I'm glad to hear that this is being looked into. How about we just cut off their subsidies while we investigate? How about never subsidizing fossil fuels again? How about suing Exxon/Mobil to recoup some of the loses we may face if the Inuit lawsuit against the US for damages and loss of livelihood due to global warming succeeds? Perhaps, we can even settle out of court with the Inuit if we give them the money from suing Exxon/Mobil. Oh well, I can dream, can't I?

Exxon/Mobile and their friends fight nuclear power, a clean source of energy. Unfortunately, they are too powerful to stop. In France, they get 80% of their electricity from clean nuclear power and China is going to replace dirty coal with nuclear as well. America get about 50% of our electricity from coal. We need to clean up our environment and get it from nuclear.

Shelly Piper,

While I agree with your sentiment completely, I have to disagree with the solution. Nuclear power cannot possibly be the answer for a number of reasons.

1) Nuclear waste. We still have no good answer for this. In fact, our already existing waste would more than fill the Yucca Mountain facility if it ever opened.

2) Security from terrorism. A terrorist threat to a nuclear plant would be horrific.

3) Price. There is no more expensive source of power on the planet. The only reason it is at all competitive is because the government gives billions in subsidies to the power companies.

4) Time. The amount of time that it takes a plant to be built and come on line is so dramatically prohibitive that we will almost certainly pass a tipping point of positive feedback in warming before a significant number of plants could be built.

5) A bit longer. But, in order for nuclear to make a real difference, we need roughly 25 times the current number of power plants. Unfortunately, many of these will be in developing nations. In such places, it will be hard to secure the plants from terrorism. Equally important is that it will be even harder to ensure that the plants do not produce weapons or weapons grade materials.

We have a number of tried and proven and cost effective power generation technologies, including wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal. We must concentrate on these rather than nuclear power if we are to safely combat climate change. We must also use tried and proven technologies for conservation. All of this exists now. We have the solutions. We just need to use them.

The French experience clearly does show that reprocessing need not be the dangerous mess that other countries, including the United States, have made of it. The leader of Greenpeace France’s antinuclear program, Yannick Rousselet, says he no longer cites technical challenges in his criticism of Areva. most of the reprocessed fuel can be reused by nuclear power plants without purchasing new fuel. France has a perfect safety record due to the French workers doing a great job. France leads the world in nuclear reprocessing and nuclear technology. France is not the home of oil monopolies like the US.

Rochelle Moreau,

I have heard some of that about the French system as well. I have still heard though that the government funds nuclear power tremendously, just as we do, which is the only thing that keeps it remotely cost effective.

Either way though, at best, that answers my first point. I think the other four still stand.

Rochelle makes a good point. In France, they do not have the powerful oil companies like we do in America, so the French are at least free to develop other forms of energy. We need to have "liberty" like the French so then we can consider other forms of energy. In America, the "5 sisters" manipulate things to prevent us from having this opportunity.