Nuke Power Disad

Nuke Power Da Aff & Neg

Georgia Novice Packet

Index Index............................................................................................................................................................................................................1 1nc shell [1/2]..............................................................................................................................................................................................2 1nc shell [2/2]..............................................................................................................................................................................................3 Uniq – Nuke Power investment increasing..................................................................................................................................................4 Uniq – Increasing globally...........................................................................................................................................................................5 Uniq – Renewables Low..............................................................................................................................................................................6 Uniq – nuclear surpassing coal....................................................................................................................................................................7 Link – renewable energy..............................................................................................................................................................................8 Link – decreasing energy demand...............................................................................................................................................................9 Link – new renewable investment.............................................................................................................................................................10 Link – RPS.................................................................................................................................................................................................11 Link – Wind...............................................................................................................................................................................................12 Link – SPS.................................................................................................................................................................................................13 Impact – new construction key to nuclear leadership................................................................................................................................14 Nuclear Leadership solves prolif...............................................................................................................................................................15 Nuclear Leadership solves prolif...............................................................................................................................................................16 Nuke Leadership key to Nuke safety.........................................................................................................................................................17 A2 – meltdowns.........................................................................................................................................................................................18 Nuclear power solves warming..................................................................................................................................................................19 Nuclear power solves oil dependence........................................................................................................................................................20 A2 – nuke power risks prolif.....................................................................................................................................................................21 Non-Unique – Global Nuke Power decreasing..........................................................................................................................................22 Non-Unique – US nuclear power decreasing.............................................................................................................................................23 Don’t Trade Off..........................................................................................................................................................................................24 Subsidies mean nuke power inevitable......................................................................................................................................................25 Nuke Leadership fails................................................................................................................................................................................26 Nuke Leadership – alternate causes...........................................................................................................................................................27 Nuke Power causes prolif..........................................................................................................................................................................28 Nuke Power Bad – meltdowns shell..........................................................................................................................................................29 A2 – nuke power solves warming..............................................................................................................................................................30 A2 – nuke power solves oil dependence....................................................................................................................................................31 Increases in alternative energy trade off with the development of nuclear power here in the United States. The disad claims that nuclear power is growing now but the plan makes it weaker. Nuclear energy is good because it prevent global proliferation by allowing the United States to maintain the leader of the technology. The affirmative has good uniqueness cards as well as a meltdown impact turn that claims nuclear energy will cause a meltdown that will hurt humanities ability to reproduce. There are answers to every major aspect of the disad. Overall a fantastic little disad that links to every aff on the topic [except if someone reads nuclear power on the aff of course]

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Georgia Novice Packet

1nc shell [1/2] UNIQUENESS- Nuclear power is inevitable globally – the only question is whether the U.S. stays involved and increases capacity. High oil prices are driving greater U.S. investment Rowley 08 (Anthony, The Business Times Singapore, “US official sees global push towards nuke power,” 5/23, lexis) A MASSIVE global expansion of the role of nuclear power in generating electricity was forecast yesterday by US Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Dennis Spurgeon during a visit to Tokyo. He was there for follow-up talks on the US-Japan joint nuclear energy action plan agreed last year between the two countries. He spoke as the price of oil touched new records, underlining the need for alternative energy sources. By the middle of this century, as many as 86 countries around the world could be using nuclear energy as a major power source compared with 31 at present, Mr Spurgeon suggested. This will require not only massive capital investment in new plants and expansion of the nuclear power industry but also a strong 'infrastructure' to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons, he said. He acknowledged that the US needed to 're-establish' its own nuclear manufacturing capability, having allowed it to run down when nuclear power fell out of favour during a long period of low oil prices. Japan maintained a 'healthy (nuclear) research and development programme even when the US programme was declining', he said. 'Japan and the US will collaborate closely under the joint action plan, especially in the area of nuclear energy R&D,' he said, noting that Japan has achieved advanced technological capabilities in the nuclear fuel cycle and in areas such as liquid metalcooled fast reactors. Japanese capital will also be welcome in financing the crash programme of 34 reactors that the US envisages building, he said. Nuclear power currently supplies 16 per cent of totals US electricity generation needs and in order to raise this to 30 per cent by the year 2030, the US will require 30 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity, Mr Spurgeon said. If the US decides to raise its nuclear generation to a level where it can meet 50 per cent of total electric power requirement by the year 2050, that will require another 300 gigawatts of nuclear capacity. Given current problems of energy prices and energy security as well as the need to reduce the level of greenhouse gas emissions around the world, a global shift to nuclear power seems inevitable, he suggested. But it will be essential to build an infrastructure of nuclear fuel services in order to prevent a proliferation of nuclear weapons.

LINK- Increasing renewable investment decreases demand for nuclear power and makes it less competitive – this tradesoff with new nuclear investment Asselstine, 08 – Managing Director at Lehman Brothers (James, CQ Congressional Testimony, 4/23, lexis) //DH Fifth, the companies and investors will require assurance that the price of power to be generated by a new nuclear plant will be competitive with other alternatives, including coal and gas-fired generation, and renewable energy resources. This may pose a special challenge for the initial group of new nuclear plants because it is likely that the industry will incur $300-$500 million in first-of-a-kind engineering costs for each new nuclear plant design in order to develop the detailed engineering design information required to satisfy the NRC's design certification process. Depending upon how these engineering design costs are allocated, this could significantly increase the cost of the initial new plants. Finally, as is the case with any new proposed generating project, the companies and investors will need confidence that the power from the new plant is needed, and that the company will be able to recover its capital investment in the plant and earn a fair return on that investment. In the case of a regulated electric utility, this confidence will depend upon the state rate-setting arrangements that are in place for the new plant. In the case of an unregulated, or merchant, generation company, this confidence will depend upon any contractual arrangements to sell the output of the plant, and upon studies of power market conditions in the region in which the plant will be located.

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1nc shell [2/2] Nuclear power is inevitable globally - expanding nuclear power construction is vital to U.S. nonproliferation leadership BENGELSDORF, 07 – consultant and former director of both key State and Energy Department offices that are concerned with international nuclear and nonproliferation affairs (HAROLD, “THE U.S. DOMESTIC CIVIL NUCLEAR INFRASTRUCTURE AND U.S. NONPROLIFERATION POLICY”, White Paper prepared for the American Council on Global Nuclear Competitiveness May, http://www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org/images/COUNCIL_WHITE_PAPER_Final.pdf) //DH

a policy that significantly strengthens the U.S. civil nuclear infrastructure will not only help the United States to build new nuclear power plants, but will also enhance its ability to advance its nonproliferation agenda. The U.S. will need to actively pursue several key objectives The U.S. has and should continue to be able to influence the nonproliferation regime as a superpower in the years ahead. However,

New Nuclear Plant Orders

Consumer countries are likely to turn for support and assistance to those states possessing the most vigorous domestic nuclear power programs that are placing new power plant orders, extending international fuel cycle services, and maintaining leadership roles in supporting innovative improvements in advanced technologies. This suggests that the influence of the United States internationally could be enhanced significantly if the U.S. is able to achieve success in its Nuclear Power 2010 program and place several new orders in the next decade and beyond. Conversely, if the 2010 initiative falters, or if U.S. companies only are given subordinate roles in processing new plant orders, then this can only further weaken the U.S. nuclear infrastructure as well as the stature of the U.S. in the international nuclear community. Experts believe that the U.S. nuclear infrastructure is capable of sustaining the goals of the 2010 program, but this will require the resolution of a number of formidable problems, including arrangements for the acquisition of long lead time components and coping with anticipated shortages of experienced personnel. Maintaining the U.S. as a Significant Global Supplier The health of the U.S. civil nuclear infrastructure will also be crucial to the success of U.S. efforts to play a significant role as a nuclear supplier and to advance its nonproliferation objectives.

There is a clear and compelling upsurge of interest in nuclear power in various parts of the world that is independent of U.S. policy and prerogatives. As a consequence, if the U.S. aspires to participate in these programs and to shape them in ways that are most conducive to nonproliferation, it will need to promote the health and viability of the American nuclear infrastructure. Perhaps more importantly, if it wishes to exert a positive influence in shaping the nonproliferation policies of other countries, it can do so more effectively by being an active supplier to and partner in the evolution of those programs. Concurrent with the prospective growth in the use of nuclear power, the global nonproliferation regime is facing some direct assaults that are unprecedented in nature. International confidence in the effectiveness of nuclear export controls was shaken by the disclosures of the nuclear operations of A.Q. Khan. These developments underscore the importance of maintaining the greatest integrity and effectiveness of the nuclear export conditions applied by the major suppliers. They also underscore the importance of the U.S. maintaining effective policies to achieve these objectives. Constructive U.S. influence will be best achieved to the extent that the U.S. is perceived as a major technological leader, supplier and partner in the field of nuclear technology. As the sole superpower, the U.S. will have considerable, on-going influence on the international nonproliferation regime, regardless of how active and successful it is in the nuclear export market. However, if the U.S.

If the U.S. becomes more dependent on foreign nuclear the international nuclear market to other suppliers, the ability of the U.S. to influence nonproliferation policy

nuclear infrastructure continues to erode, it will weaken the ability of the U.S. to participate actively in the international nuclear market.

suppliers or if it leaves

will diminish. It is, therefore, essential that the United States have vibrant nuclear reactor, uranium enrichment, and spent fuel storage and disposal industries that can not only meet the needs of U.S. utilities but will also enable the United States to promote effective safeguards and other nonproliferation controls through close peaceful nuclear cooperation other countries. The U.S. should establish a high priority goal to rebuild an indigenous nuclear industry and support its growth in domestic and international markets. U.S. nuclear exports can be used to influence other states’ nuclear programs through the nonproliferation commitments that the U.S. requires. The U.S. has so-called consent rights over the enrichment, reprocessing and alteration in form or content of the nuclear materials that it has provided to other countries, as well as to the nuclear materials that are produced from the nuclear materials and equipment that the U.S. has supplied. The percentage of nuclear materials, including separated plutonium, that are subject to U.S. consent rights will diminish over time as new suppliers of nuclear materials and facilities take a larger share of the international nuclear market. Unless the U.S. is able to compete effectively in the international market as a supplier of nuclear fuels, equipment and technology, the quantity of the nuclear materials around the globe that the U.S. has control over will diminish significantly in the future. This may not immediately weaken the effectiveness of the nonproliferation regime since all the major suppliers have adopted the export guidelines of the Nuclear Supplier Group. However, only the U.S., Australia and Canada have consent rights over enrichment and reprocessing of the nuclear materials subject to their agreements. Consequently,

if

there is a major decline in the U.S. share of the international nuclear market, the U.S. may not be as effective as it has been in helping to ensure a rigorous system of export controls.

IMPACT- Proliferation leads to extinction. Victor A Utgoff, Deputy Director of Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division of Institute for Defense Analysis, Summer 2002, Survival, p.87-90 In sum, widespread proliferation is likely to lead to an occasional shoot-out with nuclear weapons, and that such shoot outs will have a substantial probability of escalating to the maximum destruction possible with the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped, we are headed towards a world that will mirror the American Wild West of the late 1800s. With most, if not all, nations wearing nuclear “six shooters” on their hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every once in a while we will all gather together on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or even whole nations.

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Uniq – Nuke Power investment increasing New demand is driving the expansion of nuclear power Peterson 8 -Scott, Vice President-Communications of Nuclear Energy Institute (Speech given 41st Japan Atomic Industrial Forum Conference, 4-15-08, “Reasoned Expectations for New Nuclear Plant Construction in the UnitedStates”,http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/speechesandtestimony/2008_speeches_and_testimony/petersonspeech0415/ //VR)

But today, more than ever, nuclear energy’s clean air benefits are playing a significant role in OECD countries. And that carbonfree electric production is attractive to developing nations that are exploring nuclear power as part of their energy future. Carbon reduction. Energy security. The need for baseload electric supply. Energy diversity. Economic electricity production. These are just some of the attributes that are prompting the global resurgence in nuclear energy. They also are many of the same attributes that drove the rapid expansion of nuclear energy in this country, in the United States and in other nations, like France, after the Middle East oil embargoes of the early 1070s. U.S. energy companies are again considering construction of advanced nuclear power plants because the fundamentals of the electric power business demand it. The need for new baseload generating capacity is unmistakable. In fact, four of the countries’ regions are dangerously below accepted reserve margins for electric capacity. Moreover, the U.S. electric sector’s dependence on natural gas exposes our customers to unnecessary price volatility, and our companies to unwelcome political stress and regulatory pressure. And uncertainty over future controls on carbon emissions will cast a cloud over coal-fired power generation for as long as we avoid our responsibility to address the climate change issue squarely.

