New Bill Perpetuates 'Socialized' Energy

"If our national interest is to reduce energy consumption, increase quality of life and provide sustainable, well-paying jobs, we should be decentralizing our power grid, not building massive new coal and nuclear plants. Decentralized power generation would reduce transmission load on our fragile grid, allow incremental, on-demand capacity increases with the latest and most efficient technology, would create an enormous market in high-tech generation and power management equipment, and reduce our vulnerability to disruption by distributing our generation assets.

"Instead, we just opened the door to massive subsidies for nuclear energy. Nuclear power plants are so expensive that a normal market will not invest in them, so they need government subsidies. They are so dangerous normal insurance companies will not take on the risk, so they need government-guaranteed insurance. And they are so much of a risk to local communities that they need the federal government to force through permits on local governments. All that, and because these new plants will be far from their customers, more than 30 percent of the power they generate will be lost in transmission. Subsidized, inefficient and hazardous."

Thanks to Michael Dudley