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McCain Calls For Building 45 New Nuclear Reactors »

Posted by: scarlett426 2 months, 2 weeks ago

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Sen. John McCain called Wednesday for the construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030 and pledged $2 billion a year in federal funds "to make clean coal a reality," measures designed to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

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    aniokly2 months, 2 weeks ago

    Just think. Do you know how many Union workers it takes to build a Nuke plant? All those jobs. Could that be payback for the Union not endorsing anyone in the November? The UA Journal does not mention Obama in any way.

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      DaneL2 months, 2 weeks ago

      anickly, I agree a nuke puts a large amount of people to work. What UA journal are you refering? Pipefitters?

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      Aidenag2 months, 2 weeks ago

      there is no way 45 nuke plants could be build in this time frame. Though i guess its a step forward from McLame's original statement that we needed to build like 700 of them within the next 40 years, which was even more impossible.

      Found it especially funny that he thinks there is such a thing as "clean coal". Guess he isn't aware that its just a talking point of Big Coal advertisements. The day they make coal clean, is the same day smoking becomes healthy...

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        DropkickaLib2 months, 2 weeks ago

        No energy policy implied by your position.

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        DaneL2 months, 2 weeks ago

        I worked on a clean coal burning powerhouse. It was dismantled and sent to China piece by piece. It was a joint venture with Texaco, Bechtel and a few other small concerns. It was built in the high desert of So. Cal. The biggest problem there was the cost of shipping the coal by train to the plant.

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        AntiNeoCon2 months, 2 weeks ago

        And just where are we going to get the money for this McLame project? Didn't his party tell him they put America into bankruptcy?

        We may need them, but it costs money...we going to borrow more from China?

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      blinkers2 months, 2 weeks ago

      I guess if Japan, the most nuclear-allergic nation in the world (with good reason) can live with large numbers of nuclear power plants -- some built across fault-lines -- then so can the US. But forty-five seems tremendously ambitious, as Aidenag (above) observes.

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        miklkit2 months, 2 weeks ago

        I would guess that size matters. Our current plants are too big, complicated, and unreliable. Using many smaller plants in the French model seems like the way to go.

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          CactusAnnie2 months, 2 weeks ago

          Hi Blinkers, nice to see you! Japan is roughly the size of say, Montana, one state. I have always been a proponent of states rights over federal. Who knows, maybe some states become proactive and start paying dividends to the residents like Alaska does, could be the numbers are an under-estimate, then.

          This is a big country, each state is different, each region is different.

          Like with the abortion issue, if they want abortion on demand in California, the majority should have the say, but by the same token if the majority in South Dakota want no part of it, they should have that same right to govern what happens there, it is not the Federal right to govern those issues in that area.

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        Dicax_Maximus2 months, 2 weeks ago

        Very VERY ambitious.... And they cost (figure I read in the UK was GBP 10 billion / reactor). I can't remember whether that figure included R&D (the UK's in the same boat as the US re abscence of technical skill now), but even assuming economy of scale could drop the price by a half, that's still 450 billion USD.....

        Now if they could invest that amount in Fusion research.....

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          engineer2 months, 2 weeks ago

          I'd like the nuclear reactors built. I agree with McCain on this

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            DropkickaLib2 months, 2 weeks ago

            I have heard that many of the components for building reactors are no longer made in the U.S. and that this complicates building nuclear power plants. I agree with his idea also but the execution of it may not be easy.

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          jimdoze2 months, 2 weeks ago

          "First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

          John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961

          Is 45 new Nukes ambitious? Yep!

          Is it doable? Yep!

          Is clean coal ambitious? Yep!

          Is it doable or close to doable? Maybe!

          Industrial economies require industrial production of energy. Transportation alternatives to oil and its derivatives can only be developed in an environment with abundant sources of electrical power.

          If Obama had come up with this first, I would have had to have given him very serious thought. Alas....

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            miklkit2 months, 2 weeks ago

            I'm no fan of coal. I'd welcome the work trying to turn that sows ear into a silk purse, but have no confidence in it.

