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.

The following oped appeared in the March 5 edition of the National Post under the title The Nuclear Option

by Armand Laferrère, president and CEO of AREVA Canada Inc.

Clean energy and new technologies to produce environmentally-friendly products will play a major part in Ontario’s economic renewal program. Given its ability to produce reliable, emission-free, base load electricity, Ontario’s nuclear industry can and should play a central role in the creation of a stronger and more sustainable provincial economy.

Ontario has a running start in becoming a worldwide centre of excellence for nuclear energy. Almost 90% of Canada’s nuclear reactors are located here, producing half of the province’s electricity. We’ve been generating nuclear power for almost 50 years, so we have a deep pool of skilled nuclear scientists, engineers and operators, and a world-leading safety record.

Building new nuclear generation and infrastructure creates thousands of high-paying, long-term jobs for contractors and subcontractors in several industries. Given the long lead time, new reactors aren’t exactly in the “shovel-ready” category of infrastructure projects. However, by announcing a comprehensive strategy to become a leader in nuclear technology and generation, the government would unleash a host of planning and procurement processes. These processes alone, given their size and scope, have the potential to boost confidence in the province’s economy.

read more…

by Jarret Adams

But it is not all about nuclear energy. AREVA also believes in the power of renewables to create significant numbers of green jobs, and we are working to expand our business in this sector.

Specifically, AREVA has partnered with Duke Energy to form ADAGE, which is focused on developing advanced biopower (biomass to electricity) plants in the United States. These facilities too will produce significant numbers of green jobs. Each facility will create 400 jobs during construction and about 100 jobs during operation. The goal of ADAGE is to build 10-12 new plants over the next six years—this means thousands of new jobs to say nothing of the additional green power they will produce.

In February, ADAGE signed a preliminary agreement with Energy Northwest to develop biopower plants in the states of Washington, Idaho, Montana and Oregon. The goal is to market the facilities to the 24 member companies of Energy Northwest with the hope of building one or more in the four-state region.

by Jarret Adams

In this difficult economic climate, there has been much talk among policymakers and others about investing the energy infrastructure and creating new green jobs. Renewables are often mentioned are key elements in creating green jobs, but often overlooked is the contribution that investment in nuclear energy is already making in creating green jobs.

By the end of 2008, approximately 15,000 new jobs had been created by private investment in new nuclear power plants, according to a recent NEI study. The study projects that if all 26 reactor projects that have submitted license applications are built more than 60,000 new construction jobs will be created.

read more…