I agree completely that we should use nuclear power. Can you think of another feasible form of zero carbon emission energy?

The fact that nuclear energy supposedly bankrupted Electricite de France is a non-starter of an argument. That was a result of government controls on energy prices in France. It wouldn't be the same here.  The nuclear plants that we do have are run profitably. And modern nuclear technology would make new reactors even better.

It is nice that everybody has come around to what a disaster ethanol is but we need to change our stance on nuclear energy.

It is time to stop calling an energy policy that lives in fear of old technology progressive.

The reason the Europeans do it and we don't is because their utilities are public.  

Unless McCain is willing to nationalize the energy industry, it's not going to happen - Americans, by and large, are agnostic about nuclear power, but they would never tolerate the massive subsidies you'd need to get private companies to build and maintain nuclear reactors.  And private companies won't build them unless they're paid to do it, and then they get to charge people for using the power on top of it.

The day that oil is 1000 dollars a barrel (at LEAST) is the day that building and operating a nuclear reactor will become cost efficient.

This is just dumb electioneering - the Republicans are acting like all you'd have to do is say "okay oil companies, fire 'em up!" and we'd have cheap nuclear energy.  There's no such thing.  France has nuclear reactors because the government of France owns the reactors and doesn't mind taking a loss - again, because in Europe energy is a public utility.

I am so disgusted with the TM! My only information about French Nuclear was all positive and exclusively from the TM. Thanks for giving me the real picture.

I am reading the cited opposition to nuclear power from Lawrence Solomon. He maintains that France is a bad example because France's nuclear program creates so much electricity that you can't give it away during off peak hours! Does that sound like a problem? That is a limitation? What the ef? The problem seems to be that nuclear energy goes full bore 24/7

In fact, excess capacity can be used to create stored energy during off peak hours, for example kinetic storage of energy at reservoirs. They do this in California, they pump water up into the reservoir at night when there is excess capacity and run it back down through the turbines during peak demand hours.  Another way to store energy is to use the excess electricity to create hydrogen that can be put through a fuel cell generator during peak hours.

So Solomon's argument fails heavily on that point.

Ok, I want some source here, because I have NEVER heard that, and I'm french, and I can tell you that nuclear energy is very popular in france.

That's bullshit in its purest form. Who the hell is that "Carl Pope" guy?

There is NO reason to use Nuclear! That it! We have solar and wind and many more safe and clean alternatives. The American corporate world loves to centralize power and have exclusive control over it.  Thats why they love Nuclear, damn the risks and the alternatives it's all about having power over the users of electricity.

I'm with Al Gore on nuclear power:

Q: Let's turn briefly to some proposed solutions. Nuclear power is making a big resurgence now, rebranded as a solution to climate change. What do you think?

A: I doubt nuclear power will play a much larger role than it does now.

Q: Won't, or shouldn't?

A: Won't. There are serious problems that have to be solved, and they are not limited to the long-term waste-storage issue and the vulnerability-to-terrorist-attack issue. Let's assume for the sake of argument that both of those problems can be solved.

We still have other issues. For eight years in the White House, every weapons-proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a civilian reactor program. And if we ever got to the point where we wanted to use nuclear reactors to back out a lot of coal -- which is the real issue: coal -- then we'd have to put them in so many places we'd run that proliferation risk right off the reasonability scale. And we'd run short of uranium, unless they went to a breeder cycle or something like it, which would increase the risk of weapons-grade material being available.

When energy prices go up, the difficulty of projecting demand also goes up -- uncertainty goes up. So utility executives naturally want to place their bets for future generating capacity on smaller increments that are available more quickly, to give themselves flexibility. Nuclear reactors are the biggest increments, that cost the most money, and take the most time to build.

In any case, if they can design a new generation [of reactors] that's manifestly safer, more flexible, etc., it may play some role, but I don't think it will play a big role.

It's just not a pragmatic solution.  I'm convinced that the only reason conservatives love nuclear power so much is that it gives them a free shot at liberals and environmentalists.  "Aha, you claim you want to get us off oil and coal, but you refuse to build any nuclear plants!  There's just nothing you liberals will accept!"

