Marvin Fertel, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, writes in yesterday’s Boston Globe:
In a 2008 study commissioned by the Nuclear Energy Institute, Boston-based Polestar Applied Technology found that the continued operation of New England’s five nuclear plants and an unprecedented expansion of electricity generation from wind farms will be needed to meet the emissions limits established for 2019 under the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
US manufacturers, some of them located in New England, will benefit because construction of new nuclear power plants will create demand for commodities like concrete and steel and hundreds of components, large and small. A single new nuclear power plant requires approximately 400,000 cubic yards of concrete, 66,000 tons of steel, 44 miles of piping, 300 miles of electric wiring, and 130,000 electrical components.
No single technology can independently slow and reverse increases in carbon emissions. But these studies confirm nuclear energy is an indispensable part of a comprehensive approach that, encouragingly, is identified in energy and climate change bills pending in the Congress.
The Waxman-Markey bill and a Senate renewable energy bill do this by establishing a Clean Energy Deployment Administration, which would function as a permanent financing platform to provide loans, loan guarantees, and other credit support for clean-energy technologies, including renewable energy and new nuclear energy facilities.
Sounds great on paper, but now let’s try to get a new nuclear power plant built. It’s doubtful any New England community would be on board. Which is why we need the Pollowitz Plan of nuclear power plants built on military bases run by the Navy.