Nuclear Trade Group Spends 1.3M on US Lobbying (which is next to nothing)
March 21st, 2008
|
| Share |
According to this article in Business Week, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the trade group for the nuclear industry spent 1.3 million dollars in 2007 in lobbying efforts. These included lobbying of Congress, the White House and the NRC. From the way the article is written it sounds like the nuclear industry is spending big bucks on Capital Hill pushing legislation that is pro-nuclear and in the interest of the industry. It states:
The nuclear energy industry’s main trade group spent $1.3 million to lobby the federal government in 2007, according to a disclosure form.
The Nuclear Energy Institute lobbied on various appropriations bills, including those dealing with energy and water development and the restructruing of the electric utility industry.
For those who do not know, Lobbying is the act of encouraging legislators or others in government to support certain policies. All major industries have lobbying operations and in the US it has become something of a necessity. It is derived from the right to petition the government in the US constitution and is not new at all. Companies and industries lobby the government with commissioned studies and information and so do non-business entities. The AARP, for example, represents retirees in the US and has a huge lobbying operation. While some industries and businesses are accused of exerting power through political contributions and extreme lobbying efforts, it is recognized as part of the US governmental process. It can be somewhat expensive, however.
It seems, however that when one takes the article in context, the amount of money spent on lobbying by the nuclear industry is peanuts. Lobbying by companies like Areva which hopes to bring nuclear reactors to the US market is something which one would expect, but the numbers are quite modest. Here’s a comparison from data avaliable here.
This should really put the myth of the big bad deep-pocketed nuclear industry groups to bed. Of course, it won’t for those who don’t really care about the facts.
This entry was posted on Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Nuclear, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
View blog reactions
March 21st, 2008 at 12:21 pm
1.3 million dollars is not a lot of money in the world of lobbying and political action. I’m surprised it’s that low actually. Even the USEC amount is not that impressive. The oil companies spend a LOT more, but even they are less than finance, banking and insurance as well as drug companies
Quote Comment
March 21st, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I would like to see just how much money the antinuclear lobby spent in the same period and where they got their funding.
Quote Comment
March 21st, 2008 at 3:01 pm
DV82XL said:
For the second part of your question, look at the red bars in the graph.
Quote Comment
March 21st, 2008 at 3:06 pm
KLA said:
Left myself wide open for that one, didn’t I?
Quote Comment
March 21st, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Dr. B: Did you try to ask Business Week what the coal/oil/gas folks spend on lobbying? I couldn’t find a place on their website to comment. The media loves to trot out nuclear spending, but I rarely see articles like this on the others’ spending. Gee, I wonder why? I suspect KLA nailed the answer.
Quote Comment
March 21st, 2008 at 4:00 pm
A little OT:
This report:
http://www.ccap.org/Connecticut/2003-Oct–CT–RCI–Home_heating_oil_report.pdf
Has some interresting data.
The solar/wind people always point to natural gas (a superb bit of marketing term BTW) as low carbon backup in their fine-print. They don’t usually say how MUCH of that backup is in reality needed. But the assumed leakage rate of NG production buried in that study hint that that strategy actually would make those sources even worse than coal in regards to climate change. That is if you factor in the lower efficiency when running backups in spinning reserve mode. After all, methane, the major constituent of NG, has 35-70 times the greenhouse gas footprint of CO2.
This is with the assumed US leakage rate of 1.5-3.5%. I can’t find it anymore, but I read another study that estimated the leakage rate of Russian pipelines, used to backup European wind power, to be as high as 20%.
Quote Comment
March 21st, 2008 at 4:23 pm
These are called fugitive emissions and they come from all parts of fossil fuel production, processing, transmission, and distribution. Methane releases for coal it can be as much as 13.79t CH4/ kt coal mined, for gas the North American rate is about 0.0096kt/km/yr, for oil it is about a fifth of the gas number, although this doesn’t take into account flaring because that is added to the CO2 side of the greenhouse gas ledger.
As KLA points out the numbers are much worse in other jurisdictions.
Quote Comment
March 21st, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Larry G said:
Actually I should have added that. I do not know how much has been spent on coal lobbying or on indirect lobbying for oil or gas such as by groups which advocate for oil and gas as well as other forms of energy. However, the figure which was given for oil companies spending on lobbying was about 78 million dollars in 2007 (thus far reported). It was a bit more than that in 2006.
