding! So we are in agreement? The 26K number must be over the same time period as Vietnam.
PS, I tend to back and forth between being a member of DAMM and barely accepting our current draconian policies about drinking and driving.
Over 80%
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