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Obama's Excellent Atomic Omission
Feb 26, 2009
Two lethal words went thankfully unspoken in President Obama's address to the nation this week---atomic energy.
Unfortunately, two others---"clean coal"---were included.
An increasingly desperate reactor industry just tried to sneak a $50 billion loan guarantee package into the stimulus bill. But for the third time since 2007, it got beat by a powerful national grassroots movement and key Congressional leaders.
Nuke pushers now want reactors painted "green" in a renewable standard Congress may soon set.
Hordes of radioactive lobbyists will swarm around that and new energy and global warming legislation. Every obscure sentence in those bills will be targeted for hidden handouts. Unfortunately, some money may already have slipped through from previous Bush-Cheney maneuvering.
EDF, the French national utility, wants to force its nukes into the American market. With Wall Street unwilling, Areva---the EDF front company---would use French tax money here as in Finland, where a new reactor project is already years behind schedule and billions over budget.
In Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Maryland, Texas, Missouri, Wisconsin and elsewhere, the industry wants to tax ratepayers for reactor construction in advance. In Florida and Georgia, rates are already soaring. A Missouri utility is trying to overturn a 1976 public referendum banning such scams.
Obama's position has been largely opaque. Close to pro-nuke Illinois utilities in his early days, he has never renounced the technology. But he's firmly opposed Nevada's Yucca Mountain high level repository, whose failure---after fifty years---leaves the industry with no solution to its waste problem.
Energy Secretary Stephen Chu has made pro-nuke rumblings. But the critical component---massive federal funding---has not materialized. So we green energy advocates held our collective breath when Obama promised to "invest fifteen billion dollars a year to develop technologies like wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more fuel-efficient cars and trucks built right here in America."
In his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination, Obama included nuke power. Now the reference is gone. Let's hope that signals an end to all taxpayer funding for this catastrophic failed technology.
Unfortunately, Obama did mention "clean coal," which---like "safe nukes"--- does not exist. On March 2, there will be non-violent civil disobedience against a coal burner in the nation's capital. This welcome action follows in the tradition of mass occupations at the Seabrook (NH) and other reactor construction sites since 1976.
Back then, grassroots organizations like the Clamshell Alliance developed a Solartopian vision of a world totally free from fossil fuels and atomic power. The plan was born in part at a "Toward Tomorrow" energy fair in Amherst, Massachusetts that featured wind power pioneer William Heronemus and efficiency guru Amory Lovins.
A green-powered Earth means ending both fossil and nuke power, to run totally on solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, non-food-based biofuels and other true renewables, with increased efficiency and restored mass transit.
Like stashing nuke waste in an earthquake zone surrounded by dormant volcanoes, as at Yucca Mountain, carbon sequestration for coal is unworkable, unacceptable---and unnecessary.
The upcoming march against that coal burner will be ushered along by three decades of anti-nuke activism. Let's hope it prompts Obama to omit that clean coal oxymoron from his next speech---and from all proposed government funding.
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Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
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Harvey Wasserman
Harvey Wasserman is an activist and author. His first book "Harvey Wasserman's History of the United States" was published in 1972. Harvey edits www.nukefree.org.
Two lethal words went thankfully unspoken in President Obama's address to the nation this week---atomic energy.
Unfortunately, two others---"clean coal"---were included.
An increasingly desperate reactor industry just tried to sneak a $50 billion loan guarantee package into the stimulus bill. But for the third time since 2007, it got beat by a powerful national grassroots movement and key Congressional leaders.
Nuke pushers now want reactors painted "green" in a renewable standard Congress may soon set.
Hordes of radioactive lobbyists will swarm around that and new energy and global warming legislation. Every obscure sentence in those bills will be targeted for hidden handouts. Unfortunately, some money may already have slipped through from previous Bush-Cheney maneuvering.
EDF, the French national utility, wants to force its nukes into the American market. With Wall Street unwilling, Areva---the EDF front company---would use French tax money here as in Finland, where a new reactor project is already years behind schedule and billions over budget.
In Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Maryland, Texas, Missouri, Wisconsin and elsewhere, the industry wants to tax ratepayers for reactor construction in advance. In Florida and Georgia, rates are already soaring. A Missouri utility is trying to overturn a 1976 public referendum banning such scams.
Obama's position has been largely opaque. Close to pro-nuke Illinois utilities in his early days, he has never renounced the technology. But he's firmly opposed Nevada's Yucca Mountain high level repository, whose failure---after fifty years---leaves the industry with no solution to its waste problem.