Again, this does not include coal or other interests in the fossil fuel cycle nor does it include donations, political action groups or advertising.
This is again from the data linked above.
Quote Comment
March 21st, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Larry G, that is not the half of it. if you look here you can see that the oil industry contributed at least 36 million to political campaigns in 2006. http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=E01
That is ontop of the annual direct lobbying expenditure of 70-80 million. In 2000 they spent even more (of course that was a bit election year for the president and congress).
So right there you have over 150 million dollars in political expenses. This does not include contributions to “foundations” which turn around and promote oil and gas interests in the government.
I have seen estimates of more than a quarter billion dollars a year in the United States. That does not sound at all unreasonable at all to me. I think it’s probably at least 250M – 350M annually. That is just the USA though and I am certain they have similar political operations in most large countries.
I have no idea about coal though or for companies that are involved indirectly (railroads promoting coal-shipment, coal mining unions, power plant operators and that sort of thing). I am sure coal has a very big political foot print too.
Hundreds of millions if not billions.
Quote Comment
March 21st, 2008 at 5:00 pm
No, the oil loby is not a United States thing. I live in Alberta and oil (which is not drilled for but comes from tar sands) is the provinces largest industry right now. The oil companies spend huge amounts of money on both the politicians and trying to buy the complacency of the population. I do not happen to live near anywhere the deposits or refineries (thankfully).
Have a look here:
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=66f26771-4bdc-4c6c-a368-2a76e7225b87
We see this all the time. The oil political groups attempt to pass themselves off as citizens or small time groups. The amount of money they spend I do not know other than there seems to be no end to it. Politics in Alberta is swimming in oil money.
Quote Comment
March 21st, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Wow, great article and I really like this blog. It has a lot of uncommon sense on it.
You mention Peabody Energy, the big coal company but that is not half of it when it comes to the coal lobby the past two or three years. They have thrown tons of money at the fight to save that Futuregen debockle which finally (thankfully) got the ax this year. The whole coal industry spent a lot of money on trying to get the DOE or the Congress to bail out that stupid project. It would have been about three billion dollars of funding for coal in just the construction of it.
Somebody already mentioned it, but a lot of the money doesn’t go to the lobbying effort directly but is donated to “foundations” which are supported by coal. It’s like money laundering.
Keep up the good work.
Quote Comment
March 21st, 2008 at 7:23 pm
It’s also interesting to note that nations are anti-nuclear in exact proportion to how strong a coal industry they have. Germany and Australia have extremely strong coal industries. Canada and France don’t. The Netherlands seems to depend a lot on coal and it just happens to be rabidly anti-nuclear.
Quote Comment
March 21st, 2008 at 8:05 pm
I was under the impression that Canada got a fair amount of its power from coal, although not as much as the US.
I’m a bit surprised because Canada is geographically so large and coal is so common as far as fuel goes that I would have thought that just by sheer chance a country like Canada would end up with a few big deposits of coal.
Quote Comment
March 21st, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Canada holds close to 10 billion tonnes of coal reserves, but they are not as exploited as oil and gas are. Coal accounts for less than a fifth of Canada’s electricity generation.
Quote Comment
March 21st, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Canada has large coal deposits in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan & Nova Scotia, but not much elsewhere IIRC. Much of Canada has plenty of hydroelectric power, so some places with coal don’t bother with it for electricity since the hydro is sufficient.
Ontario has the largest amount of nuclear capacity since it long ago outgrew the hydroelectric capacity there & doesn’t have much coal.
Alberta is the big user of coal for electricity since the hydro capacity there is modest & there is lots of coal. The electricity is generated right by the mine. Saskatchewan is similar but has a smaller population & so smaller use of coal.
I’ve seen some of the coal seams in Alberta where they outcrop. I’ve canoed along the Red Deer River through the badlands & in places coal seems a few meters thick are visible on the valley walls.
