Babcock &Wilcox mPower Reactor Press Conference, June 10, 2009
– Edited By Abby Gessner –
Good morning. Thank you Chris, Brandon, and John for inviting me. I am glad to see that my colleagues Senators Alexander and Corker are here, as well as Congressmen Davis and Wamp, who have been great advocates of nuclear power. I appreciate their leadership to expand the role of nuclear power in the climate change debate in Congress.
I have had a long relationship with B&W going back to my days as Governor of Ohio. In the early 1990’s, we worked together to get B&W’s boilers to Israel. And last summer, I was at the groundbreaking ceremony for B&W’s new clean energy laboratory in Barberton, Ohio, where the company’s carbon-capture research and development efforts will be carried out.
For years, as Chairman of the Senate Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee, I have been preparing and advocating for a nuclear renaissance. Today’s announcement by B&W is exactly the kind of initiative and commitment that I hoped for – that is rebuilding U.S. nuclear technology and manufacturing capabilities to something approaching the global leadership our nation once enjoyed.
Today there is a huge energy gap between the renewable electricity we would like to have and the reliable, low-cost electricity we must have. Nuclear is the best power source we have available to meet our energy needs while also curbing emissions of greenhouse gases.
Currently we get 20 percent of our electricity from a fleet of 104 nuclear plants, which represents over 70 percent of the nation’s emission free generation portfolio, avoiding 700 million tons of Carbon Dioxide each year, compared with 13 million tons avoided by wind and a half million tons by solar.
Nuclear is a three-fer. Without it, we will not be able to reach our goal of reducing carbon emissions. Without it, we will not be able to provide the base-load electricity our growing country will demand. And without it, we will not be able to rebuild our manufacturing base and create good paying jobs.
Around the world, governments are reaching the same conclusion and are turning to nuclear energy as a safe, cost-effective, and emission free solution to increasing energy demand. This is particularly true in Europe, where the nuclear renaissance is in full swing.
In France, almost 80 percent of its electricity comes from nuclear power. The International Energy Agency estimates that we must build 32 nuclear reactors globally every year if we are to halve greenhouse emissions by 2050 – That’s more than 1,300 new reactors in the next 40 years.
And I am confident that many of these reactors will be B&W’s small, modular reactors. Ohio and the surrounding states have been the backbone of the nation’s nuclear manufacturing base. In fact, B&W’s Barberton plant in Ohio and the Mount Vernon plant in Indiana are the only manufacturing facilities in the country today capable of fabricating nuclear reactor vessels.
My thought is that with tough atmosphere for capital financing many utilities and generating companies that want nuclear will go incremental modular to get into the game. The vision I have is that the mPower program will encourage many other manufacturing enterprises in Ohio to lead the nation’s transition back into nuclear manufacturing.
As such, I want to assure everyone here that I will continue to make sure that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, now headed up by Greg Jazcko, has the resources necessary, to not only review the 17 new reactor applications it has on hand, but also can move expeditiously to review design certification applications, such as the B&W’s mPower, and once approved, approve the COL that will be filed by the TVA.
In closing, I’m confident this event will mark a new chapter in the nuclear renaissance that will once again bring forth U.S. leadership in commercial nuclear technology and manufacturing capabilities across the world.