Nuclear energy investment is increasing now – new license applications Popular Mechanics, 8 (Mark Wolverton, “New Spin on Nuclear Power”, May 2008. Vol. 185, Iss. 5; pg. 20, Proquest)/AK Nuclear power, which already supplies 20 percent of the electricity in the United States, is a leading option for addressing the country's energy crunch. In 2007, operators filed license applications with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for seven new reactors; experts say double that number could be filed this year. But with more nuclear power plants would come the need for more enriched uranium.

Nuclear power is experiencing a renaissance – high natural gas prices and increased federal subsidies HOLT 7 -CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, (Mark, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS SYMPOSIUM; SUBJECT: "AMERICAN NUCLEAR ENERGY IN A GLOBALIZED ECONOMY" SESSION II: WHAT IS THE INVESTMENT CLIMATE FOR NUCLEAR ENERGY?; June 18, L/n rday

Now, you know, we've heard a lot of the talk about the plants that are not being ordered, but being discussed or that a lot of utilities and other entities have announced that they do plan to apply for the combined operating licenses that we discussed last night -- the new license process. That, of course, is a big change. It's not like an order, but it is a big change. So CRS was asked to look into this and, you know, what is the likelihood of the viability of these plants that are being talked about and is there a new wave of orders possibly coming along. So what has changed? Clearly, the number one change, as I mentioned, natural gas was the generation fuel of choice.

Natural gas prices went up quite a bit. That was probably the number one change. And of course, the apparent need for new base-load capacity. The natural gas plants, although they were built as potentially base-load plants -- and that was a new technology, the combined cycle technology to allow natural gas to efficiently be used as a base-load generating technology. They actually were not necessarily build as base-load, because the capital costs are so low that they can be operated at a much lower level and still be economically viable. That gave them a lot of flexibility and that was part of their attraction. But it appears that there is now, after many, many decades, a need for a new base-load capacity, which is where nuclear comes in. They almost have to be run at base-load to even hope to be economically viable. And then changes in federal policy to be explicitly, in many cases, pro-nuclear, have changed the scene a little bit. So CRS has done a number of cost -- a couple of cost estimates recently and we're trying to update. And I'll just discuss the one that I did with my colleague Larry Parker first.

NRC license applications are increasing Williams, 8 – Selina, of Dow Jones Newswire (“UPDATE:US Government Loan Guarantees For New Nuclear Too Small-NRC”, March 10, 2008, http://www.tmia.com/News/LoansTooSmall.htm)/ AK Jaczko = NRC regulator

To date, the NRC has received five complete applications and one partial application for licenses to operate and construct a nuclear power plant, Jaczko said. He expects to receive 17 applications for 30 nuclear power reactors with around 45 GW of capacity over the next two to three years. It's not yet clear how many licenses will be approved, Jaczko said.

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Uniq – Increasing globally Expansion of nuclear energy and uranium mining worldwide now Fertel 8- Executive Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer Nuclear Energy Institute (Marvin, 03-05-08, speech to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, http://nei.org/newsandevents/speechesandtestimony/2008_speeches_and_testimony/ferteltestimony_030508/)

The United States faces major demand for new base-load electricity generation. The Administration and Congress both have recognized that nuclear power plants are critical to meeting electricity supply and for addressing climate change issues. The 104 operating nuclear power plants represent about 11% of installed capacity; however, they provide nearly 20% of electricity demand. In response, the nuclear industry is in an expansion mode. One of the strengths of the nuclear option relative to other energy sources is forward price stability. In the face of rising energy costs to consumers, ensuring a predictable, reliable nuclear fuel supply is essential to being able to continue to offer the benefits of nuclear energy to our electricity consumers. Expansion of nuclear energy is also occurring throughout the world. The International Atomic Energy Agency is protecting about a 15% increase in the number of operating reactors by 2020. This world wide expansion requires the expansion of the world suppliers of nuclear fuel cycle services. This is why it is important for U.S. utilities to have access to international suppliers.

In 2007 utilities submitted to the NRC combined license applications for 7 new nuclear power plants and additional announcements account for 24 more plants. This expansion is predicated on a reliable and economically competitive nuclear fuel supply. Numerous mining and milling companies have reactivated or have submitted applications to states and/or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for uranium mines and mills. In 2007 Converdyn, working with Honeywell, increased the conversion capacity of the Metropolis, IL facility. USEC has licensed a new enrichment facility which is currently in the demonstration phase, LES has licensed and begun construction of a new enrichment facility, and AREVA and General Electric have both announced plans for new enrichment facilities. The billion of dollars in financing for these facilities is proceeding under existing law. It is critical to the utilities, nuclear fuel suppliers, and the country that everyone succeeds. In this environment, the RSA must be viewed in terms of the overall fuel supply market and how perturbations in one facet of the market can have ramifications across all sectors.

Global Nuclear power production rapidly increasing – warming fears, and fossil fuel prices Public Utilities Fortnightly 8, (“Nuke Revival: When It Rains, It Pours,” January, L/n, ) Presently there are 435 operational reactors in 30 countries - 166 in Europe, 104 in the U.S. - providing roughly 15 percent of the world's energy. The proportion varies from zero to marginal - 2 percent in China - to significant - 20 percent in the U.S. and the U.K. - to dominant - 78 percent in France, for example.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), some 32 nuclear power stations are currently under construction 16 of them in Asia, where growth prospects are the best. The IAEA says nuclear power's share of global energy is likely to grow to 27 percent by 2030 because of environmental concerns and depletion and/or rising price of fossil fuels. The World's Nuclear Association (WNA), a trade group based in the U.K., counts 439 operating nuclear plants worldwide, claiming 94 more are planned for development with another 222 proposed. China plans to build 30 new reactors by 2020, increasing nuclear's share from 2.3 percent to 6 percent-roughly 40,000MW. By 2050, the aim is to have at least 150,000MW of installed nuclear capacity, 22 percent of the electricity mix. India plans to expand its share of nuclear-generated energy eightfold to 10 percent by 2022.

Nuclear energy increasing worldwide and in the U.S. Flint 8- Senior Vice President, Governmental Affairs, Nuclear Energy Institute (Alex, 03-12-08, Speech to the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, http://nei.org/newsandevents/speechesandtestimony/2008_speeches_and_testimony/march_12_2008_written_testimony)

At a global level, 439 nuclear plants produce 16 percent of the world’s electricity while avoiding the emission of 2.6 billion metric tons of CO2 each year—and a new build renaissance is underway. There are 34 nuclear units under construction worldwide including seven in Russian, six in India, and five in China. In the United States, we have one, the 5-year, $2.5 billion completion of TVA’s Watts Bar 2 underway. In the United States, 17 companies or groups of companies are preparing license applications for as many as 31 new reactors. Five complete or partial applications for construction/operating licenses (COLs) were filed with the NRC in 2007. Another 11 to 15 are expected in 2008.

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Uniq – Renewables Low Other renewable are failing in the electricity sector – restraints and opposition Bosselman, 7 - Professor of Law Emeritus, Chicago-Kent College of Law (Fred, “THE NEW POWER GENERATION: ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND ELECTRICITY INNOVATION: COLLOQUIUM ARTICLE: THE ECOLOGICAL ADVANTAGES OF NUCLEAR POWER,” 15 N.Y.U. Envtl. L.J. 1, 2007)



Proposals for greater renewables don’t translate to action Bosselman, 7 - Professor of Law Emeritus, Chicago-Kent College of Law (Fred, “THE NEW POWER GENERATION: ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND ELECTRICITY INNOVATION: COLLOQUIUM ARTICLE: THE ECOLOGICAL ADVANTAGES OF NUCLEAR POWER,” 15 N.Y.U. Envtl. L.J. 1, 2007)

Few people would disagree with the idea that renewable energy research and development is desirable, and support for such work continues to come from both the public and private sectors. Virtually every day brings news of a new proposal somewhere in the world to develop another system of producing electricity renewably, 115 but few energy analysts believe that new systems of large-scale renewable generation are likely in the next few decades. 116

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Uniq – nuclear surpassing coal Nuclear power succeeding over clean coal in the status quo – high coal prices, and environmental opposition Public Utilities Fortnightly 7, Next-gen technologies face to dominate the big build. PUBLIC UTILITIES FORTNIGHTLY July, 2007, L/n Yet in the race to build the next fleet of base-load power plants, nuclear seems to be gaining ground on coal. The reasons are complex, but they come down to this: Coal is no longer cheap. "The economics have changed dramatically," Christopher says. "Coal prices and rail costs have risen. That's the number-one driver for new nuclear power in the United States." Environmental factors also are impeding coal's progress. Virtually every major pulverized-coal fired power project faces public opposition on environmental grounds, and these concerns have driven some project sponsors--including FPL, TXU, Duke, and Sempra--to scale back or cancel plans to build new pulverized-coal plants. Further, uncertainties about future carbon regulation have increased risks and costs for new coal-fired projects. "With the last 18 months of discussions around global warming, coal has become more of a challenge," says Jim Suciu, president of global sales for GE Energy. "A lot of people are having difficulty permitting coal plants, and coal will see more carbon pressure. Nuclear doesn't have that element."

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Link – renewable energy Nuclear power and renewables tradeoff – investment capital is finite and nuclear is winning now Marshall, 08 (Christa, “CLIMATE: Nuclear question is radioactive in Hill debate”, Environment and Energy Daily, 3/13, lexis) //DH "The private capital market isn't investing in new nuclear plants, and without financing, capitalist utilities aren't buying," said Amory Lovins, the co-founder and chief scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit energy research organization, said at the House Select Committee on Energy Dependence and Global Warming hearing. The creation of new power plants actually worsens global warming, Lovins said, because it saps investment money from lowercost renewable energy options such as wind power. But more than a dozen companies are preparing license applications for as many as 31 new reactors and spending millions on "developing, submitting and defending" existing applications, said Alex Flint, senior vice president of governmental affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group. "Financing will be available for nuclear power under the right conditions," Flint said. Flint added that billions in new federal loan guarantees to promote the construction of new plants cost the government nothing, prompting a sharp retort from committee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

Nuclear power and renewable energy tradeoff – investment capital is finite Hanley, 08 (Paul, “Nuclear industry spins new mythology”, 6/24, The Star Pheonix (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan), lexis) //DH Amory Lovins = chief scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute According to Amory Lovins, reducing carbon emissions would be cheaper and safer if nuclear was rejected in favour of alternatives that are sustainable. "The bottom line is that nuclear buys two to 10 times less climate protection than its competitors." Investing in the nuclear option in Saskatchewan would suck up all the capital that would be spent more cost-effectively on renewable energy, efficiency and conservation.

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Link – decreasing energy demand Decreasing electricity demand empirically undermines nuclear power Peterson 8 -Scott, Vice President-Communications of Nuclear Energy Institute (Speech given 41st Japan Atomic Industrial Forum Conference, 4-15-08, “Reasoned Expectations for New Nuclear Plant Construction in the UnitedStates”,http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/speechesandtestimony/2008_speeches_and_testimony/petersonspeech0415/) And finally, we were building under difficult business and economic conditions. Growth in electricity demand slowed from 6 to 7 percent a year to 1 to 2 percent. Many utilities intentionally slowed construction. The prime lending rate for financing hit 20 percent in the early 80s. As project schedules stretched out, costs increased and companies were forced to borrow more money at double-digit interest rates. The 1980s were somewhat dark days for nuclear power. Remember that back then, the average annual capacity factor of U.S. nuclear plants was in the mid-50-percent range. Refueling outages ran, on average, more than three months.