Quote Comment
March 21st, 2008 at 8:48 pm
When they close the 4GW Nanticoke Generating Station, the largest coal burning plant in Canada, which is scheduled to happen in 2014, coal will drop to only 15% of the country’s energy mix.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 6:35 am
DV82XL said:
Cutting back that much is something you and other Canadians should be proud of.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:19 am
Nuclear is probably better than coal. Nobody is going to say coal and oil are not problems. But why even bother with nuclear when there are much better alternatives?
I think nuclear is not an issue because we have wind/solar/biofuel and those produce no waste, they are much cheaper, we can build them now and there is no danger of a meltdown or leak. Nuclear is okay as long as it doesn’t leak or something but even then we have nothing to do with the waste except bury it and hope that nobody digs it up for millions of years.
It makes a lot more sense to me to focus on solar and put nuclear on the shelf. Solar is better in every way. In the mean time, we can use the nuclear power plants we have but we should plan on shutting those down as soon as we have enough solar or wind to replace them. I think that will happen sooner than most people think.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:24 am
When even the solar and wind industries themselves say that they can only produce 20% of our energy needs, you have to ask yourself where the other 80% will come from.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:31 am
The money you are talking about here is only what is reported. The nuclear industry is the least trustworthy of any industry because they base their business on something that is well known to be the worst thing for the environment and they pass it off as the best.
the 1.3 million is just the tiny tip of the iceberg of the nuclear mafia’s money. You look underground and i am sure you will find billions and billions flowing through the military/nuclear/industrial complex. Nuclear is in bed with the government just as the big drug companies are and the two work together because cancer=big bucks for those who sell the medication. Nukes cause it, government allows it, pharma treats it, the public dies. And the big shots laugh all the way to the bank.
That’s how it works in this world and you’re a god damned idiot that you can’t see it. I don’t know if you’re just a retard or if you’re paid by them but either way I hope you’re the next to die because we need a lot less like this.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:33 am
drbuzz0 said:
True, but if you saw some of the things that go on in Alberta to recover the tar sands, you’d be a bit less proud of the Canadian policy on the environment
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:39 am
Tyler, are you for real?
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:41 am
Gordon said:
Sadly Gordon, he is.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:56 am
Well, Tyler, there is a connection between the medical industry and the nuclear industry but it is not what you would expect. It’s actually the nuclear technology sector that helps produce some of the most useful medicines and therapies in existence.
I can attest to it. Do you know what it is like to have a severely overactive thyroid? It can ruin your life because you cannot sleep, your eating patterns go from ravishing to days without eating and consequently your weight fluctuates. You are moody and irritable. It is like not sleeping for days then drinking four pots of coffee so that you can’t go to sleep and your nerves are shot. It’s no way to live.
I had a badly overactive thyroid seven years ago and it just about ruined my life. It was beyond the point of meds and if not for nuclear medicine they would have had to remove the thyroid and give me artificial hormones for the rest of my life. I am very thankful that a single nuclear iodine treatment brought my numbers down to the normal level. I am now about 4% under perfect for my age/weight/sex, which is entirely within the normal region.
I am very grateful to the nuclear/medical complex.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 9:15 am
Great, but I think you got cheated Lisa J because most thyroid problems have been proven to be caused by nuclear power in the first place so it looks like you got the runaround and I’m sure that a lot of money has lined the pockets of the big nukes due to your problems.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 9:31 am
Tyler said:
Tyler do you know what a teleological fallacy is?
It is an argument from final consequences Such arguments are based on a reversal of cause and effect, because they argue that something is caused by the ultimate effect that it has, or purpose that is serves.
Your statement is such a fallacy.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 9:42 am
Tyler I think you might be a little confused: There is some link between THYROID CANCER and radiation but not HYPERTHYROID. But the thyroid cancer link would only occur if there were a nuclear bombing or a catastrophic failure which resulted in a release of fission products, especially iodine-131. This is nearly impossible for modern reactor designs and more importantly would be very obvious.
I-131 is absorbed by the thyroid which is a very radiation sensitive organ. This is why potassium iodine would be given as a preventative measure (it fills the body with iodine which saturates the thyroid and prevents additional uptake). However I-131 is also used in medicine because of the same properties. When it is given in a single controled dose it doesn’t have nearly the cancer risk but it actually kills the cells in the thyroid which are the most active and reduces the thyroid activity overall. This is a *good* thing for people like Lisa who have way too much thyroid activity.
