Obama and Nuclear Energy

Solar, wind, hybrid cars, bio-fuels, and... nuclear? During the 2008 presidential campaign, both major candidates spoke about the need to pursue new sources of energy in order to end America’s dependence on foreign oil, but there was one part of this energy solution that president-elect Obama usually kept behind the curtain. For decades, nuclear energy has been a contentious issue on the American political stage. Its supporters claim that it is a safe, clean, and necessary solution to America’s energy crisis, while the other side calls it dangerous, expensive, and unsafe. The strongest opposition to nuclear has consistently come from the far left of Obama’s own party, which made it a particularly difficult issue to address during the Democratic primary. Yet, from the beginning, Obama did include nuclear in his list of energy solutions on the campaign trail. Which raises the question, how will he address the issue as president and what are his greatest challenges in implementing his vision for nuclear energy?

While nuclear energy currently provides 20 percent of America’s total energy, but despite new advances in safety, a new nuclear power reactor has not come online since 1996 and construction of new reactors has not been approved since the tragic nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in 1979. However, given the new the invention of meltdown-proof pebble-bed reactors (PDR), the concern over a Chernobyl-type disaster has diminished. The new issue now is nuclear storage, which is where the tricky politics come into play since no state wants to store nuclear waste in their backyard.