Department of Energy Nuclear Loan Guarantees Will Set Back Race Against Global Warming

Environment California

On Monday, the Department of Energy is expected to announce a tripling of loan guarantees – to $54 billion — for nuclear power plants in its 2011 budget request. 

Environment California’s recent report Generating Failure: How Building Nuclear Power Plants Would Set America Back in the Race Against Global Warming shows that far from being a solution to global warming, nuclear power will actually set America back in the race to reduce pollution. Environment America urged the Obama administration and Congress to focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy instead of nuclear power as the solution to global warming. 

The report shows that nuclear power plants will take far too long to build to play a meaningful role in solving global warming. Furthermore, because they are so expensive, for every dollar spent constructing a nuclear power plant, five times more carbon pollution reductions could be achieved by putting the same investment into energy efficiency and renewable energy resources. 

“When it comes to global warming, time and money are of the essence and nuclear power will fail America on both accounts,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, clean energyadvocate for Environment California. “At a time when President Obama is calling for fiscal restraint, we should be spending taxpayer dollars on the energy options that yield the best short-term and long-term energy and environmental benefits. Nuclear power clearly fails on both counts,” she added.

Thanks to enormous cost overruns and concerns about unsafe designs, no nuclear loan guarantees have yet been released by the Department of Energy. In fact several proposed new projects are under scrutiny by regulators. Over the past week, regulators in Florida have denied massive electricity rate increases proposed for two new nuclear power plants; and a municipal utility in Texas is threatening to pull out of its involvement in a new reactor project there because of huge cost overruns. 

“We urge Energy Secretary Chu to look carefully at the negative experience of Florida ratepayers and the San Antonio utility, before risking taxpayer dollars on new nuclear power plants,” said Del Chiaro. “By contrast, the administration’s support of renewable energy incentives in the economic recovery plan helped spur the biggest year ever in wind energy growth, ” she concluded.

To address global warming, state and federal policy makers should focus on improving energy efficiency and generating electricity from clean sources that never run out – such as wind, solar, biomass and geothermal power, according to Environment America. 

“Every new nuclear power plant built would be a step backwards when it comes to solving global warming.” said Del Chiaro. “Clean energy solutions like energy efficiency and renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power are far more effective than nuclear power in both cutting global warming pollution and saving consumers’ money,” she added.