Presidential candidates offer few nuclear energy specifics

Presidential candidates offer few nuclear energy specifics

Dallas Morning News: John McCain wants the United States to build 45 new nuclear energy plants by 2030, a plan Barack Obama vows to oppose until the nation can figure out how to secure and dispose of nuclear waste.

Obama’s stand is particularly troublesome because he speaks about safety and security issues as if nuclear power has never been used in this country or anywhere else in the world.

Look at the record

For the record, 104 nuclear plants are operating safely in the United States, and the nuclear waste generated at each is stored on-site. France and Japan depend heavily on nuclear power, and China, Russia and India plan to build more than 100 nuclear facilities.

While McCain clearly gets the urgency of this issue much more clearly than Obama, the nation deserves many more specifics from him. He is absolutely right when he says the United States needs nuclear energy as it weans itself from foreign oil and fossil fuels.

But if the Republican is serious about adding new plants, he should propose a strategy to get past roadblocks. After all, a new nuclear plant hasn’t been built in this country in about three decades.

Big money proposition

The typical nuclear plant costs $6 billion to $8 billion to build, an investment many utilities will not make without assurances that the federal government won’t pull the financial rug from beneath the industry, as it did after Three Mile Island in 1979.

McCain should be proposing tax incentives, regulatory changes or other measures to encourage utilities to make these sizeable investments. The industry also needs a commitment to build a storage facility to handle the waste, an issue that should have been resolved a decade ago. On that latter point, McCain has taken the “not in my back yard” position — backing plans to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada but opposing the transportation of waste through his home state of Arizona.

Enough posturing. We’re eager to hear details of what it will take to turn this energy option into a reality.