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CLIMATE CRISIS WILL BE AT TOP OF OBAMA’S ENERGY/ENVIRONMENTAL NOMINEES AGENDA --BUT WHAT ABOUT NUCLEAR?

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#681
17/12/2008
Article

(December 17, 2008) It is clear now that President-elect Barack Obama is serious about addressing the climate crisis--if there is one thing his energy and environmental nominees have in common, it is an understanding of climate and the need for fast, effective action.

What is less clear are the details of that action, and especially what role--if any--nuclear power will play in the Obama administration’s vision of the U.S. energy future. Also unclear is exactly who is in charge here--who will ultimately make the major climate/energy decisions that are planned for the near future.

 

(681.) NIRS Washington - Media accounts have led with the selection of Dr. Steven Chu as secretary of energy; but it may be more relevant to start with the appointment of former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator and Al Gore ally Carol Browner as climate and energy “Czar.”

 

After all, a Czar wouldn’t be needed if the administration intended that the major climate and energy initiatives would come from the Department of Energy. In this case, it appears that Obama has chosen Browner to oversee the efforts of several agencies--and perhaps the entire federal government--on climate and energy issues.

 

How that will work in the notoriously turf-protecting federal agencies is so far unstated: will Browner have the authority to direct policy to meet administration goals or merely coordinate the efforts of all relevant agencies?

 

Unlike the other energy/environmental appointees, as a former EPA administrator, Browner has top-level federal agency experience and broad contacts in the environmental and other affected communities, two factors that would seem to place her a notch above the other nominees.

 

The most important of these is Dr. Steven Chu, who is surely the first Nobel Prize winner (for Physics) ever to become Secretary of Energy, and probably Secretary of Anything.

 

Chu is currently chief of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, one of a string of DOE-funded science labs across the country, most of which are involved primarily in various aspects of nuclear weapons/radioactive waste work--as is DOE itself.

 

But Chu has focused on energy efficiency and solar energy due to his belief that the planet needs to take strong action to address the climate crisis--also a first for the Department of Energy. His frequent speeches and presentations over the past several years have been emphatic assertions of the reality of climate change and how energy efficiency and renewable energy sources are the primary means of addressing the climate issue. Some environmental groups have issued strong statements of support for Chu for that reason.

 

But Chu signed onto a statement from the various DOE labs in August that called for a greater reliance on nuclear power, and he has issued statements supporting more research into so-called Generation IV reactors. The lab statement supported opening of the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump, though Chu’s own statements on Yucca have been less assertive. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said publicly that no energy secretary nominee who supports Yucca Mountain will be brought to the Senate floor, so it remains to be seen if Chu will agree to oppose Yucca--which was Obama’s campaign position--or whether Reid will back down.

 

Chu also has issued statements that appear to support more research into reprocessing of irradiated fuel. On the other hand, he has openly questioned nuclear power’s role in addressing climate, noting in various speeches--as have others--that to play a meaningful role in reducing carbon emissions a new reactor would have to be built every two weeks for the next 50 years, an impossible task.

 

Then there is Obama himself, who frequently has said that he will call the shots. In the campaign, while he called for “harnessing safe nuclear power,” he also said that no new reactors should be built until safety and waste problems are solved.

 

More problematic than either Browner or Chu may be the U.S. Congress, which despite Democratic gains in the November elections, still has a significant number of members who are ardently pro-nuclear, and an even-larger number who still know little about nuclear power, its high costs, routine radiation releases, ongoing safety and radioactive waste problems, and its inability to be an effective climate change solution. It is these new members who may end up holding the balance of power on energy issues, and it will be essential for grassroots constituencies to be in close contact with them early and often.

 

Source and Contact: Michael Mariotte, NIRS Washington