AT: Environmentalist Link

AT: Environmentalist Link

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Environmentalists love the plan

VEIA ’12 (Virginina Energy Independence Alliance, 9/11/12, “Why liberals and environmentalists are embracing Nuclear Energy”)
In what is becoming a trend, liberals are starting to peel off the anti-nuclear environmentalist bandwagon and acknowledge – and embrace – the importance and value of nuclear to meet growing world power demands. Last December, the Progressive Policy Institute published a memo in support of nuclear power, citing the “impeccable safety record of nuclear power reactors under normal operating conditions,” the absence of scientific consensus regarding low-dose radiation risks, and its lack of polluting emissions. They called upon liberals, normally “champions of reason and science,” to actually take the time for an honest and fact-based evaluation of nuclear energy, and cautioned against giving too much weight to the “feeling of risk,” as opposed to real risk: So far we have spoken of risk in terms of assessments based on logic, reasoning, and scientific deliberation. But this is not the way most people think about nuclear energy. Their perceptions are shaped by risk as a feeling – an instinctive and intuitive reaction dominated by worry, fear, dread, and anxiety. These feelings often reflect a conflation of nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and feelings of anxiety stoked by the Cold War arms race. This is exactly what Virginia is running up against in the Coles Hill Uranium Mine fight, as environmentalists lose control of their reason and let irrational fears and the feelings of risk cloud their judgment. Fortunately, the tide may be turning away from feelings, anxiety, and fear, and toward reason and science. On Friday, September 7th, a group of environmentalists from the Breakthrough Institute published an article with the subtitle, “Why it’s time for environmentalists to stop worrying and love the atom,” in which they defend nuclear power against the nay-saying of their less reasonable brethren.

Environmental concerns spur plan supporters to lobby harder

Shellenberger ‘12 (Michael, president of the breakthrough institute, Jessica Lovering, policy analyst at the breakthough institute, Ted Nordhaus, chairman of the breakthrough institute. September 7, 2012. [“Out of the Nuclear Closet,” http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/07/out_of_the_nuclear_closet?page=0,0]
Arguably, the biggest impact of Fukushima on the nuclear debate, ironically, has been to force a growing number of pro-nuclear environmentalists out of the closet, including us. The reaction to the accident by anti-nuclear campaigners and many Western publics put a fine point on the gross misperception of risk that informs so much anti-nuclear fear. Nuclear remains the only proven technology capable of reliably generating zero-carbon energy at a scale that can have any impact on global warming. Climate change -- and, for that matter, the enormous present-day health risks associated with burning coal, oil, and gas -- simply dwarf any legitimate risk associated with the operation of nuclear power plants. About 100,000 people die every year due to exposure to air pollutants from the burning of coal. By contrast, about 4,000 people have died from nuclear energy -- ever -- almost entirely due to Chernobyl. But rather than simply lecturing our fellow environmentalists about their misplaced priorities, and how profoundly inadequate present-day renewables are as substitutes for fossil energy, we would do better to take seriously the real obstacles standing in the way of a serious nuclear renaissance. Many of these obstacles have nothing to do with the fear-mongering of the anti-nuclear movement or, for that matter, the regulatory hurdles imposed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and similar agencies around the world. As long as nuclear technology is characterized by enormous upfront capital costs, it is likely to remain just a hedge against overdependence on lower-cost coal and gas, not the wholesale replacement it needs to be to make a serious dent in climate change. Developing countries need large plants capable of bringing large amounts of new power to their fast-growing economies. But they also need power to be cheap. So long as coal remains the cheapest source of electricity in the developing world, it is likely to remaining. The most worrying threat to the future of nuclear isn't the political fallout from Fukushima -- it's economic reality. Even as new nuclear plants are built in the developing world, old plants are being retired in the developed world. For example, Germany's plan to phase out nuclear simply relies on allowing existing plants to be shut down when they reach the ends of their lifetime. Given the size and cost of new conventional plants today, those plants are unlikely to be replaced with new ones. As such, the combined political and economic constraints associated with current nuclear energy technologies mean that nuclear energy's share of global energy generation is unlikely to grow in the coming decades, as global energy demand is likely to increase faster than new plants can be deployed. To move the needle on nuclear energy to the point that it might actually be capable of displacing fossil fuels, we'll need new nuclear technologies that are cheaper and smaller. Today, there are a range of nascent, smaller nuclear power plant designs, some of them modifications of the current light-water reactor technologies used on submarines, and others, like thorium fuel and fast breeder reactors, which are based on entirely different nuclear fission technologies. Smaller, modular reactors can be built much faster and cheaper than traditional large-scale nuclear power plants. Next-generation nuclear reactors are designed to be incapable of melting down, produce drastically less radioactive waste, make it very difficult or impossible to produce weapons grade material, useless water, and require less maintenance. Most of these designs still face substantial technical hurdles before they will be ready for commercial demonstration. That means a great deal of research and innovation will be necessary to make these next generation plants viable and capable of displacing coal and gas. The United States could be a leader on developing these technologies, but unfortunately U.S. nuclear policy remains mostly stuck in the past. Rather than creating new solutions, efforts to restart the U.S. nuclear industry have mostly focused on encouraging utilities to build the next generation of large, light-water reactors with loan guarantees and various other subsidies and regulatory fixes. With a few exceptions, this is largely true elsewhere around the world as well. Nuclear has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress for more than 60 years, but the enthusiasm is running out. The Obama administration deserves credit for authorizing funding for two small modular reactors, which will be built at the Savannah River site in South Carolina. But a much more sweeping reform of U.S. nuclear energy policy is required. At present, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has little institutional knowledge of anything other than light-water reactors and virtually no capability to review or regulate alternative designs. This affects nuclear innovation in other countries as well, since the NRC remains, despite its many critics, the global gold standard for thorough regulation of nuclear energy. Most other countries follow the NRC's lead when it comes to establishing new technical and operational standards for the design, construction, and operation of nuclear plants.

Environment doesn’t matter

Schor ‘12 (Elana, Energy and Environment Daily reporter, “David vs. Goliath or even money? Greens weigh their election-year matchup” E&E News -- January 23 -- http://www.eenews.net/public/EEDaily/2012/01/23/1)
"Nobody's afraid of the environmental community on Capitol Hill," this advocate said, noting that the president's re-election campaign last week took charge of an ad response on energy jobs that greens are not yet positioned to amplify. "They don't have political money ready at hand, but it's not that they don't have money."

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