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The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee late on the night of January 27 snuck in a provision to President Obama's economic stimulus package that would allow as much as $50 BILLION of your dollars to be used as loan guarantees for construction of new nuclear reactors. This would be on top of the $18.5 Billion taxpayer dollars already authorized by Congress during the Bush administration. These loan guarantees would mean more nuclear reactors and more radioactive waste piling up in communities across our country. They would also mean less money for safer, cheaper and cleaner energy alternatives like solar and wind power. The provision is vaguely worded. It would authorize $50 Billion in new loan guarantees for "eligible technologies." These technologies include nuclear, "clean coal," renewable energy sources and electric transmission. But the stimulus package is intended to create new jobs and economic activity over the next two years. Not only should new nuclear reactors and the false concept of "clean coal" be excluded from taxpayer support, but the reality is that neither technology is ready to produce any jobs within the next two years.

The Virginia Commission on Coal and Energy Uranium Mining Subcommittee is responsible for overseeing all aspects, including the scope and design, of the study that will inform the General Assembly's decision whether to reaffirm or lift Virginia's moratorium on uranium mining. The subcommittee met for the first time on Friday, Dec. 12, in Richmond. The meeting included brief remarks by Dr. Michael Karmis, a professor in the Department of Mining and Minerals Engineering at Virginia Tech and director of the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research. The meeting also included a public hearing to receive suggestions regarding points of concern that should be included in the scope of any study on the impact of mining uranium in the Commonwealth. Twenty people spoke representing citizen and/or industry interests.

Reuters) - Several people who could serve as energy secretary in U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's administration already have been mentioned by Washington insiders, lobbyists and blog writers, including: * U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He advocates renewable energy and energy efficiency measures. * Wesley Clark, retired Army general and former NATO commander who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. * General Electric Co Chief Executive Jeff Immelt, who says government investment in environmental technologies can create green jobs. * Ray Mabus, former Democratic Governor of Mississippi and U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer. He served as a senior adviser to the Obama campaign. * U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. A long-time critic of OPEC and nuclear power, he supported higher fuel economy standards for cars and trucks. * Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google.org. A former assistant energy secretary under President Bill Clinton, he wants more U.S. electricity generated by renewable sources and promotes plug-in vehicles. * Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat who has called for a $850 million state Energy Independence Fund to invest in clean energy projects and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. * Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat who is a big promoter of developing liquid fuel from coal. * Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat who fought efforts to allow a coal-fired power plant to expand in her state, saying it would spew more greenhouse gas emissions.

British climate and energy policy is incoherent and needs an overhaul, dumping carbon targets and building more coal and nuclear power stations to stop the lights going out, a pro-nuclear scientist said. A report entitled "A Pragmatic Energy Policy for the UK", by Professor Ian Fells and Candida Whitmill, said renewables would not fill the impending energy gap so old nuclear and coal plants had to be kept going while new ones were built urgently.

Twelve Reasons to Oppose Nuclear Energy and Support a Green Energy Future We have a complete set of energy solutions: solar cells, wind turbines, concentrating solar, ocean current and wave energy, energy efficiency, and the list goes on.(1) As these technologies mature, we can quickly reduce nuclear and coal usage and, in the future, cut oil and natural gas use. The most environmentally and economically destructive sources of electricity should be reduced now, as other technologies emerge. The phase-out of nuclear and coal energy will reduce global warming while freeing up monies for renewables and efficiencies.

While the national media currently focus on the economic stimulus program of President Barack Obama, a major internal battle is shaping up between his environmental team, led by Carol Browner, who will seek a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program and a carbon tax, and his economic team, led by Larry Summers, who will almost certainly oppose such measures as having a significant deleterious effect on economic recovery. There is no doubt that the economic team will prevail. President Obama, however, does not need either a cap-and-trade program or a carbon tax to attain his laudable air quality and greenhouse gas reduction goals. Over 40 per cent of all greenhouse gases generated in the United States emanate from coal fired power plants. A national program to begin the process of replacing coal plants with nuclear power plants would eliminate this greenhouse gas generation and likewise overwhelmingly reduce America's smog (ozone) and soot (particulate matter) pollution.

