Christie Todd Whitman: McCain's grand vision is a "nice idea" but it's "not going to happen"

[bananas]

Forbes talks to some nuclear lobbyists:

"NEI lobbyist Richard Myers said a new, two-unit nuclear power plant could cost as much as $14 billion.
By comparison, the entire market capitalization of many companies in the industry is barely double this, or smaller."

"Whitman says McCain's grand vision is a "nice idea" but it's "not going to happen""

"NEI has spent $1.23 million on lobbying so far in 2008."


For some reason, they never mention the Congressional Budget Office analysis that the risk of default on the new plants is "very high - well above 50 percent".


http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/05/nuclear-congress-energy-biz-beltway-cx_jz_bw_0806nuclear.html

Nukes Need Money

<snip>

Whitman's got a vested interest in seeing the U.S. nuclear industry bloom. She spoke to Forbes.com in her role as co-chair of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, a pro-nuclear group whose very broad membership includes nuclear power heavyweights like Exelon (nyse: EXC - news - people ), AREVA (other-otc: ARVCF.PK - news - people ) and Southern Co.. It's funded by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), an industry organization.

<snip>

Speaking at a nuclear energy conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies last week, NEI lobbyist Richard Myers said a new, two-unit nuclear power plant could cost as much as $14 billion. By comparison, the entire market capitalization of many companies in the industry is barely double this, or smaller. Southern, FPL Group (nyse: FPL - news - people ), Dominion Resources (nyse: D - news - people ), Duke Energy (nyse: DUK - news - people ) and Entergy (nyse: ETR - news - people ) have capitalizations in the $20 billion to $30 billion range. Of major firms in the industry, only Exelon is significantly bigger, at about $49 billion. A nuclear renaissance could run upwards of $200 billion in construction costs alone.

This makes financing a plant extremely difficult, and it is why investment bankers like John Gilbertson at Goldman Sachs and John Matthews at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius believe that a loan guarantee program from the federal government is of crucial importance.

<snip>

Moreover, Whitman says McCain's grand vision is a "nice idea" but it's "not going to happen," partly because one reactor component is only built in Japan.

Still, the industry's staying busy. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group, the NEI has spent $1.23 million on lobbying so far in 2008. In June, the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition released a study touting the job creation a nuclear renaissance could bring--as many as 700 jobs at each reactor, many of which pay upwards of $65,000 per year.

<snip>

[babylonsister]

1. Makes me wonder how much he's getting in 'donations' from the industry. nt

[MadMaddie]

2. Christie Todd Whitman is another one who should be in jail.

[Indenturedebtor]

3. So we'd spend as much on a single reactor as themost ambitious alt energy plan

NICE!!!!! :thumbsdown:

[lapfog_1]

4. $14 B for two units...

how many gigawatt hours?

how much to operate on an annual basis?

14 B would be enough to buy and install 1.6 Million small wind turbines, each of which is capable of 5Kw of production (you have to know where they would be installed to understand the total expected kwH over the course of a year). Operating costs for rural installed wind turbines, one for each small farmer in the United States, would be significantly less than the operating costs of two nukes. Much better would be to make $14B available as 0 interest loans to farmers to be used for small wind generators, less loss in transmission lines, no dependence on uranium, not as much green house gas produced in the mining of uranium (both projects would use significant amounts of oil to mine ore for the steel and to transport items to work sites, etc). However, such a distributed wind energy plan will be less environmentally destructive AND have the advantage of being highly distributed and much less prone to failures.

[kristopher]

6. I like the idea of spending it on solar manufacturing facilities.

Nanosolar is producing a 1.65 million dollar machine capable of putting out 1 GW worth of panels per year w/14% capacity factor.

[Javaman]

5. Fuck her. she has 9/11 blood on her hands.

she needs to rot in hell on a spit.