Buncha Asshats... From the Seattle Times:
NW Power Council deadlocks over proposal
Members of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council have deadlocked over a plan that calls for 85 percent of the region's new power needs over the next 20 years to be achieved through conservation.
Council spokesman John Harrison said the eight members of the panel voted 4-4 during a meeting in Spokane on Wednesday on whether to release the plan to the public for 60 days of comment.
The members from Montana and Idaho voted against the proposal, while the members from Washington and Oregon voted for it.
Harrison said the panel will meet again in a few weeks to continue work on a plan for meeting the region's future energy needs. The Portland-based council drafts a regional power plan every five years for the four states. The next one is due by the end of this year.
IF they start to scramble now, they can get some clean nuclear power plants online in ten years. I am not anti-conservation, I am very much pro-conservation but conservation will only yield less than thirty percent of power needs and power needs are growing, like it or not, growth is the reality of the matter. Based on 2005 figures, ALL of the alternative energy sources in the US amounted to less than two percent of total energy usage. Repeating something time and time again will not make it happen the way that you want. There lies insanity.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
--Albert Einstein
Look at France -- they get 80% of their electricity from Nuclear and they have enough left over to export to neighboring countries to the extent that Nuke power is their fourth largest cash export. Japan is also around 80% (don't have current figures). The continental USA has known reserves of fuel for five hundred years of projected growth. Yes, there is a reprocessing problem (thanks Jimmy) and a waste storage problem but other nations are successfully dealing with their wastes without incident. Those who are prone to doom and gloom scenarios would do well to look at the testing that goes into the use of Nuclear Casks (here, here and here)
