The Daily Caller

The Daily Caller
Opinion

The truth about Obama and nuclear power

4:49 PM 03/18/2011
Chris Horner

These are actions. And the truth is that President Obama is waging an aggressive war on coal, and even stepping it up against gas, demanding a vast new reactor fleet begin construction yesterday. His assumption that 100 nuclear reactors would be built in the near future was insincere and facially absurd and is now utterly implausible as a practical matter.

All of which says he must place his war on coal and gas on hold. He is not doing so. Instead, he is doubling down on the anti-coal demagoguery.

He is a committed anti-energy ideologue, because energy liberates you. Just as George Will wrote about automobility, abundant energy is “subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends [and . . .] encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.”

Abundant reliable energy runs counter to Obama’s ideology. He is not a proponent of nuclear power, and when he admitted that he was telling the truth. And notwithstanding a few words aimed at avoiding questions about how we keep the lights on, given his war on coal-fired electricity, nothing he has done reveals that he will promote increased nuclear power to replace coal and then gas.

Tell the truth. Have a responsible conversation about our energy needs, the costs and benefits associated with energy sources, and how we best move forward. So far, all of that is lacking out of the White House. It is now up to Capitol Hill.

Chris Horner is a senior fellow at The Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Tags: Barack Obama, Chris Horner, Energy, Environment, Nuclear power, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Oil and gas
  • SamAdams25

    Obama is clearly an enemy of American freedom and independence. He has no regard for the American people other than as subjects. His supporters are just too stupid to see it.

    This wannabe despot and his “progressive” supporters in our government must be fought at every turn, and thrown out in 2012. This country will suffer irreparable harm, and may not even survive a second Obama term.

    Write, call, and email your Senators and Congressman at least once a week to adamantly oppose every proposal by this administration. They all have nice sounding titles, but they all have the same end goal – to rob you of your freedom, liberty, and way of life. We cannot allow that to happen. If we just ignore it, it will happen, and we will have only ourselves to blame.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paul-Taylor/1227016022 Paul Taylor

    The 1986 nuclear reactor accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine spread radioactivity and death over eastern Europe and despair in the Western world’s nuclear power industry. Chernobyl, along with the non-lethal accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979, sent the industry into decades of decline.

    Enviro-groups will predictably leverage the new enviro-hysteria of “Fukushima” to stop the expansion of nuclear power in America. Just as they have used the examples of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island as pejoratives against the U.S.’s current 104 nuclear power plants that provide about 18% of our electricity. Nuclear power expansion is necessary in America for economic, security and environmental reasons. The energy from one pound of uranium is equivalent to 1.3 million pounds of coal energy. Nuclear power produces none of the greenhouse gases associated with global warming.

    Just as the “green screams” of “BP” demonized our oil production and oil independence, listen for the next enviro-groups’ rallying cries of “Fukushima” to demonize our nuclear energy production and energy independence.