[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 12 (Monday, February 6, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S702-S703]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             NUCLEAR POWER

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today, President Bush made an 
announcement of something he calls the Global Nuclear Energy 
Partnership. It is part of the President's 2007 budget for the U.S. 
Department of Energy. In that budget, at a time when there is not much 
extra money, there is $250 million to deal with the objectives of the 
Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.
  Part of the initiative we have heard about before. It calls for 
advanced technology for nuclear reactors--reactors from which we can 
produce clean energy, reactors which are smaller than the reactors that 
we have today that produce about 20 percent of all the electricity we 
use in the United States. But I want to call attention to a part of the 
President's proposal which we have not heard much about before--at 
least from him--that is the part about reprocessing and recycling the 
fuel that is used in nuclear reactors. That has been something we 
haven't been doing in the United States for a long time, except in 
limited cases, and it is something that requires a great deal of 
attention. My hope is that, while it is a small part of a large budget, 
the idea of reprocessing and recycling spent fuel from nuclear reactors 
would have a significant, measured, and careful bipartisan discussion 
on the floor of the Senate.
  Even though it is a small part of the big budget, dealing with the 
issue of reprocessing spent fuel can make a big difference in the 
solution to a number of large problems.
  For example, whether we are able to deal with global warming within a 
generation, the only technology we have, of which I am aware, which 
will produce large amounts of carbon-free energy which would permit the 
United States and the world to reasonably hope to deal with global 
warming in this generation is nuclear power.
  Even though it is 20 percent of our electricity in the United States 
today, it produces 70 percent of the carbon-free electricity.
  Solving the reprocessing and recycling problem which deals with the 
issue of energy independence--and it has been talked a lot about on 
both sides of the aisle--if we want to be independent of other 
countries, we have to have ways to produce large amounts of energy in a 
clean way. And other than conservation and efficiency, nuclear power, 
in my judgment, is the only way to do that today.
  A third area has to do with clean air. We have other forms of energy 
production such as coal, a very important form, but coal still produces 
large amounts of sulfur and nitrogen pollution. It produces mercury. 
The idea of recapturing the carbon and the integrated gasification 
process of making that coal-produced electricity clean is something we 
still have a lot of work to do on.
  Dealing with reprocessing will have a lot to do with solving the 
problems of proliferation concerns that we have about other countries 
getting hold of spent fuel and turning it into material that can 
produce nuclear weapons. We read about it every day in terms of Iran 
and North Korea. It has to do with a balance of payments in the United 
States.
  Some country is going to produce these advanced nuclear technology 
powerplants. Russia, for example, might produce 30 or 40 of these. When 
it does, it will have the technology available to sell those 
powerplants to India, China, and other parts of the world where they 
need large amounts of energy which is clean. The United States will be 
left behind if we are not a part of that process.
  I have mentioned all of these issues as if they were American 
issues--global warming, energy independence, clean air, proliferation, 
balance of payments. These are worldwide issues. By one account, 30 
percent of pollution in the Los Angeles basin comes from Asia. If India 
and China aren't able to deal with the global warming issue, with the 
clean air issues, and with the proliferation issue, every American will 
be affected.
  Today, there are about 430 nuclear reactors in the world being used 
to produce electricity. About 100 are in the United States. We have a 
classified number--maybe it is about the same--of them which have been 
used in our nuclear Navy since the 1950s. It is not difficult to 
imagine a world with 1,000 nuclear reactors. There are 124 nuclear 
reactors on the drawing board today, or under construction. Until 
recently, none of those were in the United States. We haven't built one 
new nuclear powerplant from scratch since the 1970s. It is very odd 
because we have a large demand in this country for large amounts of 
low-cost, clean energy. We invented the technology. We have used it in 
our Navy since the 1950s without a single incident.

  France is now about 80 percent reliant on electricity from nuclear 
powers. And Japan, which suffered under our use of nuclear weapons, has 
used nuclear power to produce electricity.
  Things though are changing. While nuclear power has some problems, so 
does every other alternative for producing the large amounts of energy 
that we and the world needs.
  Coal, which I mentioned, produces pollutants, and no one has yet 
produced a way to deal with all of the carbon that is produced by coal 
to make it the strategy for future.
  Many environmental groups--I am one of those persons who is hopeful 
about that--but the idea of recapturing such large amounts of carbon 
and putting it underground is something we haven't able to do yet.
  Drilling for new oil produces lots of arguments in this body and 
close votes. Importing oil produces many resolutions and arguments in 
this body as well.
  Wind energy is appealing to some, but you would have to cover up the 
whole State of Massachusetts to produce what one or two nuclear 
powerplants would be able to produce.
  Today, solar energy is less than one-tenth of 1 percent of what we 
use in America.
  So we need nuclear power. In order to have nuclear power, we are 
going to have to deal with the problem of where we put the spent fuel 
and what we do about proliferation.
  I am glad that the President suggested in his budget today the Global 
Nuclear Energy Partnership. I am glad he put $250 million in it to 
advance the idea of processing and recycling.

[[Page S703]]

  First, we should move ahead with the advanced technology and loan 
guarantees, the investment tax credits, the risk assurance that was 
enacted in the Energy bill in July.
  Second, we should move ahead with research and discussion of 
reprocessing and recycling so that we can reduce by 90 percent the 
amount of waste that we would have to store at Yucca Mountain, or 
similar facilities, and reduce by more than that the heat in that spent 
fuel.
  And finally, we should discuss an international protocol so that 
while other countries such as the United States, Russia, and others 
might invent the technology for small, new nuclear powerplants, there 
would be some sort of international protocol that would lease the spent 
fuel, supervise its processing, and supervise its permanent storage so 
that we and the world in this generation can deal with global warming, 
energy independence, clean air, and a variety of other issues that deal 
with our lives.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). The Democratic leader.

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