Editorial by Carol Browner - former Environmental Protection Agency administrator and former director of the White House Office on Energy and Climate Change Policy. From Huffington Post:
The Game Changer: New York’s Clean Energy Standard and Nuclear Energy
For years, I’ve said that when it comes to the challenge of fighting climate change, we will need every tool available to reduce carbon pollution and create opportunities for new clean energy technology.
Yet, despite a world that demands more carbon-free energy — not less — public policies have left some of the tools in the toolbox. Until now.
Last month, with the help of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s leadership, the New York State PSC took unprecedented action in passing a Clean Energy Standard that, in addition to ensuring ample opportunity for more wind, solar, and energy efficiency, recognizes the important role of existing carbon-free nuclear power. This is a game-changer: never before has nuclear received economic credit for its environmental benefits.
New York State is now the first government to include nuclear in its clean energy policy, providing a mechanism that will help keep New York’s nuclear energy plants open. In the wake of an energy market that did not previously adequately value this power, the state faced the very real prospect of having these plants shut down.
Well, she still seems to be stuck on stupid when it comes to carbon's benefits to Earth and plants in particular but her promoting nukes is a wonderful change from the bad old days. Now if they would just start developing some of the newer technologies and get us going a bit faster. Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor is an awesome design.
We built them back in the 1960's - the fast breeder reactors but Thorium does not go Ka-Boom and our military needed stuff that went Ka-Boom under the right conditions so the nuclear industry decided to just implement one chain of materials for both weapons and nuclear power. Just scratching the surface, we have about 5,000 years worth of easily mined Thorium to meet our every energy need - it is a very common element.
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