Energy Secretary Stephen Chu has made pro-nuke rumblings. But the critical component---massive federal funding---has not materialized. So we green energy advocates held our collective breath when Obama promised to "invest fifteen billion dollars a year to develop technologies like wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more fuel-efficient cars and trucks built right here in America."
In his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination, Obama included nuke power. Now the reference is gone. Let's hope that signals an end to all taxpayer funding for this catastrophic failed technology.
Unfortunately, Obama did mention "clean coal," which---like "safe nukes"--- does not exist. On March 2, there will be non-violent civil disobedience against a coal burner in the nation's capital. This welcome action follows in the tradition of mass occupations at the Seabrook (NH) and other reactor construction sites since 1976.
Back then, grassroots organizations like the Clamshell Alliance developed a Solartopian vision of a world totally free from fossil fuels and atomic power. The plan was born in part at a "Toward Tomorrow" energy fair in Amherst, Massachusetts that featured wind power pioneer William Heronemus and efficiency guru Amory Lovins.
A green-powered Earth means ending both fossil and nuke power, to run totally on solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, non-food-based biofuels and other true renewables, with increased efficiency and restored mass transit.
Like stashing nuke waste in an earthquake zone surrounded by dormant volcanoes, as at Yucca Mountain, carbon sequestration for coal is unworkable, unacceptable---and unnecessary.
The upcoming march against that coal burner will be ushered along by three decades of anti-nuke activism. Let's hope it prompts Obama to omit that clean coal oxymoron from his next speech---and from all proposed government funding.
Harvey Wasserman
Harvey Wasserman is an activist and author. His first book "Harvey Wasserman's History of the United States" was published in 1972. Harvey edits www.nukefree.org.
Two lethal words went thankfully unspoken in President Obama's address to the nation this week---atomic energy.
Unfortunately, two others---"clean coal"---were included.
An increasingly desperate reactor industry just tried to sneak a $50 billion loan guarantee package into the stimulus bill. But for the third time since 2007, it got beat by a powerful national grassroots movement and key Congressional leaders.
Nuke pushers now want reactors painted "green" in a renewable standard Congress may soon set.
Hordes of radioactive lobbyists will swarm around that and new energy and global warming legislation. Every obscure sentence in those bills will be targeted for hidden handouts. Unfortunately, some money may already have slipped through from previous Bush-Cheney maneuvering.
EDF, the French national utility, wants to force its nukes into the American market. With Wall Street unwilling, Areva---the EDF front company---would use French tax money here as in Finland, where a new reactor project is already years behind schedule and billions over budget.
In Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Maryland, Texas, Missouri, Wisconsin and elsewhere, the industry wants to tax ratepayers for reactor construction in advance. In Florida and Georgia, rates are already soaring. A Missouri utility is trying to overturn a 1976 public referendum banning such scams.
Obama's position has been largely opaque. Close to pro-nuke Illinois utilities in his early days, he has never renounced the technology. But he's firmly opposed Nevada's Yucca Mountain high level repository, whose failure---after fifty years---leaves the industry with no solution to its waste problem.
Energy Secretary Stephen Chu has made pro-nuke rumblings. But the critical component---massive federal funding---has not materialized. So we green energy advocates held our collective breath when Obama promised to "invest fifteen billion dollars a year to develop technologies like wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more fuel-efficient cars and trucks built right here in America."
In his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination, Obama included nuke power. Now the reference is gone. Let's hope that signals an end to all taxpayer funding for this catastrophic failed technology.
Unfortunately, Obama did mention "clean coal," which---like "safe nukes"--- does not exist. On March 2, there will be non-violent civil disobedience against a coal burner in the nation's capital. This welcome action follows in the tradition of mass occupations at the Seabrook (NH) and other reactor construction sites since 1976.
Back then, grassroots organizations like the Clamshell Alliance developed a Solartopian vision of a world totally free from fossil fuels and atomic power. The plan was born in part at a "Toward Tomorrow" energy fair in Amherst, Massachusetts that featured wind power pioneer William Heronemus and efficiency guru Amory Lovins.
A green-powered Earth means ending both fossil and nuke power, to run totally on solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, non-food-based biofuels and other true renewables, with increased efficiency and restored mass transit.
Like stashing nuke waste in an earthquake zone surrounded by dormant volcanoes, as at Yucca Mountain, carbon sequestration for coal is unworkable, unacceptable---and unnecessary.
The upcoming march against that coal burner will be ushered along by three decades of anti-nuke activism. Let's hope it prompts Obama to omit that clean coal oxymoron from his next speech---and from all proposed government funding.
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