The deluge of coal-ash slurry that broke through a retaining wall near the Kingston Fossil Plant, a power plant in eastern Tennessee, on Dec. 22, 2008, and inundated 300 acres with more than a billion gallons of sludge, points out the enormous amount of waste generated by conventional power plants. By contrast, the Tennessee Valley Authority also operates a nuclear power plant a few miles away at Watts Bar which produces much less waste, says Robert C. Duncan, a research scientist with the University of Texas. About 96 percent (by weight) of the Kingston plant's waste has vanished into the air through tall, twin smokestacks:

The United Kingdom is nearing a crucial decision as it tries to tackle the climate crisis -- whether to make a major push into new nuclear power or to proliferate coal-fired power plants constructed so their carbon emissions are captured and safely stored. A blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line. While U.S. officials and America's utility industry continue to mull this question, Britain's decisional clock is ticking much faster. At stake are not just the government's pressing legal commitments to slash the country's contribution to global emissions of climate-changing carbon gases, but also a stated policy goal of reducing dependence on energy imports from unstable regions.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., has a "Low-cost Clean Energy Plan" being marketed to people with substandard reading skills. His press release claims his plan to build 100 nuclear power plants will "lower utility bills," though it "should not add to the federal budget since ratepayers will pay for building the plants." In other words, the people in Missouri, Ohio, Michigan and elsewhere who get their electricity from coal-fired power plants should see their utility bills skyrocket. Here's a reality check on Alexander's flimflam. The Republican plan proposes to double the level of U.S. nuclear energy generation in 20 years. How much would that cost? We currently have about 100,000 megawatts of nuclear generating capacity, and the cost of building a nuclear plant is about $7.5 million per megawatt, according to Moody's. So the cost would be about $750 billion. On a per megawatt basis, a nuclear plant costs five times as much to build and 10 times as much to operate as a natural gas plant. The $750 billion cost excludes the cost of shutting down the CO2 emitting coal-fired plants.

Watching the US political drama the West Wing one night, Ed Miliband found he had something in common with Josh Lyman, who plays the deputy White House chief of staff. Both, Miliband says, have been exasperated by the infighting within the energy industry. The energy and climate change secretary recounts the episode in which Lyman crashes his SUV into a Prius, symbol of the environmentally conscious. As penance for such sacrilege, the White House staffer has to attend an industry summit where people are promoting different low-carbon technologies. "They end up having a big fall-out with each other," Miliband says. "Sometimes the UK debate feels a bit like that: the renewables lot say you should only do renewables and shouldn't do nuclear or coal. Nuclear people say all this wind will lead to big problems. coal people say, 'Why are you going on about renewables and nuclear?'"

The Waxman-Markey bill will produce winners and losers in the utility sector. Companies such as Exelon Corp., which provides utility services to about 12 million people in and around Chicago and Philadelphia, could do well. The company sold most of its coal-fired power plants in 2000 and owns a fleet of 17 nuclear power reactors in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. Exelon's generation unit won't need to buy credits to generate electricity, which could give it an edge. Power companies in the Southeast could have the roughest transition, because they rely heavily on coal and have invested the least in renewable energy and energy efficiency. The Waxman-Markey bill would give power companies time to make adjustments so consumers don't get hit with higher rates tied to the cost of buying emissions credits.

MIT just updated its seminal 2003 study on the role nuclear power could play in America's energy mix. The upshot: Nuclear power's appeal may have grown due to concern over greenhouse-gas emissions, but that hasn't translated into any real progress in the U.S. SCPlant_art_257_20090520140249.jpg Same as it ever was (AP) "The sober warning is that if more is not done, nuclear power will diminish as a practical and timely option for deployment at a scale that would constitute a material contribution to climate change risk mitigation," the study concludes. In 2003, MIT argued that nuclear power could play an important role in U.S. electricity generation, and that government help was needed to jumpstart a U.S. revival. That has yet to happen yet, the revised study notes. Many of the challenges facing nuclear power are the same. Take economics. Building nuclear plants is still a lot more expensive than building coal- or gas-fired plants, and nuclear-generated electricity is still more expensive than either fossil-fuel option: 8.8 cents a kilowatt for nuclear versus 6.2 cents for coal and 6.5 cents for gas, MIT figures.

Since the Obama Administration has apparently closed Yucca Mountain as a disposal site for spent nuclear fuel, it is necessary to examine alternatives. In a paper entitled "The Future of Atomic Energy" and dated 27 May 1946, Enrico Fermi (designer and builder of the first nuclear reactor at Stagg Field) wrote, "The content in fission energy of uranium is roughly 3,000,000 that of an equal weight of coal. If only .7% of the uranium (i.e., natural abundance of U-235) is utilized, the practical uranium to coal ratio will be about 20,000. These figures point to the great importance of devising methods for the complete utilization of the energy of uranium."

