Obama’s 2012 Budget Contains Scary Energy Components
I could hear a collective moan from progressives when they saw that President Obama is proposing a 13 percent cut in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) budget to $8.97 billion. The immediate conclusion they might have drawn is that this move is tantamount to an open invitation for the industrial sector to resume its rape and pillage of our natural ecosystems.
However, I encourage folks not to take this move out of context. In particular, note that the announcement was essentially a compromise against a proposal from House Republican lawmakers to cut EPA funding by almost three times that much, and to prevent the agency from regulating greenhouse gases.
Yes, the Republican version of the bill was a clear statement, proudly proclaiming: “We really don’t care a damn about legislation that would protect the environment. In fact, we want to rip it apart.” This really is a bizarre time in our national consciousness, when the people who gained control of the Senate did so by convincing voters that environmentalists are sissies, frauds, losers, communists, or whatever. But I encourage progressives to take some solace in the fact this was a significant compromise. Note also that the president’s budget calls for $25 million to help states implement the new EPA rules aimed at curbing emissions blamed for climate change.
There are other good things to like here, including the increased funding for the DoE that includes $8 billion to support research in clean energy like wind, solar and advanced batteries. Best of all, to help pay for the clean energy initiatives, the White House is asking Congress to repeal $3.6 billion in oil, natural gas and coal subsidies, a move that would total $46.2 billion over a decade.
Now the bad news: the $853 million to support new nuclear energy technologies, such as small modular reactors, and the $36 billion that the White House requested in federal loan guarantees to help finance the building of nuclear power plants — the same as last year.
Although this is a nauseating turn of events, I remind readers that nuclear has no future in a world where its costs are steadily rising, while those of renewables are falling every year. In the decade or so it takes to permit and build a new nuclear plant, the cost comparisons will have made nuclear completely unfeasible. The fact that the industry hasn’t found (because it doesn’t exist) a safe place to store its waste for the next 500,000 years is moot.
Mark my words: despite the rhetoric, we’ll see no new nukes in the US.
We need improved, safer, and more economical nuclear technologies. Unless they are developed, there will be growing dependence on nuclear technologies that are too expensive and produce too much nuclear waste.
We didn’t abandon automobiles just because they were unreliable and because motorists often broke their arms while cranking them. Instead, the public demanded better automobiles and now we have them. Improved roads, cars, and safety procedures have dramatically reduced the road fatality rate. Similarly, nuclear technology is amenable to considerable improvement.
The tsunami in Japan killed thousands of people but, even though design error resulted in the destruction of nuclear reactors, that has not resulted in even one documented death. On the other hand, the refinery damage resulting from the tsunami killed about 18 people, but unlike the nuclear situation, that has been ignored by the media.