Earth Equity News

Obama's Nuclear Giveaway. By Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones, February 4, 2010. "The the Obama administration's 2011 budget proposes tripling the loan guarantee program -- from the $18.5 billion that Congress has already approved to $54.5 billion. The program's expansion is just one of several signs that the Obama administration is throwing its muscle behind the nuclear industry's push for a massive expansion... In his State of the Union address Obama argued that creating new clean energy jobs 'means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.' But as Mother Jones has reported, there will be no nuclear renaissance unless the US taxpayer covers the tab. While the country's 104 nuclear power plants currently produce nearly 20 percent of American electricity, growth has flatlined in the past three decades. Even as public opinion toward nuclear power has warmed, projected construction costs for new plants have soared, with a single reactor now estimated to cost as much as $12 billion. In fact, the outlook for nuclear plants looks so dire that even Wall Street banks have balked at financing them unless the government underwrites the deal. Of course, that means the government would also assume almost all the risk... With the prospects for cap-and-trade legislation looking increasingly precarious, Democrats are hoping to entice Republicans with major support for nuclear power...

"It's also worth remembering that the Obama camp has long-standing ties to the nuclear industry. As a senator, Obama wrote an unsuccessful bill that would have required nuclear power plant owners to notify state and local authorities of small radiation leaks -- but then watered down the legislation significantly at the industry's behest. And nuclear interests have been keen boosters of his political career: Executives and employees of Exelon, the Illinois-based utility that produces approximately 20% of the country's nuclear power, donated nearly $210,000 to Obama's presidential campaign, according to CQ Moneyline. In fact, Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, helped broker the merger of two utiltilies to form Exelon in 2000 when working as an investment banker at Wasserstein Perella & Co."