McCain Calls for Nuclear Power

FINALLY! A presidential candidate takes a position based on something other than hope, dreams, and change. I said the same thing two weeks ago when blogging about the Climate Security Act. Gee, choosing to succeed with proven technology rather than gambling on a 7 trillion dollar tax scheme seems like a no-brainer unless you are in D.C.

It's virtually zero carbon. It doesn't take massive carbon taxes to make it cost-effective. And thanks to the French and Japanese engineers - it's safe. If it hadn't been around for 60 years we would call it a miracle.

Nuclear Power.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Sen. John McCain called Wednesday for the construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030...

McCain said the 104 nuclear reactors currently operating around the country produce about 20 percent of the nation's annual electricity needs.

Every year, these reactors alone spare the atmosphere from the equivalent of nearly all auto emissions in America. Yet for all these benefits, we have not broken ground on a single nuclear plant in over thirty years," he said. "And our manufacturing base to even construct these plants is almost gone."

Even so, he said he would set the country on a course to build 45 new ones by 2030, with a longer-term goal of adding another 55 in the future.

One additional thing that politicians and bureaucrats have a hard time with is placing these things in context of our population. Oh, and we have not built a new oil refinery in those same 30 years.

US population (US Census Bureau)

1978 222 million
1988 245 million
1998 270 million
2008 301 million

Kyoto-type math - pegging our carbon emissions to a year (e.g. 1995) instead of some ratio of our actual population will make energy prohibitively expensive if the Pew research center estimates of our population (450 million) by 2050 are accurate.