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Link – new renewable investment Increases in renewables take investments from nuclear power. Time, 8 (Bryan Walsh, “Is Nuclear Power Viable,” 6/6/08, http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1812540,00.html, AG) But to Amory Lovins — a veteran energy expert and chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute — there's a much better green reason to be against nuclear power: economics. Lovins, an environmentalist who is unusually comfortable with numbers, argues in a report released last week that a massive new push for nuclear power doesn't make dollars or cents. In his study, titled "The Nuclear Illusion," he points out that while the red-hot renewable industry — including wind and solar — last year attracted $71 billion in private investment, the nuclear industry attracted nothing. "Wall Street has spoken — nuclear power isn't worth it," he says. More nuclear subsidies, which many on Capitol Hill are pushing for, won't do the trick either. Lovins notes that the U.S. nuclear industry has received $100 billion in government subsidies over the past half-century, and that federal subsidies now worth up to $13 billion a plant — roughly how much it now costs to build one — still haven't encouraged private industry to back the atomic revival. At the same time, the price of building a

. Nuclear supporters like Moore who argue that atomic plants are much cheaper than renewables tend to forget the sky-high capital costs, not to mention the huge liability risk of an accident — the insurance industry won't cover a nuclear plant, so it's up to government to do so. Conservatives like Republican presidential candidate plant — all that concrete and steel — has risen dramatically in recent years, while the nuclear workforce has aged and shrunk

John McCain tend to promote nuclear power because they don't think carbon-free alternatives like wind or solar could be scaled up sufficiently to meet rising power demand, but McCain's idea of a crash construction program to build hundreds of new nuclear plants in near future seems just as unrealistic.

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Link – RPS A national RPS will decrease investment in nuclear power Sovacool and Cooper, 07 - *Senior Research Fellow for the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research and professor of Government and International Affairs at Virginia Tech AND ** founded the Network for New Energy Choices (NNEC), a national non- profit organization committed to reforming U.S. energy policy (Benjamin and Chris, Renewing America: The Case for Federal Leadership on a National Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), June, http://www.newenergychoices.org/dev/uploads/Renewing%20America_NNEC_Final.pdf)

Often overlooked, is how RPS-induced renewable generation would offset nuclear power in several regions of the U.S. Researchers in North Carolina, for example, determined that a state-wide RPS would displace facilities relying on nuclear fuels and minimize the environmental impacts associated with the extraction of uranium used to fuel nuclear reactors.240 In Oregon, the Governor’s

Renewable Energy Working Group analyzed a 25 percent statewide RPS by 2025 and projected that every 50 MW of renewable energy would displace approximately 20 MW of base-load resources, including nuclear power.241 Environment Michigan estimates that a 20 percent RPS by 2020 would displace the need for more than 640 MW of power that would have otherwise come from both nuclear and coal facilities.242

Utilities in Ontario, Canada, are deploying renewable energy systems in an attempt to displace all coal and nuclear electricity generation in the region entirely.243

A national RPS decreases nuclear power and clean coal investment Fershee, 08 – assistant professor of law at the University of North Dakota (Joshua, 29 Energy L. J. 49, “CHANGING RESOURCES, CHANGING MARKET: THE IMPACT OF A NATIONAL RENEWABLE PORTFOLIO STANDARD ON THE U.S. ENERGY INDUSTRY”, lexis) Another significant issue facing investment decisions is what a national RPS would mean for decisions related to other types of generation that utilities have considered. Some utilities, for example, have been considering building new nuclear generation facilities. n113 A national RPS would seem to make that less appealing, although it is not entirely clear that new nuclear facilities were that likely, or the best option, anyway. Nonetheless, a national RPS, at least absent a corresponding greenhouse gas emissions' cap, would add another hurdle for nuclear investment. Clean coal technologies, another major generation source in development, n114 would face similar hurdles, unless, of course, the national RPS were to include clean coal as a renewable source. And, of course, what constitutes "clean" is never an easy answer. n115

A national RPS picks renewables as the winning technology at the expens of nuclear power and clean coal Josten, 07 - Executive Vice President, Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America (Bruce, Letter to Rep. John Dingell and Rick Boucher, 6/15, http://energycommerce.house.gov/Climate_Change/RSP%20feedback/US%20Chamber%2006%2015%2007.pdf) One of the major drawbacks to current and RPS bills that have circulated through Congress is the definition of what energy sources are “renewable.” Clean,

safe, and reliable energy sources such as hydropower, nuclear power, and clean coal technology have typically been excluded from this definition. As a result, the RPS accomplishes precisely what energy legislation should not do: it picks winners and losers. Should Congress choose to bind all states to a baseline renewable portfolio standard—which, again, the Chamber does not consider necessary—then it must strive to be as inclusive as possible. If the true policy goal of an RPS is to encourage energy production, there is no legitimate reason why certain clean, safe energy producers are left standing at the door while others benefit.

A federal RPS will artificially hinder nuclear power Spencer, 07 – senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation (Jack, “Congress Should Not Overlook Benefits of Nuclear Energy”, 11/14, http://www.heritage.org/research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm1704.cfm) Most of the bills focus too much on the process of energy production rather than on the product itself. For example, some

language under consideration excludes nuclear power by creating mandates that can only be fulfilled with other sources of energy; or it creates so-called renewable portfolio standards that mandate only certain types of energy production. This approach artificially eliminates energy sources that are compatible with Congress's proclaimed goals of reducing CO2 emissions and energy dependence. Nuclear technology is a proven, safe, affordable, and environmentally friendly energy source. It can generate massive amounts of electricity with almost no atmospheric emissions and can offset America's growing dependence on foreign energy sources.

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Link – Wind Renewable energy trades off with nuclear energy – investment. Lovins et. al, 8 – veteran energy expert and chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute (Amory B. Lovins, Imran Sheikh, and Alex Markevich, “Forget Nuclear,” Spring 08, http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php, AG) Nuclear power, we’re told, is a vibrant industry that’s dramatically reviving because it’s proven, necessary, competitive, reliable, safe, secure, widely used, increasingly popular, and carbon-free—a perfect replacement for carbon-spewing coal power. New nuclear plants thus sound vital for climate protection, energy security, and powering a growing economy. There’s a catch, though: the private capitalmarket isn’t investing in new nuclear plants, and without financing, capitalist utilities aren’t buying. The few purchases, nearly all in Asia, are all made by central planners with a draw on the public purse. In the United States, even government subsidies approaching or exceeding new nuclear power’s total cost have failed to entice Wall Street. This non-technical summary article compares the cost, climate protection potential, reliability, financial risk, market success, deployment speed, and energy contribution of new nuclear power with those of its low- or no-carbon competitors. It explains why soaring taxpayer subsidies aren’t attracting investors. Capitalists instead favor climate-protecting competitors with less cost, construction time, and financial risk. The nuclear industry claims it has no serious rivals, let alone those competitors—which, however, already out produce nuclear power worldwide and are growing enormously faster.

Renewables offset natural gas and nuclear power Dr. Sovacool, & Cooper, 7 – *Senior Research Fellow for the Network for New Energy Choices in New York and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University in Blacksburg, VA and ** Executive Director of the Network for New Energy Choices (Benjamin K. Sovacool, also a Research Fellow at the Centre for Asia and Globalization at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Christopher Cooper, Renewing America: The Case for Federal Leadership on a National Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), Network for New Energy Choices • Report No. 01-07, June, 2007, http://www.newenergychoices.org/dev/uploads/RPS%20Report_Cooper_Sovacool_FINAL_HILL.pdf) // JMP • Renewable energy offsets nuclear power.

Studies from Michigan, North Carolina, and Oregon found that renewable generation displaces new nuclear reactors and decreases the mining of uranium. • A national RPS saves billions of gallons of water.

Conventional and nuclear power plants will soon be withdrawing more water for electricity production than America’s farmers use for all the irrigated agriculture in the entire nation (over 3.3 billion gallons each day). A nuclear reactor requires 600 times as much water to generate the same amount of electricity as a wind farm. A coal-fired plant uses 500 times as much water as a wind farm; A gas-fired plant uses 250 times as much. A single 100-watt solar panel saves up to 3,000 gallons of water over its lifetime. // pg. 12

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Link – SPS SSP undercuts the rationale for expanding nuclear power Glaser 2000, (Peter, “The World Needs Energy from Space” http://www.space.com/opinionscolumns/opinions/glaser_000223.html, 2-23-00) // CCH The conversion of solar energy in space to usable power on Earth is the most plausible global alternative to nuclear power plants, with their attendant safety, decommissioning and plutonium proliferation issues. SSP can also be an integral part of global development. It can help boost economic growth and improve living standards. It is the only means toward increased energy supplies compatible with the environment.

SPS will be used to replace current fossil fuel and nuclear plants Nansen, 95 - led the Boeing team of engineers in the Satellite Power System Concept Development and Evaluation Program for the Department of Energy and NASA, and President Solar Space Industries (Ralph, Sun Power, http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/sunpower/sunpower09.html)

 

The real potential, however, is the ability to add generating capacity as the demands for energy grow. After

meeting new energy requirements we could start replacing the existing fossil fuel plants and obsolete nuclear plants. A large percentage of the current power plants in the country are wearing out, and maintenance costs are accelerating as they reach the end of their useful life. They could be replaced with solar power satellites, thus eliminating the demand for fossil fuels as our major energy source and starting the process to clean up our atmosphere. Once this is done, a more natural growth can occur. With the availability of ample low-cost electricity, the move could be made to replace a large share of the transportation requirements with electric power vehicles as well.

SSP will end oil dependence and reliance on nuclear power NSSO, 7 (National Security Space Office, Report to the Director, “Space-Based Solar Power As an Opportunity for Strategic Security; Phase 0 Architecture Feasibility Study” October 10, 2007, http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/final-sbsp-interimassessment-release-01.pdf) The SBSP Study Group found that in the long run, SBSP offers

a viable and attractive route to decrease mankind’s reliance on fossil fuels, as well as provides a potential global alternative to wider proliferation of nuclear materials that will almost certainly unfold if many more countries in the world transition to nuclear power with enrichment in an effort to meet their energy needs with carbon neutral sources. To the extent mankind’s electricity is produced by fossil fuel sources, SBSP offers a capability over time to reduce the rate at which humanity consumes the planet’s finite fossil hydrocarbon resources. While presently hard to store, electricity is easy to transport, and is highly efficient in conversion to both mechanical and thermal energy. Except for the aviation transportation infrastructure, virtually all of America’s energy could eventually be delivered and consumed as electricity. Even in ground transportation, a movement toward plug‐in hybrids would allow a substantial amount of traditional ground transportation to be powered by SBSP electricity. For those applications that favor or rely upon liquid hydrocarbon fuels, America’s national labs are pursuing several promising avenues of research to manufacture carbon‐neutral synthetic fuels (synfuels) from direct solar thermal energy or radiated/electrical SBSP. The lab initiatives are developing technologies to efficiently split energy‐neutral feedstocks or upgrade lower‐grade fuels (such as biofuels) into higher energy density liquid hydrocarbons. Put plainly, SBSP could be

utilized to split hydrogen from water and the carbon monoxide (syngas) from carbon dioxide which can then be combined to manufacture any desired hydrocarbon fuel, including gasoline, diesel, kerosene and jet fuel. This technology is still in its infancy, and significant investment will be required to bring this technology to a high level of technical readiness and meet economic and efficiency goals. This technology enables a carbon‐neutral (closed carbon‐cycle) hydrocarbon economy driven by clean renewable sources of power, which can utilize the existing global fuel infrastructure without modification. This opportunity is of particular interest to traditional oil companies. The ability to use renewable energy to serve as the energy feedstock for existing fuels, in a carbon neutral cycle, is a “total game changer” that deserves significant attention. Both fossil and fissile sources offer significant capabilities to our energy mix, but dependence on the exact mix must be carefully managed. Likewise, the mix abroad may affect domestic security. While increased use of nuclear power is not of particular concern in nations that enjoy the rule of law and have functioning internal security mechanisms, it may be of greater concern in unstable areas of rouge states. The United States might consider the security challenges of wide proliferation of enrichment‐based nuclear power abroad undesirable. If so, having a viable alternative that fills a

comparable niche might be attractive. Overall, SBSP offers a hopeful path toward reduced fossil and fissile fuel dependence.

