President Obama

Yesterday at his town hall in New Orleans, the President was asked about climate change, and he responded by reiterating his commitment to push for climate change legislation as soon as the health care debate is over.

One of his main points was that we need to increase our domestic energy production in environmentally-responsible ways – including expanding our nuclear energy sector.

“There’s no reason why technologically we can’t employ nuclear energy in a safe and effective way,” Obama said. “Japan does it and France does it and it doesn’t have greenhouse gas emissions, so it would be stupid for us not to do that in a much more effective way.”

We’re glad that President Obama is acknowledging the nuclear renaissance and recognizing the crucial role nuclear power must play in both ensuring energy security and sustainable development in the United States, and combatting carbon emissions and climate change.

It’s also important to point out that the President realizes, as we do, how important the growth of the clean energy sector could be to our economy:

“But I ultimately am convinced that we should be able to put together a package that puts people back to work, makes us more energy independent and saves our planet in the process,” he added.

Clean energy – including nuclear energy – means jobs, as we’ve pointed out. We’ve been able to keep hiring both here in the United States and around the world even while most of the economy has been in a downturn. An investment in nuclear energy is an investment in well-paying, secure, and economy-growing jobs for Americans… and we’re glad President Obama is on board with us in the crucial push for cleaner, safer, carbon-free energy.

To see a video of the question and answer, click here and go to the 5:15 mark.

Yesterday, President Obama said in a BBC interview: “Without going into specifics, what I do believe is that Iran has legitimate energy concerns, legitimate aspirations. On the other hand, the international community has a very real interest in preventing a nuclear arms race in the region.”

Thus, we thought that this would be a good time to highlight AREVA’s commitment to non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and our being a partner in the US Department of Energy’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative. As it says on the DOE’s site:

The mission of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) is to reduce and protect vulnerable nuclear and radiological materials located at civilian sites worldwide. GTRI helps the Department of Energy achieve its Nuclear Security Goal to prevent the acquisition of nuclear and radiological materials…Three key subprograms of GTRI –Convert, Remove, and Protect—provide a comprehensive approach to denying terrorists access to nuclear and radiological materials.

As part of this commitment to remove weapons-grade material from stockpiles, AREVA has partnered with the Shaw Group to build the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. This facility when complete with convert the weapons-grade plutonium into MOX fuel for use in commercial nuclear power plants. This $4.9 billion project now under construction employs some 1,000 workers and is being built for DOE.

Check out this great article in The Economist about the future of green energy. They talk about the impending crisis that is climate change and the importance of finding safe, reliable energy sources that won’t put harmful pollutants or climate-changing CO2 into our air. And like any good discussion of the changes we’re going to need to make to the way we collect and use energy, The Economist points out the importance of nuclear power to provide baseload energy as part of a green energy mix:

In his election campaign Mr Obama dodged the subject of nuclear power. “New Energy for America”, his eight-page energy manifesto, mentioned it briefly, without enthusiasm. But it is hard to imagine halting climate change without it. Windmills and solar panels provide power only intermittently. To avoid blackouts an energy source that keeps flowing in any weather is needed. Nuclear power, whose CO2 emissions are tiny, fits the bill. But no new nuclear plant has been built in America for 35 years. Mr Obama is now mulling loans to restart the industry. Given the huge upfront costs and the certainty of resistance from environmentalists, firms will have to know the government is serious about curbing CO2 before they commit themselves to building nuclear plants.

The article also talks about the importance of implementing a smart grid – an electrical grid that can actually save energy by anticipating times and places of peak demand and making the grid more efficient:

Mr Obama included incentives for building a smart grid in his stimulus package. Businesses are queuing to build one. “This is the most sexy industry to work in,” says Guido Bartels, who leads the energy team at IBM. A smart grid would involve sensors to monitor power flow in both directions, and software to help crunch all the data thus generated. If you plug in your electric car at a friend’s house, you will want an easy way to be billed, says Mr Bartels. And information can be used in myriad ways to make the system more efficient, for example by imposing variable prices to discourage power use during periods of peak demand. Energy is one of the fastest-growing parts of IBM’s business. Manufacturers such as GE and ABB build the physical infrastructure, while IBM vies with such firms as Accenture to supply the information technology and integrate it all.

The entire article is definitely worth a read… you should check it out!

We’d like to congratulate the Obama administration on their announcement yesterday to fund “smart grid” initiatives to develop a more efficient and secure electrical grid. We’re going to actively support the administration’s initiative by working with customers to demonstrate and deploy smart grid technology. As you may know, AREVA is a leader in the United States in the development of smart grid systems, as well as in renewable and other carbon-free energy solutions.

We’ve developed a variety of products and services to improve grid reliability, enable integration of renewables into the grid, and facilitate greater customer control over energy use. We’ve also created a special task force bringing together the capabilities of several business units, to create comprehensive solutions that will accelerate the Obama administration’s smart grid initiatives. In addition, we’re investing in R&D projects at our Center of Excellence in Redmond, Wash., which will further advance the state of smart grid technology.

“AREVA is committed to achieving the goals of the smart grid development projects. As the proven leader in Utility Grid Management Systems and with two-thirds of electric utilities in North America using AREVA equipment, our company is well positioned to help advance these important national initiatives,” said Jacques Besnainou, President of AREVA Inc.

The deployment of smart grid technologies also will allow for greater utilization of renewable energy resources, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing domestic energy security. We expect that our collaboration with electric utilities on smart grid deployment will create a significant number of new jobs across the United States.

The official White House website has added a new feature, “Open For Questions,” which allows people to ask the President key questions on the economy and vote up other people’s submissions.

So far, over 13,000 people have submitted over 16,000 questions. There are a number of good questions on the economic effect of nuclear energy, in the category of Green Jobs and Energy. Here are some that caught our eye:

Mr. President why not embrace Nuclear Power it would create tens of thousands of jobs and cut our dependence on foreign oil . The job creation would be sustaniable and would occur in may areas of the country that need them.
jsc, malvern, pa

With the scarcity of Oil looming as well as other resources, has your administration thought about implimenting Nuclear power on a more massive scale, so that we would get a large amount of our power from nuclear energy, similar to France?
Wesley M, Sammamish, WA

Do you have any plans on closing the nuclear fuel cycle in the United States so that we can recycle our spent nuclear fuel?
C-los with the Most, Knoxville, TN

The French success with nuclear power is based on standardized designs and recycling uranium. When will the DOE and NCR benchmark this success?
raymillr, Cincinnati, OH

Mr. President, if cutting green house emissions are such a high priority in your agenda, why not continue government support for bringing the next gen nuclear power plans on line. This technolgy is ultra clean and would create numerous jobs.
jrgarne, monterey, ca

We’d recommend you go make your voice heard, and ask your questions. If you like these questions and ones like them, go vote them up. The President will answer some of the most popular questions on Thursday, so submit questions and vote soon to make your voice heard!