Monday, May 05, 2008

The Nuclear Option   [Drew Thornley]

In his Sunday interview on Meet the Press, host Tim Russert asked Sen. Barack Obama about his position on nuclear energy:

Russert: In terms of climate change, global warming, you've talked about wind and solar and biofuels. What about nuclear? All — in all realistic assessment, don't we need more nuclear power in order to wean ourselves off of those same fuels that are contaminating the world? 

Obama: I think we do have to look at nuclear, and what we've got to figure out is can we store the material properly? Can we make sure that they're secure? Can we deal with the expense? Because the problem is, is that a lot of our nuclear industry, it reinvents the wheel. Each nuclear power plant that is proposed has a new design, has — it, it has all kinds of changes, there are all sorts of cost overruns. So it has not been an effective option. That doesn't mean that it can't be an effective option, but we're going to have to figure out storage and safety issues. And my attitude when it comes to energy is there's no silver bullet. We've got to be — we've, we've got to look at every possible option.

Hmm . . . So does Obama feel every energy option is on the table (like, say, extracting known but currently off-limits domestic oil reserves) or just non-fossil fuel options?

[Hat-tip to BizCentral.org.]

05/05 03:00 PMShare