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Impact – new construction key to nuclear leadership Maintaining strong domestic nuclear capabilities is the linchpin of U.S. influence over nonproliferation BENGELSDORF, 07 – consultant and former director of both key State and Energy Department offices that are concerned with international nuclear and nonproliferation affair (HAROLD, “THE U.S. DOMESTIC CIVIL NUCLEAR INFRASTRUCTURE AND U.S. NONPROLIFERATION POLICY”, White Paper prepared for the American Council on Global Nuclear Competitiveness May, http://www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org/images/COUNCIL_WHITE_PAPER_Final.pdf)//DH Historically, the ability of the U.S. to help prevent the spread of nuclear weapons has stemmed from many factors, not least of which has been the political, military and economic power that the US has exercised in international affairs. The U.S. has used many tools to promote its nonproliferation objectives. One important instrument that the U.S. has employed for decades in building the international nonproliferation system has been its ability to provide nuclear fuel, nuclear power plants and fuel cycle services to countries on a reliable and stable basis, under strict nonproliferation controls and conditions. In the early days of the nuclear era, the U.S. essentially had a monopoly in the nuclear fuel supply market. This capability, among others, allowed the U.S. to promote the widespread acceptance of nonproliferation norms and restraints, including international safeguards and physical protection measures, and, most notably, the NPT. The United States concluded agreements for cooperation in peaceful nuclear energy with other states, which require strict safeguards, physical protection and other nonproliferation controls on their civil nuclear programs.

Moreover, the strength of U.S. civil nuclear capabilities gave it an important seat at the international table, not only in negotiating the norms that should govern the conduct of civil nuclear power programs to protect against their misuse or diversion to nuclear weapons, but also in shaping the key elements of the global nonproliferation regime. In addition domestic U.S. nuclear programs have enabled the United States to make important contributions to achieving technical improvements in international safeguards, physical protection, and nuclear detection systems. However, the challenges now confronting the international nonproliferation regime come at a time when the U.S. commercial share of the global nuclear market has declined and when there are serious concerns about the health of the U.S. nuclear infrastructure.

U.S. nuclear leadership is decreasing because of the lack of new construction DOE, 05 (Department of Energy,“MOVING FORWARD WITH NUCLEAR POWER: ISSUES AND KEY FACTORS ,” Final Report of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, Nuclear Energy Task Force, 1/10, http://www.seab.energy.gov/publications/NETF_Final_Draft_0105.pdf)//DH Central to meeting U.S. non-proliferation goals is U.S. leadership in the very business it created. But American leadership in the commercial international field is seriously threatened, reducing our leverage with the rest of the nuclear world. In the early years, Russia and the United States together controlled almost 90 percent of the global trade in peaceful nuclear products and services. Today, although the United States has a healthy and thriving domestic nuclear electricity generating structure, the rest of the U.S. nuclear enterprise is almost out of business. As early as 1976, President Ford’s administration lamented the fact that the U.S. share (and control) of the global trade in nuclear materials, hardware, and services had dwindled to 50 percent. Several countries have slowly weaned themselves of any need for U.S. support, goods, or services. Virtually all U.S. fuel and hardware vendors have been absorbed into foreign corporations. By 1996, 15 other countries had developed partial or complete nuclear fuel cycle capabilities with limited, or no, U.S. or Russian involvement. Some of these countries (e.g., Japan, China, South Korea, Argentina, India, and Brazil) could become very competitive nuclear suppliers to the next growth era. Some have already established an independent multilateral cooperative network. China, for example, has developed indigenous cradle-tograve capabilities. This means that other nations will reap the benefits of supplying nuclear goods and services to support the

industrialization of developing nations and global energy demand and, by default, will have the capacity to define the character of the future global nuclear infrastructure. The facts suggest that we could move into a new nuclear era that involves little or no participation by, or benefit to, the United States. Other countries have announced aggressive growth plans for commercial nuclear power and will move ahead swiftly, with or without the United States. If it appears to them that we do not intend to participate in keeping nuclear power as a key energy technology, those countries might decide to develop fuel cycle technologies and material- handling policies that meet lower nonproliferation standards. The influence of the United States will be respected in this sphere only to the extent that we participate in the development and deployment of nuclear technologies in the future.

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Nuclear Leadership solves prolif Nuclear leadership is vital to enhancing U.S. influence in nonproliferation globally BENGELSDORF, 07 – consultant and former director of both key State and Energy Department offices that are concerned with international nuclear and nonproliferation affairs (HAROLD, “THE U.S. DOMESTIC CIVIL NUCLEAR INFRASTRUCTURE AND U.S. NONPROLIFERATION POLICY”, White Paper prepared for the American Council on Global Nuclear Competitiveness May, http://www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org/images/COUNCIL_WHITE_PAPER_Final.pdf) //DH

The health of the U.S. civil nuclear infrastructure can have an important bearing in a variety of ways on the ability of the United States to advance its nonproliferation objectives. During the Atoms for Peace Program and until the 1970s, the U.S. was the dominant supplier in the international commercial nuclear power market, and it exercised a strong leadership role in shaping the global nonproliferation regime. In those early days, the U.S. also had what was essentially a monopoly in the nuclear fuel supply market. This capability, among others, allowed the U.S. to promote the widespread acceptance of nonproliferation norms and restraints, including international safeguards and physical protection measures, and, most notably, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The United States concluded agreements for cooperation in peaceful nuclear energy with other states, which require strict safeguards, physical protection and other nonproliferation controls on their civil nuclear programs. Today due to its political, military and economic position in the world, the United States continues to exercise great weight in nonproliferation matters.

However, the ability of the United States to promote its nonproliferation objectives through peaceful nuclear cooperation with other countries has declined. The fact that no new nuclear power plant orders have been placed in over three decades has led to erosion in the capabilities of the U.S. civil nuclear infrastructure. Moreover, during the same period, the U.S. share of the global nuclear market has declined significantly, and several other countries have launched their own nuclear power programs and have become major international suppliers in their own right. It is highly significant that all but one of the U.S. nuclear power plant vendors and nuclear fuel designers and manufactures for light water reactors have now been acquired by their non-U.S. based competitors. Thus, while the U.S. remains a participant in the international market for commercial nuclear power, it no longer enjoys a dominant role as it did four decades ago. To the extent that U.S. nuclear plant vendors and nuclear fuel designers and manufacturers are able to reassert themselves on a technical and commercial basis, opportunities for U.S. influence with respect to nuclear nonproliferation can be expected to increase. However, the fact that there are other suppliers that can now provide plants and nuclear fuel technology and services on a competitive commercial basis suggests that the U.S. will have to work especially hard to maintain and, in some cases, rebuild its nuclear

infrastructure, if it wishes to exercise its influence in international nuclear affairs. The influence of the United States internationally could be enhanced significantly if the U.S. is able to achieve success in its Nuclear Power 2010 program and place several new orders in the next decade and beyond. There is a clear upsurge of interest in nuclear power in various parts of the world. As a consequence, if the U.S. aspires to participate in these programs and to shape them in ways that are most conducive to nonproliferation, it will need to promote the health and viability of the American nuclear infrastructure. Perhaps more importantly, if it wishes to exert a positive influence in shaping the nonproliferation policies of other countries, it can do so more effectively by being an active supplier to and partner in the evolution of those programs. Concurrent with the prospective growth in the use of nuclear power, the global nonproliferation regime is facing

some direct assaults that are unprecedented in nature. International confidence in the effectiveness of nuclear export controls was shaken by the disclosures of the nuclear operations of A.Q. Khan. These developments underscore the importance of maintaining the greatest integrity and effectiveness of the nuclear export conditions applied by the major suppliers. They also underscore the importance of the U.S. maintaining effective policies to achieve these objectives. Constructive U.S. influence will be best achieved to the extent that the U.S. is perceived as a major technological

leader, supplier and partner in the field of nuclear technology. As the sole superpower, the U.S. will have considerable, on-going influence on the international nonproliferation regime, regardless of how active and successful it is in the nuclear export market. However, the erosion of the U.S. nuclear infrastructure has begun to weaken the ability of the U.S. to participate actively in the international nuclear market. If the U.S. becomes more dependent on foreign nuclear suppliers or if it leaves the international nuclear market to other suppliers, the ability of the U.S. to influence nonproliferation policy will diminish. It is, therefore, essential that the United States have vibrant nuclear reactor, enrichment services, and spent fuel storage and disposal industries that can not only meet the needs of U.S. utilities but will also enable the United States to promote effective safeguards and other nonproliferation controls through close peaceful nuclear cooperation with other countries. U.S. nuclear exports can be used to influence other states’ nuclear programs through the nonproliferation commitments that the U.S. requires. The U.S. has so-called consent rights over the enrichment, reprocessing and alteration in form or content of the nuclear materials that it has provided to other countries, as well as to the nuclear materials that are produced from the nuclear materials and equipment that the U.S. has supplied. Further, the ability of the U.S. to develop improved and advanced nuclear technologies will depend on its ability to provide consistent and vigorous support for nuclear R&D programs that will enjoy solid bipartisan political support in order that they can be sustained from one administration to another. As the U.S. Government expends taxpayer funds on the Nuclear Power 2010 program, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, the Generation IV initiative and other programs, it should consider the benefit to the U.S. industrial base and to U.S. non-proliferation posture as criteria in project design and source selection where possible. Finally, the ability of the United States to resolve its own difficulties in managing its spent fuel and nuclear wastes will be crucial to maintaining the credibility of the U.S. nuclear power program and will be vital to implementing important new nonproliferation initiatives designed to discourage the spread of sensitive nuclear facilities to other countries.

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Nuclear Leadership solves prolif The nonproliferation regime is effective but only if U.S. nonproliferation credibility can be maintained BENGELSDORF, 07 – consultant and former director of both key State and Energy Department offices that are concerned with international nuclear and nonproliferation affairs (HAROLD, “THE U.S. DOMESTIC CIVIL NUCLEAR INFRASTRUCTURE AND U.S. NONPROLIFERATION POLICY”, White Paper prepared for the American Council on Global Nuclear Competitiveness May, http://www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org/images/COUNCIL_WHITE_PAPER_Final.pdf) //DH

The international nonproliferation regime has proved largely effective in limiting the spread of nuclear weapons. Contrary to predictions made during the 1950s and 1960s that 20 to 30 states would possess nuclear weapons by the 1970s, by the year 2007 only nine states have actually conducted nuclear weapons tests and a tenth (i.e., Israel) is widely regarded as possessing nuclear weapons. An eleventh, Iran, has engaged in activities in violation of its safeguards agreement with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which it entered into pursuant to its obligations under the Treaty on the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT or Treaty). As a consequence, Iran is presently subject to sanctions by the United Nations (UN) Security Council. On the other hand, 183 non-nuclear-weapon states have faithfully adhered to their obligations under the NPT and have adopted a strong nonproliferation ethic. Despite the fact that earlier dire predictions have not been realized, the international nuclear nonproliferation regime now faces serious, new challenges. These include the threats posed by the nuclear programs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Iran; the clandestine marketing of sensitive nuclear materials and technology by A.Q. Khan; the procurement networks employed by such countries as Iran and the DPRK to support their respective nuclear weapons programs; and the risks that terrorists may gain access to nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons-usable material. These difficulties come at a time when the international community is demonstrating an increasing interest in expanding the use of commercial nuclear power not only to meet growing energy needs but also to address the environmental problems produced by other energy sources. One of the key challenges that the nonproliferation regime faces is, therefore, to ensure that this projected growth in commercial nuclear power will take place under conditions that provide the maximum protection against the misuse of civil nuclear technology for military or nuclear explosives purposes. At the same time, if this challenge is not met effectively, it will undermine the prospects of achieving the expanded use of peaceful nuclear power and the benefits that it can provide in the coming decades. The health of the U.S. civil nuclear infrastructure can have an important bearing in a variety of ways on the ability of the United States to advance its nonproliferation objectives. During the Atoms for Peace Program and until the 1970s, the U.S. was the dominant supplier in the international commercial nuclear power market, and it exercised a strong leadership role in shaping the global nonproliferation regime. Today due to its political, military and economic position in the world, the United States continues to exercise great weight in nonproliferation matters. However, the ability of the United States to promote its nonproliferation objectives through peaceful nuclear cooperation with other countries has declined. The fact that no new nuclear power plant orders have been placed in over three decades in the U.S. has led to erosion in the capabilities of the U.S. civil nuclear infrastructure. Moreover, during the same period, while the U.S. share of the global nuclear market declined significantly, several other countries launched major nuclear power programs and became major international suppliers in their own right.