The use of radioactive iodine is a safe and effective treatment for reducing an overactive thyroid. Overactiver thyroid (or hyperthyroid) is a condition which can result in very poor quality of life, as Lisa mentions. The biggest risk of iodine-131 therapy is that it will reduce the thyroid activity by too much causing underactive thyroid (hypothyroid). But hypothyroid is much better than hyperthyroid because it can be easily treated with simple drug therapies that a person can easily live with.
In Lisa’s case they probably used a thyroid uptake test using a tiny amount of radioactive iodine and then determined the exact amount needed to reduce the activity to what was desirable. If they had underestimated they may have had to do it again or it may have been brought down close enough to normal that drug therapies would be sufficient. If they had overestimated it might have gone down a bit bellow normal, but that would still be an improvement because hypothyroid is not as difficult to deal with or as serious.
The fact that they got it so close to perfect and within the normal region is a testament to how precise nuclear medicine has become.
I have a friend who had hyperthyroid but she did not need radioactive iodine, she was only somewhat above normal and responded well to conventional drugs for it. However, seeing her I can attest to the fact that it made her life miserable before it was diagnosed and treated.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 9:52 am
YOU ARE A BOLD FACED LIAR. DV82XL YOU ARE A BOLD FACED LIAR. LISA JIM BERG AND EVERYONE HERE WHO IS SUPPOSEDLY PRO-NUCLEAR IS EITHER A COMPLETE IDIOT OR A GODDAMNED LIAR BECAUSE THEY ARE LIKELY PAID OFF>
THIS PAGE IS NOTHING BUT PROWAR PRO DEPLTED URANIUM PRO GOVERNMENT PRO CONSPIRACY PRO CORRUPTION AND DOES NOT CARE ANBOUT THE SLAUGHTER OF COUNTLESS BABIES AND WOMEN AND INOCDENT CIVILIANS FROM THE NUCLEAR WASTE THAT YOUR BELOVED GEORGE BUSH AND USA DROP EVERY DAY ON THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD
THE WOLD WILL WAKE UP AND IS ALREADY WAKING UP AND WHEN THEY DO YOU WILL ALL BE PUT TO DEATH LIKE YOU DESERVE AS SOON AS THE POPULATION REALIZE THAT WHAT YOU ARE UPTO MAKES THE NAZIS LOOK LIKE A WALK IN THE PARK! I HOPE YOU ARE TORTURED TOO BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT YOU DESERVE
ALL YOU TALK ABOUT IS DESTROYING THE ENVIORNMENT AND KILL KILL KILL WITH YOUR DEPLETED URANIUM WASTE AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND POWERS AND BURN BURN THE DAMN ENVIORNMENT AND PLANET TO HELL.
YES I THINK IT IS WRONG TO KILL BUT ID MAKE AN EXCEPTION FOR THE KIND LIKE YOU WHO ARE SO EVIL THAT THEY NEED TOP BE PUT DOWN FOR THE GOOD OF HUMANS AND TO SAVE ALL THE LIVES YOU ARE PURE EVIL!
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 10:06 am
Is there a way to make the jaw-drop face? That would be my reaction. That does not sound peaceful, but desperate and angry. It is a little scary too.
How can you call for torture and death and then claim to be pro-peace? Jeez man. Calm down.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 10:10 am
Its so simple kim. Killing is okay when you have to do it to stop evil people from bringing evil on the world. Would you think it was wrong if somebody killed hitler before he had a chance to kill all the jews and start world war 2? I would say that it would be fine if they had found a way to kill him and all his henchmen and chronies who did what they did if it would stop the war.
This page is full of people who are a lot like the top nazis because they preach depleted uranuym on people and all other things which will cause millions and millions to suffer and die horrible deaths. Depleted uranium is nuclear waste and you know it and everyone does and it is 100% wrong to use it. It was a mistake to even use nuclear and make it in the first place but it’s double-wrong to use it on inocent people.
