Green New Deal is sparking debate over nuclear energy
AS DEMOCRATS rolled out their long-awaited Green New Deal, one of the plan’s lead sponsors also released a fact sheet to explain in plain English how the United States could drive down to zero greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade.
Such explainer documents are typical when members of Congress introduce new bills. What was notable about this one was the fact sheet and the official Green New Deal resolution it was supposed to be explaining didn’t see eye-toeye on one crucial piece of the nation’s energy mix: nuclear power.
The Green New Deal “will not include investing in new nuclear power plants,” read the fact sheet shared with reporters by the office of Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat-New York. Another fact sheet posted on Ocasio-Cortez’s website Thursday morning contained similar language.
The resolution itself, however, does not say a word about nuclear power - either for or against its inclusion in a climate change action plan. Rather, the non-binding measure simply calls for getting 100 per cent of the nation’s power “through clean, renewable, and zeroemission energy sources” over the next 10 years.
According to its backers, the Green New Deal is right now just a framework that Democrats can start debating – one that will be filled in over time as lawmakers discuss how best to fight worsening climate change. Nuclear energy’s role is one of those to-be-decided specifics.
“We’ve drafted it in a way which can get the support of progressives and moderates inside of our caucus,” Sen Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who is the lead sponsor of the resolution in the Senate, told reporters at a news conference Thursday. “That’s how it’s drafted and that’s what we’re already beginning to see happen.”
But as the fact sheet made its way around the Internet, the exclusion of nuclear energy irritated some would-be Green New Deal supporters. By Friday, Ocasio-Cortez’s office took the document down from its website.
“We just wanted to let the resolution stand on its own for now,” Ocasio-Cortez spokesman Corbin Trent said.
The disagreement revived a rift among Democrats and their environmentalist allies about the role nuclear power should play in mitigating climate change. And as Democrats prepare actual Green New Deal legislation, it is also a preview of coming fights over which energy sources the federal government should support to tackle global warming.
Nuclear power has always been somewhat unpopular on the left, due to the risk of accidents like the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979. But the growing realisation of the dangers of man-made climate change has caused a bit of soul-searching among environmentalists over the issue of nuclear power.
In the United States, one in five megawatts powering homes and businesses comes from nuclear reactors.
That is the single largest source of electricity in the nation that comes from power plants that do not release significant amounts of climatewarming carbon dioxide into the air.
Experts at home and abroad note the necessity of nuclear power in staving off dangerous warming. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says more nuclear power plants are needed in most scenarios to keep warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius. Barack Obama’s energ y secretary, Ernest Moniz, issued a report last week urging the United States to spend more on developing the next generation of nuclear reactors.
“Nuclear has been the backbone of (the United States) carbon-free energy and will play a crucial role in meeting future climate goals,” said Lindsey Walter, an energy policy advisor at the centre-left think tank Third Way, which supports federal research in and tax breaks for advanced nuclear reactors.
But that low carbon source of energy is threatened by a cutthroat marketplace. Existing nuclear power is having trouble competing with cheaper forms of generation like natural gas-fired power plants. And the few new nuclear reactors being built in the United States are plagued by huge cost overruns.
Nuclear lobbyists applauded the noncommittal language in the Green New Deal resolution, while simultaneously pressing for pro-nuclear language in the actual legislation.
“We commend efforts to promote the adoption of clean and zero-emission sources of electricity to address climate change,” Nuclear Energy Institute president Maria Korsnick said. “Any approach to eliminating greenhouse gas emissions requires all clean energy technologies, including nuclear, to work together to address that urgent problem.”
But the question facing environmentalists is whether to support efforts that seek to keep open struggling nuclear reactors that may be replaced by fossil-fuel generation.
For example, the Union of Concerned Scientists, a longtime critic of the nuclear industry, recently came out in support of keeping existing nuclear plants open in many circumstances.
The “sobering realities” of climate change “dictate that we keep an open mind about all of the tools in the emissions reduction toolbox-even ones that are not our personal favourites,” Ken Kimmell, the organisation’s president, wrote in a blog post last year.
Markey pointed out the tough economic headwinds faced by nuclear reactors, but said he doesn’t want to see the US government spend billions of dollars subsidising them.
“Nuclear power has met its maker in the marketplace,” Markey said.
“We’re adding no new nuclear not because of any granolachomping protesters outside the construction site but because they’re not economically viable.”
Other congressional Democrats - including those who backed the Green New Deal resolution with an eye toward running for president - instead hope to revive the US nuclear business, suggesting nuclear energy may become an issue in the 2020 race. — WPBloomberg