McCain calls for building 45 new nuclear reactors.

[elocs]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080618/ap_on_el_pr/mccain

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Sen. John McCain called Wednesday for the construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030 and pledged $2 billion a year in federal funds "to make clean coal a reality," measures designed to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

In a third straight day of campaigning devoted to the energy issue, the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting also said the only time Democratic rival Barack Obama voted for a tax cut was for a "break for the oil companies."

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.

What are the odds that McCain will still be alive in 2030? Maybe he could propose that the spent nuclear fuel be stored in the 10 states with the greatest number of electoral votes. That will just help to make the general election that much more decisive.

[davidinalameda]

1. they can build them all in Arizona

preferably in his and Cindy's backyard

[McCainHeartsYucca]

8. then it goes to our backyard!

http://www.mccainheartsyucca.com

Honestly-- he has no plans to deal with the waste from these plants--such a shame

[whistle]

2. Now this makes a lot of sense and will ease our dependence on foreign oil

...Obama should counter with 125 brand new 4th generation gas cooled nuclear plants over the next 15 years

[Gabi Hayes]

3. clean coal, is that like

driving on the parkway/parking in the driveway?

jumbo shrimp?


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/29/AR2008022903390.html

Clean coal: Never was there an oxymoron more insidious, or more dangerous to our public health. Invoked as often by the Democratic presidential candidates as by the Republicans and by liberals and conservatives alike, this slogan has blindsided any meaningful progress toward a sustainable energy policy.

Democrats excoriated President Bush last month when he released a budget calling for more -- billions more -- in funds to reduce carbon emissions from coal-burning power plants to create "clean coal." But hardly a hoot could be heard about his proposed cuts to more practical investments in solar energy, hydrogen fuel and home energy efficiency.


Meanwhile, leading Democrats were up in arms over the Energy Department's recent decision to abandon the $1.8 billion FutureGen project in eastern Illinois, planned as the first coal-fired plant to capture and store harmful carbon dioxide emissions. Energy Department officials, unlike politicians, had to confront the spiraling costs of this fantasy.

Orwellian language has led to Orwellian politics. With the imaginary vocabulary of "clean coal," too many Democrats and Republicans, as well as a surprising number of environmentalists, have forgotten the dirty realities of extracting coal from the earth. Pummeled by warnings that global warming is triggering the apocalypse, Americans have fallen for the ruse of futuristic science that is clean coal. And in the meantime, swaths of the country are being destroyed before our eyes.

[madokie]

4. well thats what happens when one snorts yellowcake

they start saying some of the most outlandish things

[jwirr]

5. Where is he getting the money and is he going to give equal financing

to the other alternatives?

[ladjf]

6. Lunacy.

[Canuckistanian]

7. Sounds like Cindy is buying up Uranium mines

Hey, the old guy isn't going to be around for too long.

[spag68]

9. nukes

Here on Long Island we have a perfect answer to building new nuke plants. This a tale of a 2 billion$ power plant that took 8 and a half years to build. By the time it was done it cost 8 billion. Then after all the tests were done, and the plant was pronounced ready to go, a surprising thing happened, they shut it down and no one knows how much it cost to shut it down and what they did with the fuel rods. That my friends is the story of Shoreham and we are still paying a premium for what it cost, only now our money goes to National Grid, an English conglomerate that simply bought the assets of LILCO for peanuts, and will collect forever.

[itsrobert]

10. Springfield? Who's giving him money?

Montgomery Burns paying off the politicians again?