I think people like this deserve to be tortured and killed, yes, because just death is not going to be enough for justice after what they have done. They are worse then hitler a thousand times over and I don’t think the world should allow this to continue. Soon people will turn and we will have the revolution against the nukists that has been overdue for so long.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 10:18 am
Tyler, the things you are saying go beyond just simple disagreement or even accusations of bias or incorrect information. I find them to be very concerning because it sounds like you have taken this to the point of a moral crusade where you will not accept that your view might be incorrect and where you would condone violence to further it.
Tyler, I can agree with you that violence might sometimes be justified in a national security situation or where you have someone who has clear intentions to harm others, but we’re not talking about dropping a bomb on Osama Bin Laden here. You are talking about harming other people because they disagree on the facts of science with you and have formed opinions based on this which you disagree with.
I think you are fine to argue with people, but I’m concerned that you seem to think that it has gone past the point of discussion even though you seem to have no interest in the genuine information presented.
I really hope you would not take it upon yourself to harm others. Please try to calm down. Nobody here wants inocent women and children to die. I know that I do not and I would be more than happy to talk to you about the facts and I’m also happy to look at any sources you want to present.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 10:50 am
I did not say I would kill anyone. That is what makes us different. I just believe once that people come to their senses and push the evil doers out of power it will be the next step to execute the war criminals because that is what they deserve and it is what is needed for their to be peace.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 10:51 am
Godwin’s Law, anyone?
Jeebus.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
TYLER said:
You are probably the most deluded paranoid we have run into so far here. Your profound ignorance is no excuse for uttering threats, and that is exactly what you are doing. It is clear that you have not examined the facts and you are just parroting notions that have been fed to you by others. The reason you accept them has nothing to do with your stated hatred of war. Kim said it; you cannot claim to be pro-peace and call for torture and death. these are incompatible and mark you as a hypocrite.
Who you really hate is yourself. You are not sure of your own identity so search frantically for others to live through and be defined by. Not having a real grasp of science, you gravitate to those who are anti-science. Belittling those that do know by accusing them of corruption, conspiracy and amoral behavior helps elevate you above us in your own mind and helps salve your own deep feelings of inadequacy, caused I suspect, by a thwarted childhood desire to be a scientist. When you realized you were going to be denied by your own intellectual inadequacies you reacted by lashing out.
You don’t realize it, but by ranting against the people that you disagree with here a you have, undressed yourself completely, and now stand before us naked and humiliated.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 12:53 pm
In the name of peace, wholesale torture is never justified. Death is only justified in the limited context of a preemptive action which stops someone who is a direct threat or is in direct self defense. Now that Godwin’s law has come up, yes, it would be justified to have killed Hitler if it would have ended WWII earlier, but you can not compare the two.
Tyler, what you are saying is not that you want to see a harmful dictator killed or to have some gang of raiders killed so they cannot lay waste to a village. What you are calling for is to have everyone tortured and put to death who support a policy which you disagree with and which you contend is killing innocent people. Yet, you present no evidence of this. We are to now throw out the legal procedure and take your word that everyone who supports nuclear energy is the same as a genocidal criminal?
Tyler, you are not a skilled sniper who takes out a general to save his comrades and end an invasion. You are not like the conspirators who placed a briefcase bomb under Hitler’s desk in an attempt to end his murderous rampage. You are not a commando working behind enemy lines to try to take out a top commander before he can lay waste to civilians. This would be justified killing and it is also the action of putting one’s own life in danger for the purpose of saving others.
You are not a warrior but just a bag of hot air. You yack and yack. I bet you never could kill anyone because you don’t have the guts to stand up for anything beyond just your own self-ritious yacking. I also don’t think you could ever hold a candle to the lives of those who did stick their neck out throughout history for something they believed in. Your kind loves to play the oppressed. You are not oppressed you are not a warrior or a fighter or a defender of truth. You are an empty bag of hot air.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Tyler: I’m going to take your words as meaning that you believe that a society should torture and kill everyone here who supports nuclear energy and not that you are making any threat of action. I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt on that one, but I’m also going to warn you to cool it in any further comments. You are walking a very fine line on this.
I very much stand by the fact that comments are not removed for disagreement, however, if you threaten the safety of myself or anyone else here I will take action and that will include the possibility of removing your comments, banning your ip address and host and possibly reporting this to any proper authorities.
This is the only warning. If you direct a threat of death or bodily harm to myself or anyone here that will be the end of it. Understood?
