As part of Wall Street Journal conference, Energy Secretary Steven Chu discusses the work involved in the development of clean energy technology for American industry saying, “it is so much easier to spread fear than it is to spread a vision of opportunity in the future and part of my job is to help people see what an opportunity this is.”
An in-depth report yesterday from Business Week profiled AREVA CEO Anne Lauvergeon and what she has been doing to build the world leader in nuclear energy, and importantly, what her plans are for the future as the prospects for new nuclear improve.
Anne Lauvergeon (photo credit: BusinessWeek)
Business Week’s Carol Matlack writes:
“Anne Lauvergeon, chief executive of the French nuclear giant AREVA, is getting close to the payoff on a colossal decade-long bet. In 2001, when she engineered the three-way merger that turned AREVA into a one-stop shop selling nuclear technology to the world, many found the idea far-fetched. The U.S hadn’t ordered a nuclear plant since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. And after Chernobyl in 1986, business dried up just about everywhere outside pro-nuclear France…
Undeterred by the nuclear drought, Lauvergeon put AREVA’s engineers to work on a bold new technology called the Evolutionary Pressurized Reactor. The EPR is super-powerful, fuel-efficient, and loaded with safety features such as a reinforced concrete shell designed, post-September 11, to withstand a direct hit by a jumbo jet. Now the 50-year-old CEO is rolling out the EPR just as the nuclear industry awakens from its slumber.”
But AREVA is not just building an industry in France, Matlack reports on AREVA’s development, support, and expansion of the nuclear industry in the United States.
“Lauvergeon has used keen political and marketing instincts to keep AREVA’s U.S. growth on track. Fluent in English, she regularly meets with U.S. industry groups and politicians in states where AREVA operates. Last July she joined then-Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to break ground on a joint-venture, with Northrop Gurmman, to supply components for U.S. plants build by AREVA and others.”
Continue the piece, “AREVA’s High-End Bet on Nuclear Power,” here.
As major announcements roll out of the White House and Department of Energy in support of expanding nuclear energy in the United States, many regional and local newspapers have expressed positive opinions and support for this growth.
An editorial from The Philadelphia Inquirer argued that:
“The point is that increasing the nation’s reliance on nuclear power, or wind, or solar, requires disincentives to using fossil fuels. It also requires convincing states like Pennsylvania that new jobs in wind, solar, and nuclear will be created quickly to supplant those lost in extracting and delivering the old, polluting fossil fuels.”
From the Lynchburg News & Advance in Virginia, “Obama Sees the Light on Nuclear Power”:
“Earlier this week, President Barack Obama finally … finally … acknowledged a fact many Americans have known for years: that nuclear power is essential to this nation’s future… What is so significant about this step is that these two plants would be the first nuclear power facilities to be built in the United States in more than 30 years, following the Three Mile Island accident in the late 1970s.”
From the Marietta Times in Marietta, Ohio, “America needs to build nuclear power plants”
“Good move building nuclear plants again after 30+ years of not building one. I was at Department of Energy during the “Three Mile Island” incident, and our mentality following that is similar to an individual who says, “since I had a car accident, I am not going to drive or ride in a car again.”
From this weekend’s Wall Streeet Journal Op Ed:
“We’ve essentially fallen 10 years behind the rest of the world in nuclear technology, but the Obama administration’s decision to support nuclear will finally get the ball rolling. Within a decade we may very well catch up with the rest of the world in developing the energy technology of the 21st century.”
- William Tucker, Author “Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America’s Energy Odyssey“
By Jarret Adams
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) told a packed audience Feb. 23 at conference held by The New Republic that he was working with a group of leading senators and the Obama administration on renewed push for a climate bill.
“We’re on a short track here in terms of piecing together legislation we intend to roll out,” Kerry told the conference. While he acknowledged that his optimism about the legislation was “contrary to conventional wisdom” and added that all of the approaches are on the table.
read more…
There are two items to highlight from the Washington Post today. First, here is this quote from an op ed piece we like a lot:
“The merits of nuclear power have been debated for years. Such power has drawbacks, not least the waste that reactors produce and that the government cannot decide where to store. But given that nuclear power produces essentially no carbon emissions, it’s an appealing option for consistent and relatively clean electricity generation….the president is right to signal that he will unfreeze the regulatory process, which, in concert with public discomfort, has stymied the industry for decades. And there is a reasonable argument that nuclear should get this federal push. Though nuclear may well be more cost-efficient than its critics allege, huge upfront construction costs scare off investors. If loan guarantees for the first batch of new plants help demonstrate that reactors can be built without the delays and cost overruns that have characterized some nuclear projects, capital will come to nuclear without as much governmental support in the future and without taxpayers actually spending much.”
And in a separate section of the WashPost site, blogger Ezra Klein posts this chart, explaining in part why the Administration is supporting Nuclear over other dirtier electiricity generation technologies…
By Katherine Berezowskyj
President Obama’s recent support for nuclear energy has ignited a genuine discussion on the issue. No longer can nuclear energy’s benefits be ignored or scare tactics employed to shut down discussion, the American media is getting behind the facts.
From the Boston Herald:
“Absent nuclear power, any clean-energy policy is largely decorative since the more talked about elements – wind, solar – can only supply power at the margins. Nuclear plants generate 20 percent of U.S. power now and 70 percent of the power considered to come from clean sources.”
President Obama’s announcement yesterday was a great boost for nuclear energy in the United States. The Obama Administration’s support of nuclear energy also represents his ability to move beyond traditional political divisions and work for a genuine solution.
Obama said “even when we have differences, we cannot allow those differences to prevent us from making progress. On an issue that affects our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, we can’t keep on being mired in the same old stale debates between the left and the right, between environmentalists and entrepreneurs….
But investing in nuclear energy remains a necessary step. What I hope is that with this announcement, we’re underscoring both our seriousness in meeting the energy challenge and our willingness to look at this challenge not as a partisan issue but as a matter that’s far more important than politics — because the choices we make will affect not just the next generation but many generations to come.”
A piece from the The Huffington Post by Tamara N. Holder echoes this thought saying the “one issue that both sides need to support and must support: nuclear energy.”
We welcome todays historic announcement from the President’s announcment of an initial 8.3 Billion dollars in nuclear loan guarantees. We agree that this decision is key both to the nuclear industry, and to the overall US economy.
We also agree with the President that “to meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we’ll need to increase our supply of nuclear power. It’s that simple.” And we share the vision that the President described of “a future in which we’re exporting homegrown energy technology instead of importing foreign oil. And it’s a future in which our economy is powered not by what we borrow and spend but what we invent and what we build.”
Today, Mike Stuckey of MSNBC laid out some key points for the current debate on loan guarantees for new nuclear facilities. The U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantees have been a hot topic in Washington since President Obama’s State of the Union call for “building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country,” and his proposal to include an additional $36 billion for the loan guarantee program in his 2011 budget.
The article, which included a list of some potential loan guarantee candidates, also prominently featured an AREVA representative for a balanced view of the topic.
For the entire piece, check out “Loan guarantees recharge nuclear debate”.
