Let's face it, neither McCain nor Obama excelled in their discussion on energy policy in their October 7 debate. McCain renewed his call for massive construction of new nuclear power reactors while Senator Obama indicated his support for nuclear power as well.
Oddly, McCain seemed to hold it against Obama that the latter wants "safe" nuclear power, but we'll consider that a doddering slip......
The important point is that our economic crisis stems, in part, from our continuing to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars annually from China that we give to the Middle East for oil. Unfortunately, neither candidate adopted a platform that can truly achieve energy independence.
Nuclear power can’t help us reduce our oil imports--we basically don't use oil to generate electricity which is the only thing nuclear power creates, but spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a few dozen new reactors would divert the resources needed to address our fundamental energy problems.
McCain's stated plan of building 45 new reactors would run up more than $300 billion--probably much more--in taxpayer-backed loan guarantees, since there is no private capital for new reactors. The Congressional Budget Office says about 1/2 those projects will fail--can we really afford to lose $150 billion of taxpayer money for a program that wouldn't reduce oil imports, would have only a marginal effect on climate (nuclear power is not carbon-free, though still far less than fossil fuels, the nuclear fuel chain creates substantial carbon emissions) and would divert the resources needed to create the new energy economy. Obama has been less direct on nuclear power--with no statements on his beliefs other than that we need to invest in "safer" nuclear technology. But any investment in nuclear is an investment we're not making in the energy technologies that will matter in the 21st century.
We need to invest in energy efficiency (Google, for example, believes we can reduce energy use by a third over the next 20 years in this manner), in solar and wind power, plug-in hybrid vehicles, in distributed generation and smart electrical grids. Carbon-Free, Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy, a recent book by Dr. Arjun Makhijani of Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, goes much further in developing these concepts. Download it for free here. And I'll post a more thorough diary on it and its findings soon.
These 21st century technologies are ready to meet our energy needs. Rather than return to the failed energy policies of the 1970s, we can and must do better. Our presidential candidates and the next Congress need to take the steps necessary to effectively address our climate and economic crises, and move us quickly to the carbon-free, nuclear-free energy future Americans want and deserve.