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Nuke Leadership key to Nuke safety Leadership in nuclear power is vital to influencing global reactor safety Domenici, 04- Senator of the United States (Pete, A Brighter tomorrow: Fulfilling the promise of nuclear energy. pg. 218-219//DG The United States has been a world leader in both the policy and technical aspects of nuclear energy. This nation operates more nuclear power plants than any other country, and most of the world's operating nuclear power plants are based on u.s. LWR technology. Given: the projected growth in global energy demand as developing nations industrialize; our strategic interests in addressing nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear safety, economic competitiveness, and potential global climate change; and our need to satisfy growing domestic needs for energy in an environmentally responsible manner, the United States must regain its scientific and technological leadership in nuclear energy. This leadership will provide the United States a key "seat at the table" at ongoing international discussions regarding the future implementation of nuclear technologies, nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear safety, and many other issues important to U.S. policy objectives. The United States' leadership in nuclear technology is a vital component of our nation's foreign policy. American prominence in nuclear technology enables the United States to exercise considerable influence on the manner in which nuclear technologies are applied worldwide. Strategies to prevent nuclear materials proliferation, nuclear safety practices, and safeguards policy are directly influenced by U.S. technical leadership in the international community.

Reactor accidents are inevitable globally – they’ll occur outside the U.S. Cochran, 08 - Senior Scientist, Nuclear Program Natural Resources Defense Council (Thomas, CQ Congressional Testimony, 4/23, lexis) //DH 4. Reactor safety is a significant concern and, to a degree not matched by any other power source, continued nuclear power generation is hostage to its worst practitioners. The most important factor affecting the safety of nuclear power plants is the safety culture at the plant. In the United States and some OECD countries the safety culture at operating plants has improved over the past two decades. While new reactor designs have improved safety and security features, over the next two to three decades, the safety and security of nuclear plants in the United States and the rest of the world will largely be determined by the safety and security of existing reactors. Several countries that already have nuclear plants, e.g., Russia, Ukraine, China, India, and Bulgaria, have notably weaker safety cultures than the nuclear enterprise merits. This is not a situation that the United States government as a whole or this Congress can control or resolve. Compounding the problem, expansion of nuclear power is projected to occur primarily in countries that currently have significant weaknesses in legal structure (rule of law), construction practice, operating safety and security cultures, and regulatory oversight, e.g. China and India. Securing commercial sales and "nuclear renaissance" exuberance have taken precedence over nuclear safety and non-proliferation concerns. This is evidenced by the fact that since his election in May 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy has offered French reactors to such authoritarian, unaccountable, nontransparent, and corrupt governments as Georgia, Libya, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria (Nucleonics Week Vol.49. No. 7, Feb. 14, 2008). Consequently, if another catastrophic nuclear reactor accident occurs during the next couple of decades, it is more likely to occur in Russia, Ukraine, China, India, or another country with a poor safety culture, than in the United States. Several countries recently expressing an interest in acquiring nuclear reactors also have very high indices of industrial accidents and official corruption.

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A2 – meltdowns Nuclear power is safe – no accidents Beller, 4 - Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (Dr. Denis E, “Atomic Time Machines: Back to the Nuclear Future,” 24 J. Land Resources & Envtl. L. 41, 2004)//markoff No caveats, no explanation, not from this engineer/scientist. It's just plain safe! All sources of electricity production result in health and safety impacts. However, at the National Press Club meeting, Energy Secretary Richardson indicated that nuclear power is safe by stating, "I'm convinced it is." 45 Every nuclear scientist and engineer should agree with that statement. Even mining, transportation, and waste from nuclear power have lower impacts because of the difference in magnitude of materials. In addition, emissions from nuclear plants are kept to near zero. 46 If you ask a theoretical scientist, nuclear energy does have a potential tremendous adverse impact. However, it has had that same potential for forty years, which is why we designed and operate nuclear plants with multiple levels of containment and safety and multiple backup systems. Even the country's most catastrophic accident, the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, did not injure anyone. 47 The fact is, Western-developed and Westernoperated nuclear power is the safest major source of electricity production. Haven't we heard enough cries of "nuclear wolf" from scared old men and "the sky is radioactive" from [*50] nuclear Chicken Littles? We have a world of data to prove the fallacy of these claims about the unsafe nature of nuclear installations. [SEE FIGURE IN ORIGINAL] Figure 2. Deaths resulting from electricity generation. 48 Figure 2 shows the results of an ongoing analysis of the safety impacts of energy production from several sources of energy. Of all major sources of electricity, nuclear power has produced the least impact from real accidents that have killed real people during the past 30 years, while hydroelectric has had the most severe accident impact. 49 The same is true for environmental and health impacts. 50 Of all major sources of energy, nuclear energy has the least impacts on environment and health while coal has the greatest. 51 The low death [*51] rate from nuclear power accidents in the figure includes the Chernobyl accident in the Former Soviet Union. 52

New reactor designs solve the meltdown risk CFR, 2006 (Lionel Beehner, “Chernobyl, Nuclear Power, and Foreign Policy”, April 25, http://www.cfr.org/publication/10534/chernobyl_nuclear_power_and_foreign_policy.html, REQ) Repeat of Chernobyl-like meltdown. A dozen or so other Chernobyl-era nuclear plants with aging equipment are still operating— and expected to continue to operate for the next thirty years—within the former Soviet Union. Although their design flaws have for the most part been addressed, some experts fear human error makes a future meltdown, however remote, still a possibility. Elsewhere, Chernobyl-like meltdowns are becoming unlikely, thanks mainly to developments in technology, IAEA Deputy Director Tomihiro Taniguchi told the Associated Press. Others point to advanced technologies like pebble-bed reactors, which use graphite pebbles and gases like helium as a coolant, and are safer, cheaper, and more efficient but leave greater waste than traditional nuclear power plants. Plans for these kinds of reactors are in place in South Africa and the United States.

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Nuclear power solves warming Nuclear power is a critical solution to global warming – alternatives will devastate the economy Bowman 6-20 President and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, (Frank L., States News Service, Testimony before the Committee on House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, “GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSION REDUCTION,” 2008, L/n, rday) First, we see a growing consensus that any credible program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. and worldwide will require a portfolio of technologies and approaches, and that nuclear energy is an indispensable part of that portfolio. This conclusion is supported by an impressive body of mainstream research and analysis. And second, we believe it is imperative to address the major investment challenge facing the electric power sector as it seeks to develop and deploy the low-carbon and zero-carbon technologies necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Federal legislation must obviously include targets and timetables for carbon reduction, but legislation must also help provide industry the technology and the means to achieve those targets and timetables. In our view, that will require an aggressive program of financing support-more aggressive and ambitious than anything in place today. The growing body of mainstream research and analysis shows that nuclear power is an important part of the portfolio required to reduce carbon emissions. The most recent came from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)'s International Energy Agency (IEA) last week. The IEA's 2008 Energy Technologies Perspective asserts that "A global revolution is needed in ways that energy is supplied and used. Far greater energy efficiency is a core requirement. Renewables, nuclear power, and CO2 capture and storage must be deployed on a massive scale." Last week's IEA report amplifies the findings in its World Energy Outlook, the pre-eminent global energy forecast, which was published earlier this year. In the 2008 edition of that forecast, the IEA analyzed what must be done to stabilize the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere at 450 parts per million (ppm)-the level judged necessary by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to avoid irreversible damage. In that scenario, world nuclear generating capacity more than doubles-from 368 gigawatts today to 833 gigawatts in 2030. Even with this ambitious growth, the additional nuclear capacity does not shoulder the entire carbon reduction load: end-use energy efficiency, improved efficiency of coal-fired power plants, and major gains in CO2 capture and storage are also necessary. This conclusion-that nuclear power is an essential component of any carbon reduction initiative- is unambiguous and beyond question. It is shared by leaders and governments around the world, including Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Mr. de Boer said last July that he had never seen a credible scenario for reducing carbon emissions that did not include nuclear energy. In addition to policy leaders, the world's scientific community agrees that nuclear energy must play a significant role in meeting the dual challenges of electricity production and greenhouse gas reduction. The most recent assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identifies nuclear energy as one of the "key mitigation technologies." Closer to home, analyses of the various legislative proposals that have come before Congress, including the modeling conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Information Administration, all show that nuclear plant construction must accelerate in a carbonconstrained world. In EIA's analysis of the Lieberman-Warner legislation, the model forecasts more new nuclear capacity than could realistically be built during the forecast period. And in those modeling runs where nuclear energy expansion is constrained, carbon emissions and carbon prices are higher, electric sector consumption of natural gas soars, electricity and gas prices are higher, and GDP losses are greater.

Nuclear power decreases CO2 Flint 8- Senior Vice President, Governmental Affairs, Nuclear Energy Institute (Alex, 03-12-08, Speech to the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, http://nei.org/newsandevents/speechesandtestimony/2008_speeches_and_testimony/march_12_2008_written_testimony/ //VR)

Nuclear power plants generate over 70 percent of all carbon-free electricity in the United States. By using nuclear power instead of fossil fuel-based plants, the US nuclear energy industry prevented 681 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2006. For perspective, the volume of greenhouse gas emissions prevented at the nation’s 104 nuclear power plants is equivalent to taking 96 percent of all passenger cars off America’s roadways.

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Nuclear power solves oil dependence Nuclear power decreases oil consumption because of hybrid cars Zawatsky, 08 – chief executive officer of havePower, LLC. (Jay, “Inside Track: Going Nuclear on Energy”, The National Interest, 4/9, http://www.nationalinterest.org/PrinterFriendly.aspx?id=17332] //DH How is nuclear power the cure to all that ails us? Here’s how: We import ten million barrels of oil every day. That costs us one billion dollars every day, adding $365 billion each year to our trade deficit. Nearly all of that imported petroleum goes into transportation fuels. Replacing all of the imported-oil horsepower with an equivalent amount of nuclear-generated power eliminates nearly 30 percent of the trade deficit. But how do you run cars on nuclear power? The answer can be found in two words: “hydrogen” and “hybrids.” If America constructed 104 new nuclear plants, we would add enough base electrical capacity to power every car and truck on the road today, because electricity can convert water into hydrogen (H2O plus electricity equals H2 plus O2) to fuel both modified internal-combustion engines and fuel-cell electric engines. And by adding plugs to existing gas-electric hybrids, owners could refuel their cars at home.

Nuke power eliminates oil dependency Hickey, 6 – Professor of Law, Director of International and Comparative Law Programs, Hofstra Law School (James E, “IDEA: REVIVING THE NUCLEAR POWER OPTION IN THE UNITED STATES: USING DOMESTIC ENERGY LAW TO CURE TWO PERCEPTIONS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW ILLEGALITY,” 35 Hofstra L. Rev. 425, Winter 2006)//markoff < Nuclear power is one of the most readily available domestic energy sources that can be used to achieve energy independence. It has a fifty-year record of safe operational experience with over one hundred power plants. n29 There are an estimated 498 million tons of uranium ore reserves in the United States n30 to fuel a revived nuclear power industry. In addition, Australia and Canada, two close U.S. allies, have most of the world's uranium reserves. Unlike fossil fuel electric power, nuclear electric power does not produce any GHGs. In 2005, over 200 million barrels of oil were used directly for electric generation. n31 This consumption can be replaced by nuclear generation, which would help to reduce U.S. foreign oil dependence. In addition, the heavy reliance on the automobile in the United States is a major source of both oil consumption and of GHG emissions. The movement to introduce electric and electric hybrid cars to the U.S. automobile market is an attempt to reduce oil use and GHG emissions. However, if electric batteries used in these cars are recharged with fossil fuel generated [*431] electricity, little is achieved to reduce GHG emissions because the source of those emissions is simply moved from the tailpipe to the smokestack. In a revived nuclear power industry, additional GHG emission reductions could be achieved by recharging electric car batteries with electricity produced from nuclear power plants.>

Nuclear power can eliminate oil dependence Colvin, 4 – Joe F., president and chief executive officer of the NEI (“"Nuclear Energy — A Global Imperative for the 21st Century", Sept 8, http://www.nei.org/documents/WhitePaper_NuclearEnergyGlobalChoicefor21stCentury.pdf) Initiatives are also under way to expand the use of nuclear energy as an efficient, emission-free way to produce hydrogen to replace oil for transportation. We’ve eliminated imported oil from the electricity sector using nuclear energy. We believe we can play a similar role in the transportation sector.