The once-demonized nuclear industry got its biggest boost in years Thursday. A bipartisan coalition of US senators put forward a "framework" for climate legislation that aims to dramatically increase off-shore oil drilling, ensure a "future for coal" and, above all, ramp up subsidies for the financially risky nuclear power industry. The announcement was timed, in part, to send a signal to negotiators at the climate conference in Copenhagen that the US Senate is supposedly serious about climate reform. Sen. John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman are taking the lead in pushing an industry-friendly package that aims to bring down carbon emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels - a modest goal shared by House-passed legislation and President Obama. As The Hill reported: "White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called the framework a 'significant step' and said Obama believes it shows movement toward reaching a bipartisan Senate agreement."

The once-demonized nuclear industry got its biggest boost in years Thursday. A bipartisan coalition of US senators put forward a "framework" for climate legislation that aims to dramatically increase off-shore oil drilling, ensure a "future for coal" and, above all, ramp up subsidies for the financially risky nuclear power industry. The announcement was timed, in part, to send a signal to negotiators at the climate conference in Copenhagen that the US Senate is supposedly serious about climate reform. Sen. John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman are taking the lead in pushing an industry-friendly package that aims to bring down carbon emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels - a modest goal shared by House-passed legislation and President Obama. As The Hill reported: "White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called the framework a 'significant step' and said Obama believes it shows movement toward reaching a bipartisan Senate agreement."

"State Sen. Bob Leeper, I-Paducah, envisions the potential for a nuclear power plant in his Western Kentucky district, and on Wednesday that possibility moved a small step forward. The Senate's Natural Resources and Energy Committee approved a bill that would effectively end the quarter-century ban on nuclear power in Kentucky. "We must recognize the value of nuclear power," he told fellow committee members. And after one committee member - Sen. Ray Jones, D-Pikeville - said he saw the bill as a direct threat to Kentucky coal, Leeper said nuclear energy could be used to turn coal into liquid fuels."

"Fly ash produced by the Marsa power station when it was still coal-fired, which was dumped on the cliff-edge in Bengħaisa, contained high levels of radioactivity, according to a University study. The pulverised fuel ash had "very high levels of all the radionuclides (radioactive contaminants) under test, namely K40, PB212 and PB214", the research found. The three elements are derivatives of potassium and lead. Winds and rain occasionally spill the fly ash, which was covered with soil off the cliff-edge and into the sea below. The mound is situated at the back of the Freeport on the south eastern cliff face that borders Ħal Far industrial estate. Scientific tests on the mound of fly ash were conducted five years ago by Josette Camilleri and Franco Montesin from the University's Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering and Michael Sammut from the hospital's Pathology Department. The study was published in the American journal Waste Management. "I was surprised by the reaction when it was recently revealed that fly ash from the power stations was dumped in a quarry, because everybody seems to have forgotten that radioactive fly ash produced when coal was burned at Marsa was dumped in a disused quarry at Bengħisa," Dr Camilleri said."

"What if Deepwater Horizon was a nuclear plant? Extracting fossil fuels from ever-more-difficult environments is a dangerous business, a truth underlined spectacularly by the explosion at the Massey mine in April that killed 29 miners or the Deepwater Horizon spill that has left the Louisiana coast a blackened brackish mess. Not in decades has the nuclear option looked more attractive. Earlier this year, the government extended funding to build two new reactors at the Vogtle plant * in Georgia, likely the first reactors to go online since 1996, and a lot more may be in the works. Oil and coal disasters like Massey and Deepwater Horizon may be some of the best arguments for nuclear power."

Energy-Secretary-Designate Steven Chu told a Senate Committee on Tuesday that the incoming administration would have an increased commitment to alternative energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal, but also made clear coal and nuclear would be part of the energy mix. Chu, who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1997 and is currently director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, made the comments during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Chu is expected to win confirmation easily.

The Virginia Coal and Energy Commission voted 12-0 Thursday to study uranium mining. The decision will have far-reaching consequences for Pittsylvania County, which is home to what is believed to be the largest uranium deposit in the United States. Marline Uranium Corp. discovered the Coles Hill deposit, about six miles northeast of Chatham, in the early 1980s.

Addressing controversial statements he made last month, US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff on Tuesday clarified that he believes electricity markets will decide the future of new coal and nuclear power generation. During a press conference in Washington April 22, Wellinghoff said he believes renewable energy resources coupled with demand-side management might eliminate the need for new conventional power plants. "Ultimately, I was talking about a scenario" involving demand response and other technologies "where there may be a point where it would be feasible to utilize what are thought of as variable resources to really meet peak loads in a very reliable way," Wellinghoff said Tuesday at a Washington press event. "Reliability is the key.