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              Wolfie20072 months, 2 weeks ago

              But alas, Obama and his company of liberal lefties don't like nuclear power or coal, even if burns as clean as a baby's breath.

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              tkyrchncs2 months, 2 weeks ago

              If you want to burn coal at your house, go for it. Just don't come to my back yard to dig it up.

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                tkyrchncs2 months, 2 weeks ago

                If you want to burn coal and deal with the smoke and ashes at your house, then go for it. Just don't come to my back yard to dig it up.

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                Spadecaller2 months, 2 weeks ago

                I wonder how many supporters of McCain's proposal will later object when they begin building them in their communities...

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                  berkeley2 months, 2 weeks ago

                  in the past fifty years, no one in any country has developed anything close to a solution for the tons of radioactive waste continuously created by these plants.

                  the yucca mountain site was planned to have opened a decade ago. it might make it in another 20 years, but there is no consensus that even it is an effective solution. why? because of the hundreds of thousands of years this "waste" must be isolated, lest it kill us.

                  anyone talking about creating even more of this poison without a plan for both the storage and transport of the deadly by-products is as crazy as mccain.

                  if we put that same effort into any number of alternative sources, we would all benefit a hundred-fold.

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                    dunkirk2 months, 2 weeks ago

                    But But But Wolfie just said it burns clean like a babys breath? Is he swallowing the kool aid again?

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                  miklkit2 months, 2 weeks ago

                  I think it was Isaac Asimov who came up with the plan I like best. Find a big canyon out in the desert. Build a small nuclear plant there and start making glass. Mix the nuclear waste into that glass and store it in the canyon. Glass lasts for geologic time. By the time it weathers away the yucky stuff will be gone.

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                    Aidenag2 months, 2 weeks ago

                    There doing tests on the glass encased radioactive waste in my state with the Hanford Reactor mess(nations largest superfund site) It looks promising, but the verdict is still out on how effective it really is. Will be years before anyone knows if it actually works, and if so, what type of glass works the best.

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                    walden32 months, 2 weeks ago

                    This is great news. I am a strong supporter of nuclear power.

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                      tehranchik2 months, 2 weeks ago

                      Oregon closed one of it's power reactors due to nuclear waste. Now they want to create more waste?

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                        walden32 months, 2 weeks ago

                        Your ideas how to generate electricity?

                        I agree that the waste is a big drawback, but to me it seems better than more coal plants which leads to more CO2 and SO2.

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                        dunkirk2 months, 2 weeks ago

                        this tends to go along qwith most REPUBLICAN/;right wing initiatives.....Let THEM worry about the aftermath.

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                        canadianrancher572 months, 2 weeks ago

                        McCains call for 45 reactors may seem like a tall order but when you are dealing with the energy issue it is best to start high and then after all the protests about where they are going to be built blow over you may actually end up with maybe a dozen or so, if he had come out and said he wanted 10 or 12 you might get 1. Theres nothing wrong with setting your sights high.

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                          Lurch2 months, 2 weeks ago

                          First he said 700, now he says 45. One day, if he keeps changing his mind, McCain might actually hit a realistic number.

                          Of course I might win the lottery too one day...

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                            automan9092 months, 2 weeks ago

                            I love McCains ideas for our energy problems. They are much better tha Obama's Ideas of a windfall tax. That will just shift that tax cost to us in the price we pay at the pumps. Thats idiotic.

                            McCains Ideas are much better than the stupid ideas of Obama.

                            "Change" for the worse with Obama.

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                              Lurch2 months, 2 weeks ago

                              I think you need to study the meaning of a windfall profits tax.

                              It means to tax profits, not income.

                              By taxing their profit at something like 90% for the top marginal rate, which is what the greatest generation did to pay for WWII, their is no incentive to raise prices because they won`t make anymore.

                              McCains ideas are Bush`s ideas, more handouts for themselves and their cronies buddies.

                              McCain thinks the multinationals and politicians know how to spend your money better than you do.

                              Obama is change we NEED!

                              Reply

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                            Proud grad of the University of Cincinnati with the very lucrative and in demand BA in History. Recently admitted to the Bar in Ohio after ...

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