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A2 – nuke power risks prolif International cooperation on nonproliferation on balance outweighs prolif risks Totty, 08 (Michael Energy “(A Special Report); The case for -- and against -- Nuclear Power.” 2008, June 30) Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), p. R.1. Retrieved June 30, 2008, from ABI/INFORM Global database. Finally, critics say that an expansion of nuclear power will increase the danger that potentially hostile nations will use nuclear material from a power program to develop atomic weapons, or that rogue states or terrorists will steal nuclear material to make bombs. While nonproliferation is an important consideration, the proliferation problem won't be solved by turning away from nuclear power. To curtail these risks, governments need to strengthen current international anti-proliferation efforts to, among other things, give the International Atomic Energy Agency more information about a country's nuclear-related activities and IAEA inspectors greater access to suspect locations. Further, current fuel-reprocessing techniques are limited and new processing technologies are being developed to limit the amount and accessibility of weapons-grade materials (by, for instance, producing a form of plutonium that needs further reprocessing before it could be used in bombs).

The civil nuclear energy industry slows the spread of nuclear weapons. Grimston & Beck, 2 - *Director of Talks for UK Atomic Energy Authority, Adviser to British Nuclear Industry Forum, and Senior Research fellow at Imperial College, University of London. **Chemical Engineer, retired planning director for Shell UK Ltd and former president of European Strategic Planning Federation. (Malcolm C. Grimston and Peter Beck, Double or Quits?: The Global Future of Civil Nuclear Energy, p.135 ) It can be argued that a civil nuclear industry based in the developed world can play, and has played, a role in slowing the spread of nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT), for example, offers help in developing civil nuclear power to states that undertake not to divert the resulting materials or skills towards a military programme and that accept verification procedures from the international community. In effect, aid in developing civil nuclear energy is being used as a 'carrot' to encourage countries not to develop weapons. These procedures might include inspection visits and other monitoring activities. Failure to abide by the provisions of the treaty could result in an international enforcement response, including export controls, sanctions, embargoes and legal action.

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Non-Unique – Global Nuke Power decreasing Nuclear power is dead – growth is slow and leveling off Hanley, 08 (Paul, “Nuclear industry spins new mythology”, 6/24, The Star Pheonix (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan), lexis) A second myth is that nuclear is now gaining worldwide acceptance, that it is experiencing a kind of renaissance. The reality is quite different. Global nuclear capacity stands at 372,000 megawatts, but its growth rate is lower than any other energy source. Growth was just 0.5 per cent in 2007, compared to 27 per cent for wind energy. In total, global nuclear power capacity grew by less than 2,000 megawatts in 2007, a figure equivalent to just one-tenth of the new wind power installed globally that year. By the end of 2007, reports the Worldwatch Institute, 34 nuclear reactors were being built worldwide. Twelve have been under construction for 20 years or more. Meanwhile, more than 124 reactors have been retired by the commercial nuclear industry since 1964, reducing capacity by 36,800 megawatts. A recent Time magazine article, Is Nuclear Viable?, reports that the American nuclear industry is so unattractive that it is unable to attract private investment. While the red-hot renewable industry, including wind and solar, attracted $71 billion in private investment last year, the nuclear industry attracted nothing.

Global nuclear power is leveling off Riccio, 08 - Nuclear Policy Analyst at Greenpeace (Jim, World Watch, “Nuclear Power Crawling Forward,” http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5447) In 2007, global installed capacity of nuclear power grew by less than 2,000 megawatts to 372,000 megawatts.1 (See Figure 1.) The slight growth in nuclear power is attributable to the addition of three new reactors in India, China, and Romania.2 The new nuclear capacity is equivalent to just one tenth of the new wind power installed globally in 2007.3 Rising gas prices and concern about the carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants have fueled growing interest in nuclear power in many nations.4 But only four countries began building new nuclear reactors in 2007: China, France, Russia, and South Korea.5 The seven new reactors being built in those countries will account for 5,190 megawatts of new nuclear capacity-about 100 megawatts less than was added in 2006.6 (See Figure 2.) No nuclear reactors were permanently shut down in 2007.7 Since 1964, however, the commercial nuclear industry has retired 124 reactors, amounting to a total of 36,800 megawatts of generating capacity.8 (See Figure 3.) By the end of 2007, some 34 reactors were under construction worldwide, but 12 of these units have been under construction for 20 years or more.9 In the Americas, only two reactors are being built, in the United States and Argentina; both began construction in the 1980s.10 In Western Europe two reactors are being built, in Finland and France.11 In Eastern Europe, reactors are under construction in Bulgaria and Ukraine (two each), Slovakia (two), and Romania (one).12 In Russia, seven reactors-totaling 4,585 megawatts of electric capacity-are being built; four of these have been in construction for two decades.13 Russia is completing a fast-breeder reactor, which produces more nuclear fuel that it consumes and which uses plutonium, highly enriched uranium, or even mixed oxide fuel rather than the conventional fuel, uranium.14 In addition, construction has begun on two 30-megawatt reactors that will be placed on barges to provide power to remote regions.15

Global nuclear power decreasing now Flavin, 6 –Christopher, President of World Watch Institute (“Brave Nuclear World?/Commentary: Nuclear revival? Don’t bet on it!”, July/august, Vol. 19, pg. 12, Proquest Globally, nuclear power is more likely to decline than to increase in the coming years, because more than half the world's nuclear power plants are over 20 years old. At least 70 nuclear plants would have to be built in the next decade just to replace those that are projected to be closed. This is virtually inconceivable, given that only 14 are now under construction. Meanwhile, world electricity demand is projected to grow by more than 30 percent (the equivalent of more than 500 nuclear power plants) during this same period.

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Non-Unique – US nuclear power decreasing The nuclear industry won’t expand on its own Van Namen, 08 - Senior Vice President, Uranium Enrichment USEC Inc. (Robert, CQ Congressional Testimony, 4/23, lexis) Those are some of the positives, but the need for government action remains. Despite legislation passed by Congress to encourage the expansion of nuclear power, the implementation of legislative directives at the agency level has often been out of step with real-world timeframes. The delay in implementing the Loan Guarantee program, for instance, may prevent new nuclear facilities from coming online as soon as possible because companies may have to delay or cancel their projects. The NRC also faces a funding shortfall from its budget request that may force it to defer or delay the review of applications for new projects. Specifically in nuclear fuel, domestic producers need legislative support to backup the Russian Suspension Agreement Amendment to ensure that the U.S. government can enforce recently agreed terms that allow measured Russian access to the U.S. market while permitting our domestic industry time to secure contracts needed to secure financing for new mines and production facilities. Additionally, near- and medium-term support for the Paducah plant with a contract to enrich DOE's high-assay tails would ensure that it remains available to meet the needs of domestic utilities past 2012, a period when the new centrifuge facilities will be starting up operations. As mentioned before, DOE needs to complete its plan for managing and selling its uranium inventories to provide the market, and specifically miners and enrichers, clarity on how DOE's inventory will affect supply and demand during the next decade. Finally, any assistance with education, job development, and infrastructure improvements in the next few years will go a long way to assisting us with creating a stable, long-term nuclear fuel industry in the United States.

Wall Street is not investing in nuclear power now Gelinas, 07-- Chief Executive “Is Wall Street Ready to Go Nuclear?” Nicole.. New York: Sep 2007. , Iss. 228; pg. 42, 5 pgs CEOs across the economy are feeling the squeeze of higher power prices, and these prices likely will rise even more if the US government enacts a law to control domestic greenhouse gas emissions. However, high power prices and a push toward power sources that release fewer such emissions mean opportunity for one sector of the economy: nuclear power. Although no company has opened a new nuclear power plant on American soil in 30 years, at first glance, there are good reasons to believe in a resurgence. Today, companies can apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a single license to build and operate a plant, an improvement over the old two-step process. But skepticism abounds, particularly within the financing community. So far, Wall Street is not biting. The markets are not going to support it, said one veteran from Wall Street who attended a recent Manhattan Institute conference on nuclear power.

Only external factors that alter the perception of nuclear competitiveness can attract new investment Numark and Terry, 03 – Neil and Michael, *President @ Numark Associtates and **member @ Sustainable Energy Institute + Senior Associate @ Numark Associates (“New Nuclear Construction: Still On Hold”, December 2003, http://www.pur.com/pubs/4310.cfm) Despite the greatly improved operational efficiency of existing plants, and the improved economies of scale resulting from industry restructuring, the investment community remains generally skeptical of new projects in competitive electricity generation. Wall Street is shying away from construction of any type of new plant until debts from the recent merchant energy fiasco are paid off. Power industry stocks have suffered major losses, especially those companies relying heavily on natural gas. Most of the failures to date have been in the merchant energy sector and were a result of over-investment in gas-fired units. However, Wall Street does have some special concerns about nuclear investment, based on uncertain construction costs and risks to company earnings during potentially protracted construction of the first new nuclear plants. Moreover, the investment community views the potential for accidents, and concerns about nuclear waste and terrorism directed at the nuclear industry, as risks that must be taken into account. The companies that could build the new nuclear units also remain skeptical, concerned that in a competitive environment they cannot afford to tie up a large investment for several years before any earnings on that investment will materialize. Thomas Capps, chairman of Dominion Resources, put it the most bluntly, in recent comments to Public Utilities Fortnightly: "Right now I don't think anyone in this country is going to build another nuclear plant. We certainly are not. There is too much risk."11

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Don’t Trade Off Renewables and nuclear energy aren’t exclusive Kerekes, 2007 (Steven, Senior Director at the Nuclear Energy Institute, CFR, “Nuclear Power in Response to Climate Change”, November 9, http://www.cfr.org/publication/14718/nuclear_power_in_response_to_climate_change.html, REQ) I love it! Now Michael’s knock on nuclear energy is that it’s a “mature” technology—meaning not so much that it’s been around for a while but that it’s actually generated huge amounts of emission-free electricity. Setting aside the fact that the sun and the wind have been around since, say, the dawn of time, here’s what the Cato Institute—no friend of government investment in nuclear energy—revealed in a January 2002 “Policy Analysis”: “R&D dollars have not handicapped renewable energy technologies. Over the past 20 years, those technologies have received (in inflation-adjusted 1996 dollars) $24.2 billion in federal R&D subsidies, while nuclear energy has received $20.1 billion and fossil fuels only $15.5 billion.” So it’s a complete myth that Michael’s preferred technologies haven’t gotten the money. They have. In fact, nuclear and renewables make a nice, emission-free combination. Of course, renewables cannot meet baseload, 24-hour a day, seven-day a week electricity demand. Nuclear power can. Our industry average capacity factor—which measures actual electricity production relative to theoretical production non-stop for a full year—has been right around 90 percent for the past seven years. By comparison, the Department of Energy pegs the average capacity for state-of-the-art wind projects at 36 percent, with older projects lagging at 30 percent or lower. I agree that it’s prudent to use limited resources wisely. Yet the investment resources for energy technologies aren’t as limited as Michael thinks. Morgan Stanley Vice Chairman Jeffrey Holzschuh has a presentation in which he notes that the U.S. utility industry investment needs for the next thirteen years total about $1 trillion. Of that total infrastructure need, $350 billion, or $23 billion per year, is needed for electric-generating facilities. Of that sum, the capital required to build an additional 15,000-20,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity over the next fifteen years is about $3.5 billion per year. Meanwhile, over the past five years, the investment capital raised by the U.S. power industry has ranged between $50 billion and $79 billion annually. In other words, new nuclear plant construction will barely make a dent in the ability of U.S. capital markets to finance new energy projects. This is not an “either-or” scenario. We need all these emission-free energy technologies. The fact that nuclear energy has proven its value as a reliable, affordable source of clean energy is cause for hope.

