Obama Has A Nuclear Plan

Oops--wrong picture. That's Iran's nuclear plan in the photo. I actually meant to talk about the President's plan for using nuclear power as a clean, safe energy source. Sorry if I scared you. Having discovered nuclear energy and declaring there is such a thing as "clean coal," Obama is getting nuked from the left.

We've all known for a long time that while the Democrats and their radical environmentalist cohorts have been so busy trying to sell us windmills, solar panels and other hare-brained schemes for the production of mass energy that they've ignored or denigrated nuclear power. But the news is that the left will no longer follow obediently in the Messiah's trail of hypnotized disciples. Obama has decided that nuclear energy is a good idea after all, and they're not having any of it.

Obama finally comes up with a reasonable idea that would create real jobs, utilize a power source that is abundantly available within our own country, produces almost zero emissions or greenhouse gases, and could reduce America's dependence on foreign oil by huge sums, so the left goes ballistic (no pun intended). He's willing to pump $8.3 billion in loan guarantees into the project of building two reactors in Georgia (not the Georgia next to Russia), and suddenly the left has discovered the word "billion." Huge sum (Oh yeah? Have you seen the deficit?). The Green people don't mind spending billions of greenbacks on their silly projects, but when Obama decides to spend the taxpayers' money on a proven power source, they become Ebenezer Scrooge.

We also know that Iran understands nuclear energy. After all, if it didn't work beautifully, why would they be buying all that enriched nuclear fuel when they're sitting on oceans of the oil that we're paying so dearly for in the Middle East? They wouldn't be trying to build a nuclear bomb, now would they? Obama understands that we must get into the nuclear race so that we get our abundant nuclear energy before Iran gets its abundant nuclear energy. I'm sure all this talk about Iran wanting the fuel for building nuclear weapons is just another one of those Israeli plots to take over the Muslim world.

New York Times enviro-hack John Broder has built an entire article around his contempt for Obama's abandonment of the anti-nuclear power greenie-weenies. He carefully interviewed many "experts" in the field (environmental extremists, all) then produces the article in that unique "settled science" way we've all come to know and love from the kooks. First, Broder ignores all the possible uses and costs of nuclear energy, and chalks Obama's stance up to "trying too hard to placate the Republicans." Thus, Obama is a know-nothing about science in Broder's mind, and he's willing to go off on a tangent just to satisfy Republicans. Broder is willing to impute ignoble motives to The One rather than consider that the President may be acting sanely for the first time in his entire occupancy in the White House. I think Broder's a racist. Why else would he insult the President?

Broder avoided the New York Times editorial and its experts. The editorial opined that "President Obama's decision to commit $8.3 billion in loan guarantees to help build two nuclear reactors in Georgia and restart the American nuclear power industry makes good sense. We know that many environmentalists want Mr. Obama to put all of his chips on energy efficiency and renewable fuels, like wind and solar power. But nuclear power, which generates far fewer greenhouse gases than ordinary fossil fuels, should be part of the energy mix as this country and others move toward a less-carbon-intensive world." The editorial continues in the same vein, but you get the idea. The editorial staff doesn't really agree with Broder, but that didn't stop him.

Bill Snape at the Center for Biological Diversity was quoted by Broder as saying: "I think we all had higher hopes. We expected a lot in the first year, and everyone agrees they didn't quite live up to it. But there is recognition that [Obama] and the whole administration will get another stab at it." Not content with his disappointment on nuclear power plants, Snape had to add that the president was also ignoring his favorite subject. "You can't get anything right unless you get the polar bear right."

Another Broder expert, Frances Beinecke of the Natural Resources Defense Council expressed disappointment in the focus on nuclear power, but felt he also had add his contempt for clean coal technologies, which Obama spoke of in the State of the Union address. A cynical ploy to get votes from the states dependent on mining coal or that burn it for electricity, Beinecke says. Broder quotes Beinecke as saying: "N.R.D.C. knows there is no such thing as 'clean coal.' Every single step in the coal power cycle is dirty, from the profoundly destructive mountaintop removal mining to the smokestack emissions, which are responsible for 24,000 deaths a year." Beinecke didn't state whether polar bears were included in the death toll.

Broder also cites Daniel J. Weiss, who is the president of the ultra-liberal Center for American Progress. Weiss not only attacked the idea of nuclear power generation, but jacked up those all-important "billions" to $54 billion to include projects not yet on the drawing boards. Weiss doesn't want to spend money on nuclear power, so he wants you to know how much money he doesn't want to spend, including guesses. Says Weiss: "The president's embrace of nuclear power was disappointing, and the wrong way to go about winning Republican votes. Mr. Obama should not be endorsing such a costly and potentially catastrophic energy alternative as bait just to get talks started with pro-nuke senators."

Weiss was actually Broder's only "expert" who even bothered to address a direct criticism of nuclear power plants by calling them dangerous. Almost nobody believes that anymore. The potential is always there, but Three Mile Island is no longer the technology being utilized, and Chernobyl was the result of doing it on the cheap and not caring who might get hurt. Europe is heavily-reliant on nuclear power plants and has been for decades. Not a single major accident. And if Weiss is talking about security from terrorist attack, even Obama sees that danger and plans to make sure the developers work with national security on protecting the plants. Maybe Weiss is referring to the ecoterrorists that he sympathizes with.