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Okay fine. All I said was what you deserve though, I didn’t threaten physical anything on anyone. Is it that you can’t stand up and listen to what you deserve? You don’t care about the blood on your own hands for what you and your friends do to the world. You stand there like a big man threatening to call the authorities or block me then say you support free speech, but it sounds like its only when you don’t have to face the facts about what you do.
I think everyone here can tell who the real coward is.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Wow
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
TYLER said:
You got that bit right. We can also tell who the real poser is.
Tyler, I am someone who favors the use of nuclear power. It is my considered opinion, after taking into account all the facts and information at my disposal, and analysing the situation to the best of my personal ability, that a wholesale shift to the use of power generated by nuclear fission is by far the best policy that humanity could currently pursue worldwide in order to secure a sustainable, wealthy, humane and open future. I want to see the impoverished regions of the world develop to the point where they become bastions of wealth, well-being, liberty and enlightenment. I want to see the already developed regions of the Earth continue their upward momentum without cost to the future and the present. I want to see an enlightened human civilisation establish itself and secure its seat for a future without foreseeable limits. This is why I support nuclear power. There is, to the best of my knowledge, no hope of accomplishing any of those goals without it.
Is this what you want to torture and kill me for?
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
TYLER said:
On this we are completely in agreement.
Dave G and DV82XL I am also in agreement on regarding the character of this person. Drbuzz0, is being ridiculously tolerant and open with the response to this.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Gordon, if I seem to be unusually patient and tolerant of this it is because I’ve gotten very use to this kind of inflammatory response. It still gets to me a little, but not all that much. I just shake my head and roll my eyes at this point.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 4:42 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Absolutely. The problem will be getting another CANDU station built in Ontario without public and political backlash and the associated immense cost overruns. Unfortunately most people simply do not understand that if we want clean, reliable and efficient energy at high capacities now, nuclear is our best option. Especially for Canada, which has very rich Uranium deposits that could sustain domestic power production for millennia.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Tyler, it is sad to me that someone would have such passion and misplace it into such angry and misguided beliefs and intentions. You are so full of anger and hatred that I can’t help but think there are deeper issues in your life and emotional health.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Gordon said:
Well, Gordon, much as I agree that the Alberta tar sands projects have a big enviornmental footprint the truth is they’re just filling a market need. At least Canada holds them to higher standards than a lot of countries would.
Quote Comment
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Tdub said:
No ****.
Sorry I just posted a comment on the NEI site in response to earlier one by Dr. F. R. Greening a mouthpiece for Grand Erie Energy Quest an organization that’s fighting to keep the damned Nanticoke Generating Station open. They want Ontario Power Generation, who owns the plant to convert it to clean-coal, or gas, but not nuclear as planned.
Their website is full of the usual lies about nuclear energy and links to our favorite folks in the antinuclear movement. I believe that they are more worried about the losses of jobs and revenue in the county than anything else, however this is not explicitly said. Statements by local politicians made elsewhere, however make their concerns clear.
Quote Comment
March 23rd, 2008 at 8:07 am
“Clean coal” is like the punchline of a bad joke.
Quote Comment
March 24th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
1.3 million from the industry group and a couple million from other companies? That’s really not a lot in the political world. Oil pays so much because they are so high profit and its so majorly affected by politics. The handouts and tax breaks they get in the name of “securing our energy” are ridiculous.
Quote Comment
March 26th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Big coal (peabody energy and the rest) poured huge amounts of money in the past few years into lobbying for the while “clean coal” iniative in the United States. The cornerstone of it was the Futuregen project which would have been a joint industry/government thing which was going to really be mostly funded by the government and mostly benefiting the industry.
It was a multibillion dollar handout and that’s why they spent so much and fought tooth and nail to save it. It goes to prove that money can only get you so far. They just could not buytheir way past the fact that it was an expensive and idiotic project.
Quote Comment
May 5th, 2011 at 1:04 pm
That is truly an important fantastic page and my partner and i love this excellent very good weblog! Will be come back tomorrow
PS: My partner and i seen the latest video clip on the world-wide-web, check out the way America kicks Osama’s ass: http://bit.ly/lIGqwh
Quote Comment