Nuclear Energy Information Service
Illinois' Nuclear Power Watchdog for 25 Years

**Rebuttal to Chicago Sun Times Editorial "Our Energy Needs Can Wait No Longer"**

May 6, 2001

To the Editors Chicago Sun-Times
401 N. Wabash
Chicago, IL 60611

RE: rebuttal to "Our Energy Needs Can Wait No Longer," May 3, 2001

"FORWARD -- INTO THE PAST!!": THE BUSH/CHENEY ENERGY "TRAGEDY"

To the Editors:

"Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis...for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."

--Vice President Dick Cheney, May 1, 2001 --

"Energy efficiency and renewables are basically the cleanest, cheapest, and safest means of meeting our nation's growing energy needs in the 1990s and beyond."

--Deputy Secretary of Energy Henson Moore, 1990, after a year of fact finding in preparation for George Bush I's "National Energy Strategy," 1991 --

Reading the Sun-Times editorial on the Bush-Cheney energy policy reminded me of comedian Emo Phillips' musing that he once believed the mind was the most wonderful result of human evolution. Then he thought, "Well, look who's telling me this!"

Two former oilmen masquerading as leaders of the most powerful nation on earth are engaged in a national energy business promotional tour, telling the public that we "need" more -- guess what -- oil! And coal plants and nuclear reactors. If the public swallows any of this unabashedly opportunistic and self-serving hucksterism, it deserves the subsequent fleecing it will receive.

Your editorial is rife with errors of both fact and omission, and selective amnesia, all requiring correction. Among the most egregious examples:

"[Cheney] rightly pooh-poohed the idea of conservation holding the solution for our power woes." While not "the solution," ample evidence demonstrates it's certainly the cornerstone. Our $12 billion federal investment in efficiency since 1978 has returned more than $100 billion to the economy during that period; resulted in huge cost savings through pollution reduction; and served as a hidden tax cut, since you don't pay tax on energy you don't use.

The May 5th New York Times reported, "A lengthy and detailed [DOE] report based on three years of work by five national laboratories said that a government-led efficiency program emphasizing research and incentives to adopt new technologies could reduce the growth in electricity demand by 20 percent to 47 percent. That would be the equivalent of between 265 and 610 big 300?megawatt power plants, a steep reduction from the 1,300 new plants that the administration predicts will be needed." Or, put another way 66 to 153 Braidwood-sized reactors. Only 103 nuclear reactors of all sizes operate in the U.S. today.

The Bush/Cheney response? Slash the efficiency research and development budget by 50%!

"The Bush/Cheney...energy initiative..has an element of servicing big contributors." While your choice of verbs is reminiscent of the other ancient profession that such politics models, the public should know that of the 62 people in Cheney's secretive energy advisory team, 52 are directly affiliated with the fossil fuel (32) and nuclear power (20) industries; NONE are from the renewable energy industry; and only one has primary energy efficiency expertise. Further, these 52 people contributed over $8 million to Republican candidates from 1999-2000. At least George II's father had the courtesy of soliciting public comment on energy policy -- before ignoring it.

"New coal technology is...more promising than the solar and wind power chimeras..." Which is the real chimera? Since 1984 "clean coal" research has received $2 billion in federal funds, producing a handful of demonstration projects that coal utilities failed to commercialize widely. By this year's end Texans will be getting more electricity from wind power than the output of one Dresden-sized nuclear reactor; and in a few years, their renewable energy contribution will equal the combined electrical output of BOTH of ComEd's (Exelon's) newest Braidwood reactors. California's windpower capacity exceeds the output of 2 Dresden-sized nuclear reactors. Denmark gets 10% of its electricity from wind; Germany's wind energy generation equals the output of 5 Braidwood-sized reactors. And wind produces NEITHER nuclear waste NOR coal plant pollutants and CO2; and experiences no fuel price spikes.

Solar's slower growth can be directly attributed to the slash-and-burn treatment it received in the Reagan/Bush-I budgets. Chimeras? No. Self-fulfilling prophecies? Definitely.

The Bush/Cheney response? Reduce wind investments by 48%, and solar investments by 52%.

"Cheney's comments reflect a growing willingness to take another look at nuclear power." After they've dismantled all the other options, and opportunistically manipulate the panic from the California energy crisis, Bush and Cheney suggest nuclear power as the disingenuously invented "solution" to their self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet, even before the first of Exelon's experimental 110 MW reactors is built in Illinois or Pennsylvania (possibly by 2007), over 3,000 MW of additional wind power could be constructed and operating in the U.S.

While DOE's renewable and energy efficiency budgets are cut, proposed legislation grants over $1 billion in subsidies for a mature nuclear industry with a 20% market share. Sen. Pete Domenici's (R., NM) pro-nuclear development bill is so outrageous in government giveaways, it has earned the title "Nuclear Power Socialist Welfare Act" from critics. We haven't solved the waste problems from the first nuclear power debacle; but Bush/Cheney want to add more to the waste inventory.

"Whatever is done now will not see fruit for many years...." There's no need to wait years for efficiency and some renewables. They are ALREADY working, and can do more. Technology is no longer the barrier -- market share and political manipulation by the entrenched energy industries and their Washington allies are.

The Bush/Cheney energy plan is not policy, but pork; not strategy, but tragedy. We can't allow our 21st Century economy and the environment to be controlled by 19th Century thinking. The Bush-Cheney energy policies are a dangerous case of "forward -- into the past!"

(898 words)

Sincerely,

David A. Kraft
Director
Nuclear Energy Information Service

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