[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 4 (Tuesday, January 9, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S30-S31]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Nuclear Energy

  Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the need for 
more American energy. We are now in the coldest time of the year. The 
demand for energy is going up as people try to keep warm. This is 
placing a strain on our power grid across this country.
  This administration obviously has no solution for this problem. I 
think they are adding to the problem. The Biden administration is on a 
crusade to make us dependent on unreliable renewable resources, like 
wind and solar.
  I am not against wind and solar. I think they are very good. I think 
it is feasible that we invest in them. There is a role that they play 
in our economy. But we can't depend on wind and solar. It is not 
possible. The Sun doesn't shine every day, and the wind doesn't blow 
every day. Our energy grid needs to stay running for 24 hours--what a 
thought.
  Despite Joe Biden's best efforts, most of our energy grid today still 
comes from fossil fuels. By the way, it will always come from fossil 
fuels unless we have another alternative, which I will talk about. But 
when wind and solar power fail, people don't realize this.
  At one time in my life, I had a huge wind turbine in my backyard--a 
couple hundred yards--and I noticed that even if the wind didn't blow, 
the turbine still ran. It ran because it ran off of a diesel 
generator--better known as fossil fuels.
  You cannot run a modern economy without fossil fuels. It is 
impossible. I know we are talking about it every day, and you hear all 
the climate gurus talking about, you know, we have to do away with 
fossil fuels and we have to be net zero--which, by the way, if we did 
net zero, we wouldn't live very long because, by the way, we do need 
carbon in the air.
  So with wind and solar, we need an all-above approach to American 
energy production to keep prices low and capacity high. We have to have 
it. And how do we do that? We do it by investing in nuclear power.
  In 1979, we were on the way to being energy-independent through 
nuclear power.
  We had a problem at Three Mile Island with a nuclear plant that went 
basically, in our words and in terms of this generation, berserk. They 
had problems. They had leaks.
  There was a media presence at that time that started attacking 
nuclear energy because it was going to kill everybody; nuclear energy 
was going to be a disaster. At that time, we were constructing over 100 
nuclear sites across the United States of America--100, closer to 150. 
Because of Three Mile Island and how it scared--the media actually 
scared the people of this country, we scratched those plans. We quit 
construction. We said: We can't do this. We are going to kill everybody 
on the planet with nuclear energy.
  Right now, nuclear makes up about 20 percent of our energy grid. If 
we hadn't stopped back in 1979, it would be much closer to 70, 80 
percent, and we wouldn't have to be burning fossil fuels.
  I am proud the United States has the most nuclear power production of 
any country in the world. I think it shows that we are a leader. But we 
should get back to it. We could be producing a lot more nuclear energy 
right now. But, as I said earlier, the redtape from this administration 
and the ``climate cons'' is slowing permitting and production.
  We actually just opened I think the first nuclear plant in many, many 
years in the State of Georgia, in the southeastern part of the country, 
which will provide energy for thousands and thousands and thousands of 
people for years to come because of

[[Page S31]]

this--with zero carbon emissions, by the way.
  The Biden administration is obsessed with wind and solar, but they 
know deep down that they can't touch nuclear energy. They know that 
their leftwing voting base hates nuclear energy--hates it.
  I think we need to go back to the education department and start 
learning about nuclear energy. Everybody should be brought up to speed. 
Instead of being scared of it, we should adopt it. This opposition to 
nuclear power really has no basis in the facts. It is bad economics, 
and it is bad environmental policy.
  Let's talk about the economics and let's talk about the environmental 
impact of nuclear energy. First, economics.
  Nuclear energy is the most efficient source of energy ever known to 
man. In fact, nuclear energy is 8,000 times more efficient than fossil 
fuels--8,000 times. Fossil fuels are a lot more efficient than wind and 
solar. We know that.
  Nuclear energy is cheap to produce. Nuclear is also safe for the 
environment. I am going to repeat that. Nuclear energy is safe for the 
environment. My Democratic colleagues are worried about carbon 
emissions, so why not nuclear energy? But I hardly hear any of them 
ever championing nuclear energy, which produces zero emissions and 
removes harmful pollutants from the atmosphere.
  Environmentalists claim nuclear energy is dangerous. 
Environmentalists point to a few headlines from over the last 80 years, 
but they don't point to the facts. The fact is that our technology is 
better and better every day. We have different reactors that are 
unbelievable. They are cheaper to build. They are more efficient. They 
are almost 100 percent safe. They are salt-based. They have zero 
possibility of any reactor that melts down or releases any radiation in 
the atmosphere. But what have we done? We have just disregarded it. We 
just said: Oh, nuclear energy doesn't work. It is not safe. We are 
going to get away from it.
  We better wake up and smell the roses. Nuclear energy is safer now 
than it was 40 years ago and certainly 80 years ago. Our scientists 
have learned. I can understand the thoughts of years and years ago when 
we had different reactors that actually melted down.
  How many people died in Three Mile Island in 1979? I think if you are 
really interested, you ought to go back and look at this. You ought to 
go back and look at the things that were brought up by the media that 
never came to fruition.
  So it should be clear: Nuclear energy is a good investment and should 
be a big target for investment for years to come for the United States.
  I am deeply grateful to my State of Alabama's energy workers who are 
keeping the lights on for our people across our country. Right now as 
we speak, there are thousands of Alabama energy workers off the gulf 
coast exploring for oil and gas. I am also proud that Alabama is 
America's fifth largest producer of nuclear energy. We have two nuclear 
plants and five nuclear reactors.
  The Tennessee Valley Authority--which is run by the government, by 
the way--operates Browns Ferry in Athens, AL, which is TVA's largest 
nuclear plant. The Browns Ferry plant produces one-fifth of the TVA's 
energy, which covers a lot of the South. It directly supports 1,500 
jobs and powers more than 2 million homes. In Wiregrass, AL, which is 
in the southeast part of the State, Alabama Power runs Plant Farley, 
which produces about a fifth of Alabama Power's electricity. I am 
deeply grateful that Alabama's energy workers are keeping the lights on 
for all of us.
  It is clear we need to stop the obsession with wind and solar. We can 
use that, but we can do a better job of investing in nuclear energy.
  We need to fix the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Right now, it takes 
about 10 years--10 years--to get a nuclear reactor approved in our 
country. There is no good reason that it should take so long.
  We also ought to support advanced small modular reactors, called 
SMRs. They are safe, they are cheaper, and they are quicker to build. 
They are small reactors with lower demands for fuel.
  By the way, we gave this technology to China back during the Obama 
administration. They are building them every day in Asia. They have 
taken our technology and are using it.
  They can bring energy costs down and also emissions down.
  It is time we got to work on nuclear energy. The polls show the 
American people are becoming more and more supportive of nuclear power; 
there is no doubt about that. A clear majority of the American people 
want and need more nuclear plants. This should be a bipartisan issue. 
Let's look out for the American people. It is good economics, it is 
good energy policy, it is good for our environment, and it is long, 
long overdue.