The nuclear industry is pressing hard for assistance for the initial expenses of introducing a new generation of nuclear power plants in the US. A new bill introduced last week by Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman provides some of the requested assistance, motivated by the fact that nuclear power does not produce any greenhouse gas emissions.
Environment Colorado has expressed its opinion that energy efficiency and clean renewable sources of energy are quite sufficient to meet the global warming challenge. They strongly disagree with the subsidies that the bill proposes for the nuclear power industry.
Interestingly enough, the press release says little about the fact that the bill also provides significant subsidies to the coal industry – which has no hope whatsoever of providing emissions free power.
According to Salon the very idea that nuclear power should be considered in the context of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is troubling to the green community.
As we say at Atomic Insights – any technology that is clean enough to operate inside sealed submarines should be considered a partial solution for global climate change. However, we are not so sure about the need for subsidies for nuclear power – we believe that it can definitely compete in today’s market without much help.
