Comment: Nuke cycle is not green or CO2e free, uranium mining and milling uses gas and coal!! No to Nukes, No to Uranium mining!
Posted on: Friday, 5 June 2009, 06:45 CDT
In a law that would mandate utility companies to generate a certain amount of electricity from renewable sources, U.S. legislators are trying to increase incentives for the use of nuclear power and energy efficiency.
Nuclear power, however, is not currently considered a renewable electricity source according to the terms laid out in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee bill. If the bill becomes law, a predetermined percentage of every U.S. utility company’s total power output would have to be dedicated to renewable energy sources.
The Senate committee recently modified the bill to include an amendment authored by Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski. Under the modified legislation, any future increase in capacity at existing nuclear power plants or new nuclear power plants would be exempt from the bill’s green energy requirements.
By not including the expansion of output at nuclear power plants, the amendment would allow these power plants to increase energy production without being subject to mandatory increases in the amount of renewable power they generate.
A number of other nuclear power amendments were handily defeated by the committee, including one proposed by Republican Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain of Arizona. McCain's measure would have permitted nuclear power itself to fall under the category of renewable energy.
"Reduced greenhouse gas emissions, have cleaner sources of energy and diversity: I certainly think nuclear power meets all of those definitions," said a disappointed McCain. (Well, Mr. McCain, Nuke power has lots of gas emmissions, from the uranium mining and uranium milling uses coal, gas in trucks, moving the uranium, uranium will depleted in less than 50 years, Nuke is not green or clean!!!)
According to the guidelines laid out in the proposed bill, power plants would be gradually phased into the new renewable energy standards, starting with 3 percent of their output between 2011 and 2013 and rising to 15 percent between 2021 and 2039.
Experts say that utility companies would likely be able to hit roughly a quarter of the required new renewable energy targets simply through energy efficiency gains.
The Senate committee also rejected an amendment put forward by Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. Landrieu’s proposal would have removed the cap limiting the extent to which the new renewability standards could be met through energy efficiency adjustments.
"We wanted to incentivize renewable power because it was seen as best way to clean our air and reduce our greenhouse emissions. It's become clear, however, we can do even better and more cheaply by improving efficiency in our existing generation," Landrieu said.
Other legislators argued, however, that the renewable energy targets dictated by the proposed bill were not stringent enough. The first draft of the bill proposed by Committee chairman Jeff Bingaman's would have mandated that energy producers obtain 20 percent of their power from renewable energy by 2021-2039.
"It seems to me we've come a long way in the wrong direction since November," said Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey.
Menendez is co-sponsor of another amendment that would require utilities to generate a whopping 25 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2025. Supporters of this amendment say they plan to present their measure to the full Senate soon.
The renewable energy legislation is just one part of a multi-faceted energy package that is intended to tackle various issues in the field including building efficiency, expanding electricity transmission and domestic energy production. The Senate energy committee says it plans to vote on a final version of the legislation by the end of next week.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1700922/in_renewable_energy_legislation_nuclear_power_may_find_exemptions/
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