NUKES DON’T STAND UP TO REASON

Nukes battling a green headwind?
Tim Wheeler, November 18, 2009 (Baltimore Sun)

"Aiming to head off a budding bipartisan move in Congress to boost nuclear power, environmentalists took to the streets - and the Internet - to dismiss atom-splitting as too slow and costly to help fight climate change.

"Environment Maryland released a new report…arguing that it would take a decade or more and cost upwards of $600 billion to build 100 more nuclear plants, as some have advocated to ease planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The group argues that the time and money could be better spent promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy such as wind and solar…"

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"…[Generating Failure; How Building Nuclear Power Plants Would Set America Back in the Race Against Global Warming comes as two senators, Republican Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Democrat Jim Webb of Virginia, introduce a bill that would funnel federal funds and loan guarantees into reviving the nuclear power industry as well as promoting renweable energy…"

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"To highlight their objections, Environment Maryland and other activists staged a press conference outside the downtown Baltimore headquarters of Constellation Energy, which has applied for a permit to build a new, third reactor at Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant…[N]ot all environmentalists oppose nuclear power. Locally, the Maryland Conservation Council has endorsed Constellation's bid…The group is concerned about industrial-scale wind and solar projects gobbling up land and wildlife habitat, and argues that nuclear power is safe and least expensive…

"By coincidence, wind energy advocates were huddled nearby…conferring on how to boost the prospects for turbines atop mountains and offshore in the Mid-Atlantic region. They have issues to overcome as well, including public resistance in some locales, and… [the lack of adequate transmission]…[Already an issue]in some western areas…[it is] likely to be a concern in the East as well as more turbines get built."