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.

Yesterday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told an audience that an amendment promoting nuclear power would be included in the cap-and-trade carbon bill.

The amendment would also create a DOE Clean Energy Deployment Administration, which would provide financing to “a wide range” of energy technologies, including nuclear projects. The administration’s members would be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Hoyer said the provision has “broad support among Democrats of many different political views and from many different regions.” . . .

Hoyer said nuclear power has a part in meeting American’s nuclear energy needs and he would continue to advocate “a policy of balance.”

Hoyer also floated the idea of a national commission to study spent nuclear fuel.  We’re glad this conversation is happening again at the top levels of government, and hopeful that our pioneering work on spent fuel recycling will be a part of this discussion on the future of nuclear energy in the US.

For more on CO2 emissions, see our post on March 12, 2009, “Carbon is the Enemy.”

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.

Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat reprints an excellent editorial from Sunday’s Idaho Falls Post Register. The long and short of it is that it’s silly to pit one company against another when we’re talking about loan guarantees for future enrichment plants in the US… we need as many as we can get:

There are several idiotic debates under way at the moment — but pitting a uranium-processing plant in Idaho Falls against another proposed in Ohio has to top the list.

Watching the jockeying for $2 billion in federal loan guarantees makes for intriguing political theater. But it’s silly. The nation really needs both. . . .

Having three companies involved denies any one of them a chokehold on domestic fuel supply. It also provides a geographically dispersed network. . . .

This is no time for winner-takes-all politics. If Congress expands the loan-guarantee program, it does not mean more federal spending. It merely allows these companies to get financing more easily and cheaply.

We’d also like to add that these loan guarantees, in addition to costing the taxpayer nothing, would create jobs in the present for the folks who build the enrichment plants and in the long term, in steady, stable, community-supporting jobs in a high-tech and green industry.

“Nuclear energy is an essential part of our energy mix…it provides clean baseload generation of electricity” – Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Wednesday, March 11

Energy Secretary Steven Chu (photo courtesy Obama-Biden Transition Team)

Energy Secretary Steven Chu agreed with assertions from both Democrats and Republicans that nuclear energy should be a continuing part of the U.S. clean energy mix. He said he is prepared to act on the DOE loan guarantees for new reactors and encouraged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to move forward on licensing new plants. He reiterated the Administration’s position published in the budget outline that Yucca Mountain is not a workable solution. However, he also admitted that a long-term used-fuel strategy is the obligation of the federal government and that he will convene a blue ribbon panel to study the issue this year. He added that closing the fuel cycle should be studied as part of that strategy.