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Subsidies mean nuke power inevitable Current subsidies make nuclear power more cost effective than renewables or efficiency Shrader-Frechette, 08 - teaches biological sciences and philosophy at the University of Notre Dame (Krisitin, “Five Myths About Nuclear Energy”, American Magazine, 6/23, http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10884) Achieving greater energy efficiency, however, also requires ending the lopsided system of taxpayer nuclear subsidies that encourage the myth of inexpensive electricity from atomic power. Since 1949, the U.S. government has provided about $165 billion in subsidies to nuclear energy, about $5 billion to solar and wind together, and even less to energy-efficiency programs. All government efficiency programs—to encourage use of fuel-efficient cars, for example, or to provide financial assistance so that low-income citizens can insulate their homes—currently receive only a small percentage of federal energy monies.

Subsidies to nuclear power mean the debate is about fossil fuels vs. nuclear power – renewables and energy efficiency won’t happen Cochran, 08 - Senior Scientist, Nuclear Program Natural Resources Defense Council (Thomas, CQ Congressional Testimony, 4/23, lexis) //DH Subsidizing new nuclear plants through direct federal cost sharing, a production tax credit, and tens of billions in federally subsidized and guaranteed debt will not remove new- build nuclear's cost disadvantage vis-a-vis other energy sources. Rather it will tend to disguise and even prolong these cost disadvantages, thereby penalizing and slowing investments in less costly demandside energy management programs energy efficiency, and an array of electricity supply options that can provide carbon offsets more quickly, cheaply and safely than nuclear power. Unlike the wind and solar industries, after fifty years of operations, the nuclear reactor industry displays no consistent trend toward lower unit costs in manufacturing and construction, so it seems unlikely that further subsidies at this late date will serve to catalyze major cost reductions.

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Nuke Leadership fails U.S. nuclear leadership fails – overall nuclear hypocrisy makes prolif and terrorism inevitable Caldicott, 6 – Founder and President of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute (Helen, Nuclear Power is not the answer, pg. 134-135)CP

In light of terrorist attacks using conventional weapons, it is only a matter of time before someone steals enough plutonium to make an adequate nuclear weapon. Then we proceed into the age of nuclear terrorism. Meanwhile, with the world awash in plutonium and highly enriched uranium, the Bush administration pursues its own nuclear armament development policy that makes it increasingly likely that a rogue nation will procure and possibly use nuclear weapons. The United States has adopted three contradictory stances at the same time: It is aggressively forging ahead to build more nuclear weapons, stating that it will use them preemptively even against non-nuclear nations. It is instrumental in denying the right to build nuclear weapons to all but a handful of countries. In the context of promoting nuclear energy, it has offered dozens of countries nuclear technology and access to nuclear power fuel. The fission process makes plutonium, which can then be separated by reprocessing and converted to fuel for nuclear weapons. While the Bush proposal includes taking the spent fuel back to the United States, it is not clear that that process can be undertaken with no cheating. Thus, even as there is much hand-wringing at the United Nations about the possibility that Iran and North Korea may be developing nuclear weapons, eight nation-states-Russia, the United States, France, China, Britain, India, Israel, and Pakistan-possess their own nuclear arsenals, and others are free to develop weapons without the admonitions that the United States and the United Nations are imposing upon Iran and North Korea. This strange juxtaposition of opposing attitudes needs to be examined in the context of the sixty-five-year history of nuclear fission and related weapons development.

US nuclear hypocrisy undermines nonproliferation credibility Caldicott, 6 – Founder and President of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute (Helen, Nuclear Power is not the answer, pg. 139-140)CP

With this situation as background, the Bush administration has adopted some very provocative and dangerous policies-all of them in direct violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty which inevitably have led and will continue to lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in other countries. For example, although the Cold War is over, a new semi-autonomous agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration, was established by Congress in the year 2000 within the Department of Energy to oversee the development and production of new nuclear weapons. Los Alamos National Labs has just produced its first trigger for an atomic bomb since the Cold War ended, a sphere of finely honed and lathed plutonium that nuclear scientists call a "pit." Los Alamos Labs have the capacity to produce 30-40 pits a year, and the plan of one DOE study is to make 500 new American hydrogen bombs annually, comparable to Cold War rates. Because hydrogen bombs need tritium radioactive hydrogens for their fusion mechanism, the United States is also now proceeding to manufacture tritium at the Tennessee Valley Authority Watts Barr commercial nuclear power plant in Tennessee, which is then sent to the Savannah River site in South Carolina to be extracted by a new Tritium Extraction Facility. This is the first time since 1992 that tritium for nuclear weapons has been produced in the United States, and this is one of the few times that commercial and military enterprises have been combined in the United States.

On the strategic front, the Bush administration has drafted a revised plan allowing military commanders to request presidential approval to use nuclear weapons to pre-ernpt an attack by a nation or terrorist group deemed to be planning to use weapons of mass destruction. These military commanders will also be permitted to use nuclear weapons to destroy known enemy stockpiles of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. The document says that preparations must be made to use nuclear weapons and to show determination to use them "if necessary to prevent or retaliate against WMD use." The United States has always had a "first-use" policy against nuclear-armed nations, but now this strategy is also being applied to non-nuclear nations for the first time. The "revised plan" reflects a preemptive nuclear strategy first enunciated by the White House in 2002.22 Had this strategy been in place before the invasion of Iraq, a nuclear attack could have been

justified to "take out" Iraq's imaginary weapons of mass destruction. Other disturbing features of this document include authorization of the use of nuclear weapons against states without WMDs to counter potentially overwhelming conventional adversaries, to secure a rapid end of a war on U.S. terms, or to "ensure success of U.S. and multinational operations." The draft document also gives the Pentagon permission to deploy nuclear weapons-in parts of the world where their future use is considered most likely, and it urges troops to train constantly for nuclear warfare. Although Congress voted in 2004 to discontinue research on the earth-penetrating nuclear bunker buster, this draft document calls for its continued development, and the U.S. Senate voted in July 2005 to revivify the bunker buster.

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Nuke Leadership – alternate causes The failure to accept spent fuel undermines U.S. nuclear leadership BENGELSDORF, 07 – consultant and former director of both key State and Energy Department offices that are concerned with international nuclear and nonproliferation affair (HAROLD, “THE U.S. DOMESTIC CIVIL NUCLEAR INFRASTRUCTURE AND U.S. NONPROLIFERATION POLICY”, White Paper prepared for the American Council on Global Nuclear Competitiveness, May, http://www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org/images/COUNCIL_WHITE_PAPER_Final.pdf) //DH During the last several decades, the U.S. has been struggling to implement a national policy for management of commercial spent nuclear fuel, independently of whether it will result in direct disposal of the spent fuel or reprocessing and recycle. In fact, the U.S. Government is presently in protracted litigation with most U.S. utilities for monetary damages associated with DOE's inability to accept their spent fuel and dispose of it as called for in contracts that it has with each of these customers. One adverse implication that this may have on U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy is that it seriously undermines the ability of the U.S. to offer fuel leasing or cradle- to-grave fuel cycle services to foreign countries. The ability to make such offers could be a valuable tool for discouraging the spread of sensitive nuclear technologies.

Addressing nuclear waste is a prerequisite to nuclear leadership BENGELSDORF, 07 – consultant and former director of both key State and Energy Department offices that are concerned with international nuclear and nonproliferation affair (HAROLD, “THE U.S. DOMESTIC CIVIL NUCLEAR INFRASTRUCTURE AND U.S. NONPROLIFERATION POLICY”, White Paper prepared for the American Council on Global Nuclear Competitiveness, May, http://www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org/images/COUNCIL_WHITE_PAPER_Final.pdf) //DH Importance of Resolving the Nuclear Waste Issue In this connection, one the of the most severe challenges facing the nonproliferation regime in the years ahead is to prevent the spread of sensitive nuclear fuel cycle facilities such as enrichment and reprocessing plants. The goal of establishing fuel leasing or cradle-to-grave programs by the U.S. is an important component of GNEP, and, if achieved, it could prove to be far more effective than other approaches in discouraging the spread of enrichment and reprocessing facilities. The countries that are likely to have the greatest interest in a cradle-to-grave program will be those with small or modest-size nuclear power programs that would likely face serious technical, economic and political problems in managing their spent fuel or disposing of their nuclear wastes. The ability of the United States to offer nuclear fuel leasing or cradle-to grave fuel cycle services to other states on a broad basis faces formidable hurdles. The U.S. Government is already in breach of its contract with domestic owners and operators of nuclear power plants to have begun acceptance of their commercial spent nuclear fuel in 1998 in fulfillment of its obligations under the National Waste Policy Act. The Yucca Mountain Project continues to face formidable legal, regulatory and budgetary obstacles that must be overcome if spent fuel is ever to be shipped to that site for disposal. In addition, the statutory limit that was established by Congress of 70,000 metric tons of uranium for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository is significantly less than the amount of spent fuel that will be discharged by the nuclear power plants that are presently operating in the U.S. during their lifetimes. Materially reducing the volume of waste that will have to be disposed of in the U.S. has been one of the major motivating forces behind the R&D objectives of GNEP to develop new advanced closed fuel cycles. However, even though Yucca Mountain may have the physical capacity to store more than 130,000 tons of spent fuel, Congress must take a separate action to authorize it to go beyond its present statutory limit. Aside from capacity limits, there remain numerous legal, technical and regulatory issues that must be resolved before the Yucca Mountain repository will become operational even for domestic spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste. In the absence of legislative changes by Congress, the present statutory capacity of Yucca Mountain will be fully utilized to accommodate domestic civilian and government spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste. All this suggests that the ability of the United States to resolve its own difficulties in managing its spent fuel and nuclear wastes will be crucial to maintaining the credibility of the U.S. nuclear power program and will be vital to implementing important new nonproliferation initiatives designed to discourage the spread of sensitive nuclear facilities to other countries.

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Nuke Power causes prolif Expanding nuclear power increases the risk of terrorism and proliferation Shrader-Frechette, 08 - teaches biological sciences and philosophy at the University of Notre Dame (Krisitin, “Five Myths About Nuclear Energy”, American Magazine, 6/23, http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10884) Myth 4. Nuclear Energy Will Not Increase Weapons Proliferation Pursuing nuclear power also perpetuates the myth that increasing atomic energy, and thus increasing uranium enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing, will increase neither terrorism nor proliferation of nuclear weapons. This myth has been rejected by both the International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment. More nuclear plants means more weapons materials, which means more targets, which means a higher risk of terrorism and proliferation. The government admits that Al Qaeda already has targeted U.S. reactors, none of which can withstand attack by a large airplane. Such an attack, warns the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, could cause fatalities as far away as 500 miles and destruction 10 times worse than that caused by the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986. Nuclear energy actually increases the risks of weapons proliferation because the same technology used for civilian atomic power can be used for weapons, as the cases of India, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Pakistan illustrate. As the Swedish Nobel Prize winner Hannes Alven put it, “The military atom and the civilian atom are Siamese twins.” Yet if the world stopped building nuclear-power plants, bomb ingredients would be harder to acquire, more conspicuous and more costly politically, if nations were caught trying to obtain them. Their motives for seeking nuclear materials would be unmasked as military, not civilian.

