Regarding President Obama's plans to clean the environment and grow jobs as part of his new green economy, Bloomberg reports that he will announce plans to triple previous loan guarantees to over US$ 54 Billion for new nuclear power plants in the US. Although an initial allocation of US$ 18 billion was made under President G.W. Bush, no loans had issued to date.
While it is rumored that the Dept. of Energy (DOE) will begin researching new solutions to the problem of storing nuclear waste, this "fix-it later" solution to climate change certainly is not the precautionary principle of environmental law. It is not clear if new funding will be allocated to the DOE's effort to make nuclear energy "clean," or if this will come out of previously allocated spending in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, which allocated US$ 6 billion for the cleanup of radioactive waste and another US$ 2 billion for energy research at the DOE.
Unfortunately, supporting nuclear energy might be the President's attempt to win Republican support for Climate Change and Energy legislation in the Senate, following the loss of a Democratic Senate seat in Massachusetts (see post below).
Vermont Power Plant Continues to Leak Radiation: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/business/energy-environment/02nuke.html?ref=energy-environment
Posted by: Baskut Tuncak | 02/02/2010 at 10:39 AM