You know, I don't care what flak I get for this, but I thoroughly endorse McCain's energy plan, the 'Lexington Project'. When he sets a goal for energy independence by 2025 and lays out specific plans to achieve that goal, how am I suppose to say no to that? McCain spent the entire week laying plan after plan, which collectively is in my opinion very bold and exactly what America needs.

It's long past time for a comprehensive energy policy.  Republicans have been pushing supply side answers for the last 2 decades with little success.  Drill more, build more plants, go to war.  Democrats have long been pushing demand side answers like COLA standards.  Republicans have driven all research and development overseas.  Everything from nuclear fission and fusion research to solar and wind development is done in Europe and Japan but not here.  

It's time for a comprehensive policy.  Nuclear power can and should play a part of it.  Unlike traditional reactors used by the French which took a submarine design and scaled it 100 or more times, modern fission reactors work on much smaller scale and have a correspondingly better safety record.  There has never been a nuclear accident on a submarine.  

Nonetheless, this problem is far too difficult and far too important to be left to a single industry to solve.  Both demand side and supply side remedies need to be applied in a comprehensive plan that includes:

1. research and development money for
   a.  nuclear fission
   b.  nuclear fusion
   c.  geothermal
   d.  wind
   e.  solar
   f.  coal gasification
   g.  oil shale
   h.  battery technology
   i.  anything else

2. plans to implement these technologies as they exist today - infrastructure jobs
   
3.  plans to phase out oil fueled power plants
   
4.  increased COLA standards
   
5.  tax rebates for using compact fluorescents and other energy savers
   
6.  tax rebates for hybrids and electric vehicles

There may be a silver bullet for this problem, but even if there is, you don't find it looking at one solution at a time.  It's past time to pursue all the avenues, supply side, demand side, and put ideology aside.

At $10 billion per reactor, the cost of 45 reactors is $450 billion.  The opportunity cost of those reactors is $10,000 worth of energy "treatments" - insulation, weatherization, solar electric and hot water panels, personal wind, personal geothermal, etc. - for 45 million residences.  These "treatments" would create tens of thousands of good paying jobs, help to decentralize our power generation, permanently reduce our demand for energy, permanently reduce CO2 emissions, etc.

Reading the posts and comments leads me to only one thing:  coal is our future.  

I say that only partly in jest.  Nuclear power can certainly be part of the solution and should be within our national energy policy.

Maybe we should take one step back and look at the goals of our energy policies.

1. Economical - The price of energy greatly effects all areas of the economy because energy is used to build and distribute things.

2. Environmental - We need to find the cleanest energy solutions available.

3. Defense - We need to keep energy available to all of America and consider where we spend our dollars for energy sources (IE OPEC).

If you wish to keep the costs of energy low you can not rely only on renewable energy.  Coal, Natural Gas, Oil and Nuclear have to remain on the table, at least in the short-mid terms.  This also would satisfy the defense angle because we have huge reserves of coal, natural gas and even oil within the US.

If your only care on energy policy is the environment than renewable are the only alternatives.   I would argue that renewable energy is a bit of a farce, because we do not yet know the unforeseen consequences of any of these sources.  Like the affect of huge wind farms on bird migration or even the affect of large drawing of energy from the earth's natural wind patterns.  Similarly you could question the use of solar polar and its affects on the earth's temperatures by not letting the energy from the sun be absorbed by the earth.  Read "law of conservation of energy" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatio n_of_energy

We should be exploring all options and have short, mid, and long term plans which tackle all three of these goals.

France has a  lot nuclear plants ... so does Illinois. The Exeleon corp. runs a lot of plants in the state and they've been one of Obama's backers. Before you pound on McCain you might want to check Obama's position on nuclear power.

This Lawrence Solomon fellow that Carl Pope cites is also a well known global warming denier.  I would look elsewhere for hard evidence that nuclear power is not a solution to our energy problems.