McCain strikes at a core Obama vulnerability
by David Benzion · 06/19/2008 7:20 amIt’s always a good idea for candidates to define the campaign debate on terms where your opponent “just can’t go.”
I’d say 45 nuclear reactors in the next 20 years fits the bill.
Senator John McCain said Wednesday that he wanted 45 new nuclear reactors built in the United States by 2030, a course he called “as difficult as it is necessary.”
In his third straight day of campaign speechmaking about energy and $4-a-gallon gasoline, Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, told the crowd at a town-hall-style meeting at Missouri State University that he saw nuclear power as a clean, safe alternative to traditional sources of energy that emit greenhouse gases. He said his ultimate goal was 100 new nuclear plants.
Mr. McCain has long promoted nuclear reactors, but Wednesday was the first time that he specified the number of plants he envisioned.
Currently there are 104 reactors in the country supplying some 20 percent of electricity consumed. No new nuclear power plant has been built in the United States since the 1970s.
“China, Russia and India are all planning to build more than a hundred new power plants among them in the coming decades,” Mr. McCain said in this pocket of Missouri that is reliably Republican. “Across Europe there are 197 reactors in operation, and nations including France and Belgium derive more than half their electricity from nuclear power. And if all of these nations can find a way to carry out great goals in energy policy, then I assure you that the United States is more than equal to the challenge.”[h/t New York Times]
The rational case for nuclear power is strong, with opposition based primarily on emotion.
And right now, when it comes to energy, the mind of the American public is focused on a different set of emotions.
Besides, if France can do it, why can’t we?
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Yes, but he must first ask himself: WWWPD (What Would Winnie the Pooh Do)?
Anyone know when the new reactor at the South Texas Project goes online, I thought it was supposed to be sometime this year.
The Fwench did it ?
duhmoose - they just filed the application for two new reactors about a year ago. They’re expect to go online in 2015.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/092507dnnatnuclear.106e63da3.html
“Senator John McCain said Wednesday that he wanted 45 new nuclear reactors built in the United States by 2030, a course he called “as difficult as it is necessary.”
That would be the MOST intelligent thing the Man has said thus far. It will make all normal Americans happy and pi$$ off the Left Wing Whinning Moonbats all at the same time.
Oh, and show at least one exact difference between him and the Communist.
In the world of politics, the concerns of the voters will change a lot before November. If the RINO’s would jump on this energy thing and the $4 a gallon gas prices it would put the Dimwits in a lot of hurt. They oppose drilling and nuclear power. Heck, they oppose anything that advances this country. Voters are forced to look into their pocketbooks and decide if what the Dimwits offer is really what they want and the cost to them to get it.
Nukes are a step in the right direction. But McCain, even if elected, is going to have such a hostile congress that he won’t be able to get anything done. Now there’s nothing wrong with the government not being able to get anything done, and in fact I support that concept also, but the point is that McCain will be unable to deliver on what little conservative agenda he may come up with. Looks pretty hopeless to me.
The skill base to manufacture nuke plants has retired.
The skill base to manfacture in America has been fired.
and thanks to the green movement, our economy has been thown on the pyre
#9 kd5dgs, Quite right, and the skill base for oil and gas exploration/production is retired or nearing retirement. Those with the knowledge and experience are fast becoming worth their weight in diamonds.
I would have said 50 or 100 nuclear power plants, but I’d take 45.
#8 If McCain has a pro-energy campaign, perhaps he can use it as a mandate to get some stuff through.
8. Rastus
Have you ever had a positive thought?
You’re the type who wins the lottery and says, “So what - look at the taxes I have to pay.”
Wow, follow the French’s lead? I never thought I would read that on LST!
9.
Uh, there was once NO skill base in any of those. The people you speak of aren’t irreplaceable and we already have a universe of knowledge which puts young engineers, etc., years ahead of those who started the industry. There are plenty of bright young men and women to do the job.
A&M might disagree about that since they are still graduating a lot of Nuke Engineers and Petroleum Engineers. Granted many are from foreign countries, but there are still a lot of US graduates in those fields, not to mention the Nuke Engineers coming out of the Navy.
Give it up, Rick… we had ONE shot at greatness, back between 1955 and 1975, when men smoked Marlboros and beer came in a pull-top can… ever since it’s been nothing but Rap music blaring from cheap Chinese knock-off stereos and taco-trucks getting in the way of our drive to Piggly Wiggly to buy Swanson’s frozen pork chops.
16. DB
Whew, I almost forgot. Thanks for getting me back on track. I loved those pull-tabs. We used to make rings out of them.
13. Vic
Okay, the French got wine and nuclear right. Two out of 10 or 20 thousand ain’t bad.
#11 & 12 - Someone once said “hope is not a plan.” I have plenty of positive thoughts, but most of them don’t rely on some politician’s statements or actions to make them come true. Most of my positive thoughts center around what I can legally do today and still stay under the government’s regulatory radar screen so they will just leave me alone.
To LST’s braintrust - What do we do about nuclear waste?
houstondem, turn it into ammunition and shoot terrorists. Two birds, one stone.
“What do we do about nuclear waste?”
Fling it over the border to Mexico…..
Waste isn’t as bad as hand-wringing panty waists would have you believe.
Pebble Bed Reactors
I thought you lefties wanted to get off of “foreign oil”???
You guys want us to sit in the dark reading the book of Marx huddled around a candle.
Pull tabs? Geez, those were new fangled. You needed a bottle opener back when men where men…or you just used your teeth.
Rick #18, how do you take seriously a country that can’t even aircondition itself, and creates 20,000 “French fries” in a heat wave?
#18
We’ve actually got more nukes than anyone else. The French & Japanese just use them for a higher %age of their electricity needs.
#20 houdem
It can be reprocessed and used again and reprocessed and used again. Lather, rinse, and repeat.
The Japanese do this already. We don’t because your boy Peanuts (a nuke engr, btw) issued an executive order prohibiting it.
#24 b45
Or you shot the cap off.