( By Carrington Dillon ) [Approx. Read Time: 2.5 minutes]
The News & Advance from Lynchburg, VA recently provided a short re-cap of the recent Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade Bill that passed in the House of Representatives. In this article, the News & Advance noted that Nuclear Power wasn’t given its due in the Bill’s pages. The newspaper from Virginia also encouraged readers to contact their Senators (Mark Warner and Jim Webb) and encourage them to revise the Senate version of the Bill to include more provisions that recognize that more Nuclear Power is needed for this country to gain energy independence and greenhouse gas reduction goals. See the article here.
“As initially crafted by Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman, of California, and Edward Markey, of Massachusetts, HR 2454 contained no mention whatsoever of the role of nuclear power in America’s energy future. For a major piece of legislation designed to plot America’s 21st century energy roadmap and address concerns about climate change, that omission was shocking, to say the least…
…so far as nuclear energy is concerned, the bill is woefully lacking. Many people in the environmental community become apoplectic at the very mention of the word “nuclear,” with visions of Three Mile Island in their heads.
The bill is now in the hands of the U.S. Senate where, perhaps, more rational thinking will emerge.
For America to reach the energy goals set forth in the bill, especially those on carbon emissions and renewable generation, more power will have to be generated by nuclear plants. It’s that simple. The nation’s generating capacity is stretch to the limits today, with coal doing much of the heavy lifting. But coal is also the biggest source of carbon emissions.
Conservation, wind generation, biomass generation and any other niche source of power simply will not meet the nation’s growing needs. Nuclear has to be the linch pin of America’s energy future…
So start calling and e-mailing Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb (warner.senate.gov and webb.senate.gov). Tell Virginia’s two U.S. senators that the energy bill needs some serious revisions and that nuclear power needs a bigger presence.
Time’s a’wasting.”
Thank you, News & Advance. You people from Virginia–get on it.