Nuclear powerplants are vulnerable to diversion to proliferation- Japan proves Assadourian, 03 - research associate at Worldwatch Institute (Erik, “The new clear threat”, World Watch, May/Jun 2003, Vol. 16, Iss. 3; pg. 30, World Watch @ Proquest)/AK While proponents of nuclear power argue that it is a cheap and clean alternative to fossil fuels because it does not produce air pollution, nuclear energy is not a viable alternative to renewable energy. Besides creating waste that remains lethal for millennia, nuclear power costs two to three times more than wind power (10-14 cents per kilowatthour, compared to 4-6 cents). It is also a massive environmental and security threat. In 2002, at the Davis-Besse power plant in Ohio, boric acid ate a hole through the 17cm thick reactor vessel head. Just half a centimeter of stainless steel prevented the escape of pressurized coolant, which could have triggered a reactor meltdown. In addition, nuclear plants are often unsecured against terrorist attack. In January, 19 Greenpeace activists stormed the U.K.'s Sizewell power plant, scaling the reactor without resistance. The goal was simply to expose the plant's vulnerability, but if the intruders had been actual terrorists the result would have been catastrophic. Finally, nuclear materials have also been known to disappear, and not just in Russia; early this year, the Japanese government admitted that it could not account for 206 kilograms of plutonium-enough to make 30 to 40 bombs.

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Nuke Power Bad – meltdowns shell An accident is inevitable – more power plants increase the probability of catastrophic meltdowns Coplan, 6 - Associate Professor of Law, Pace University School of Law (Karl S, “THE INTERCIVILIZATIONAL INEQUITIES OF NUCLEAR POWER WEIGHED AGAINST THE INTERGENERATIONAL INEQUITIES OF CARBON BASED ENERGY,” 17 Fordham Envtl. Law Rev. 227, Symposium, 2006)

<Every

operating nuclear power plant poses some risk of a severe accident, including an uncontrolled nuclear reaction that leads to core meltdown and potentially huge releases of radioactivity into the environment. The nuclear industry estimates the chances of a severe reactor accident to be about one out of every 10,000 reactor years of operation. 98 While this may sound like a small risk, it means that with 100 operating nuclear power plants in the United States, we can expect one severe accident every 100 years. If these 100 plants keep operating indefinitely into the future, or are replaced in kind to mitigate global carbon emissions, a severe reactor accident is virtually certain in this country in the future. Moreover, if we were to construct the 200 additional nuclear power plants in this country necessary to meet the Phase I carbon [*244] reductions contemplated by the Kyoto Protocol, 99 that same one-in-ten thousand chance of a severe reactor accident would turn into an expectation of one severe reactor accident every thirty years. Combined with all the other nuclear reactors around the world - and assuming that all such reactors are at least as safe and well operated as those in the United States - severe nuclear reactor accidents would be expected to occur ever few years.>

These meltdowns cause extinction Wasserman, 01 - Senior Editor – Free Press (Harvey, “America's Terrorist Nuclear Threat to Itself”, October, http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2001/10/00_wasserman_nuclear-threat.htm)

The intense radioactive heat within today's operating reactors is the hottest anywhere on the planet. So are the hellish levels of radioactivity. Because Indian Point has operated so long, its accumulated radioactive burden far exceeds that of Chernobyl, which ran only four years before it exploded. Some believe the WTC jets could have collapsed or breached either of the Indian Point containment domes. But at very least the massive impact and intense jet fuel fire would destroy the human ability to control the plants' functions. Vital cooling systems, backup power generators and communications networks would crumble. Indeed, Indian Point Unit One was shut because activists warned that its lack of an emergency core cooling system made it an unacceptable risk. The government ultimately agreed. But today terrorist attacks could destroy those same critical cooling and control systems that are vital to not only the Unit Two and Three reactor cores, but to the spent fuel pools that sit

The assault would not require a large jet. The safety systems are extremely complex and virtually indefensible. One or more could be wiped out with a wide range of easily deployed small aircraft, ground-based weapons, truck bombs or even chemical/biological assaults aimed at the operating work force. Dozens of US reactors have repeatedly failed even modest security tests over the years. Even heightened wartime standards cannot guarantee protection of the vast, supremely sensitive controls required for reactor safety. Without continous monitoring and guaranteed water flow, the thousands of tons of radioactive rods in the cores and the thousands more stored in those fragile pools would rapidly melt into super-hot radioactive balls of lava that would burn into the ground and the water table and, ultimately, the Hudson. on site.

Indeed, a jetcrash like the one on 9/11 or other forms of terrorist assault at Indian Point could yield three infernal fireballs of molten radioactive lava burning through the earth and into the aquifer and the river. Striking water they would blast gigantic billows of horribly radioactive steam into the atmosphere. Prevailing winds from the north and west might initially drive these clouds of mass death downriver into New York City and east into Westchester and Long Island. But at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, winds ultimately shifted around the compass to irradiate all surrounding areas with the devastating poisons released by the on-going fiery torrent. At Indian Point, thousands of square miles would have been saturated with the most lethal clouds ever created or imagined, depositing relentless genetic poisons that would kill forever. In nearby communities like Buchanan, Nyack, Monsey and scores more, infants and small children would quickly die en masse. Virtually all pregnant women would spontaneously abort, or ultimately give birth to horribly deformed offspring. Ghastly sores, rashes, ulcerations and burns would afflict the skin of millions. Emphysema, heart attacks, stroke, multiple organ failure, hair loss, nausea, inability to eat or drink or swallow, diarrhea and incontinance, sterility and impotence, asthma, blindness, and more would kill thousands on the spot, and doom hundreds of thousands if not millions. A terrible metallic taste would afflict virtually everyone downwind in New York, New Jersey and New England, a ghoulish curse similar to that endured by the fliers who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagaskai, by those living downwind from nuclear bomb tests in the south seas and Nevada, and by victims caught in the downdrafts from Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Then comes the abominable wave of cancers, leukemias, lymphomas, tumors and hellish diseases for which new names will

those who survived the initial wave of radiation would envy those who did not.

have to be invented, and new dimensions of agony will beg description. Indeed, Evacuation would be impossible, but thousands would die trying. Bridges and highways would become killing fields for those attempting to escape to destinations that would soon enough become equally deadly as the winds shifted. Attempts to quench the fires would be futile. At Chernobyl, pilots flying helicopters that dropped boron on the fiery core died in droves. At Indian Point, such missions would be a sure ticket to death. Their utility would

the molten cores rage uncontrolled for days, weeks and years, spewing ever more devastation into the eco-sphere.

be doubtful as More than 800,000 Soviet draftees were forced through Chernobyl's seething remains in a futile attempt to clean it up. They are dying in droves. Who would now volunteer for such an American task force? The radioactive cloud from Chernobyl blanketed the vast Ukraine and Belarus landscape, then carried over Europe and into the jetstream, surging through the west coast of the United States within ten days, carrying

The radioactive clouds from Indian Point would enshroud New York, New Jersey, New England, and carry deep into the Atlantic and up into Canada and across to Europe and around the globe again and again. The immediate damage would render thousands of the world's most populous and expensive square miles permanently uninhabitable. All five boroughs of New York City would be an apocalyptic wasteland. The World Trade Center would be rendered as unusable and even more lethal by a jet crash at Indian Point than it was by across our northern tier, circling the globe, then coming back again.

the direct hits of 9/11. All real estate and economic value would be poisonously radioactive throughout the entire region. Irreplaceable trillions in human capital would be forever lost. As at Three Mile Island, where thousands of farm and wild animals died in heaps, and as at Chernobyl, where soil, water and plant life have been hopelessly irradiated, natural eco-systems on which human and all other

Spiritually, psychologically, financially, ecologically, our nation would never recover.

life depends would be permanently and irrevocably destroyed, This is what we missed by a mere forty miles near New York City on September 11. Now that we are at war, this is what could be happening as you read this.

There are 103 of these potential Bombs of the Apocalypse now operating in the United States. They generate just 18% of America's electricity, just 8% of our total energy. As with reactors elsewhere, the two at Indian Point have both been off-line for long periods of time with no appreciable impact on life in New York. Already an extremely expensive source of

, the cost of attempting to defend these reactors will put nuclear energy even further off the competitive scale.

electricity Since its deregulation crisis, California---already the nation's second-most efficient state---cut further into its electric consumption by some 15%. Within a year the US could cheaply replace virtually with increased efficiency all the reactors now so much more expensive to operate and protect. Yet, as the bombs fall and the terror escalates, Congress is fast-tracking a form of legal immunity to protect the operators of reactors like Indian Point from liability in case of a meltdown or terrorist attack. Why is our nation handing its proclaimed enemies the weapons of our own mass destruction, and then shielding from liability the companies that insist on continuing to operate them? Do we take this war seriously? Are we committed to the survival of our nation? If so,

the ticking reactor bombs that could obliterate the very core of our life and of

all future generations must be shut down.

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Nuke Power Da Aff & Neg

Georgia Novice Packet

A2 – nuke power solves warming Nuclear power can’t solve warming – it would require one reactor a week for 52 years Caldicott, 6 – Founder and President of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute (Helen, Nuclear Power is not the answer, pg. 16-17)CP Setting aside the energetic costs of the whole fuel cycle, and looking just at the Nuclear Industry's claim that what transpires in the nuclear plants is "clean and green," the following conditions would have to be met for nuclear power actually to make the substantial contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions that the industry claims is possible (this analysis assumes 2% or more growth in global electricity demand): •All present-day nuclear power plants-441-would have to be replaced by new ones. •Half the electricity growth would have to be provided by nuclear power. •Half of all the world's coal fired plants would have to be replaced by nuclear power plants.28 This would mean the construction over the next fifty years of some 2,000 to 3,000 nuclear reactors of 1,000 megawatt size-one per week for fifty years! Considering the eight to ten years it takes to construct a new reactor and the finite supply of uranium fuel, such an enterprise is simply not viable.

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Nuke Power Da Aff & Neg

Georgia Novice Packet

A2 – nuke power solves oil dependence Nuclear power can’t solve oil dependence- it’s a drop in the bucket CFR, 2006 (Lionel Beehner, “Chernobyl, Nuclear Power, and Foreign Policy”, April 25, http://www.cfr.org/publication/10534/chernobyl_nuclear_power_and_foreign_policy.html, REQ) Some experts say the revival of nuclear power may improve America's energy security and reduce its dependency on countries like Saudi Arabia for its energy needs. But Ferguson says that any new nuclear plants built, while reducing the United States' use of coal, would constitute "a drop in the bucket" in terms of affecting its overall supply, and would have little effect on reducing its addiction to overseas oil. "Nuclear power is not going to lessen our need for oil unless we do something to improve the efficiency of trucks and other automobiles," he says. The growing use of nuclear power abroad, however, may affect U.S. foreign policy because of its role in alleviating global warming and curbing greenhouse gases. It may also affect the U.S. relationship with Russia and other post-Soviet states like Ukraine, as countries in the region seek sources of energy outside of the Kremlin's control, and increasingly look to Washington to help finance their nuclear ambitions. Then, of course, there is the threat posed by civilian nuclear-power programs evolving into offensive nuclear-arms programs, something U.S. policymakers say is happening in Iran and North Korea.

Nuclear power reinforces energy dependence Shrader-Frechette, 08 - teaches biological sciences and philosophy at the University of Notre Dame (Krisitin, “Five Myths About Nuclear Energy”, American Magazine, 6/23, http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10884) From an economic perspective, atomic power is inefficient at addressing climate change because dollars used for more expensive, higher-emissions nuclear energy cannot be used for cheaper, lower-emissions renewable energy. Atomic power is also not sustainable. Because of dwindling uranium supplies, by the year 2050 reactors would be forced to use low-grade uranium ore whose greenhouse emissions would roughly equal those of natural gas. Besides, because the United States imports nearly all its uranium, pursuing nuclear power continues the dangerous pattern of dependency on foreign sources to meet domestic energy needs.

Nuclear power is vulnerable to uranium price spikes Sovacool, 07 - Senior Research Fellow for the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research and professor of Government and International Affairs at Virginia Tech (Benjamin, “What's Really Wrong With Nuclear Power?,” 11/30, http://scitizen.com/stories/Future-Energies/2007/11/What-s-Really-Wrong-With-Nuclear-Power/) //DH From a political standpoint nuclear plants degrade energy security in three ways. First, they make countries more dependent on imported and interruptible fuels that have large price spikes. The cost of uranium, for instance, jumped from $7.25 per pound in 2001 to $47.25 per pound in 2006, and the Nuclear Energy Agency reports that fuel counts for 15 percent of the lifetime costs of a nuclear plant.

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