Wham Nuclear Power Supplement

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Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret...........................................................................................................................3 Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret ..........................................................................................................................4 Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret...........................................................................................................................5 Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret ..........................................................................................................................6 Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret ..........................................................................................................................7 Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret ..........................................................................................................................8 Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret ..........................................................................................................................9 Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret ........................................................................................................................10 Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret .......................................................................................................................11 Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret .......................................................................................................................12 Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret ........................................................................................................................13 Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret ........................................................................................................................14 ADV US-Russian relations.........................................................................................................................................15 ADV Poverty................................................................................................................................................................16 ADD ON Soft Power...................................................................................................................................................17 AT CA they say “China and India stop solvency”...................................................................................................19 AT CA they say “Proliferation good”........................................................................................................................21 AT CA they say “Global warming stops the ice age”...............................................................................................22 AT CA they say “Backstopping”................................................................................................................................24 AT CP Loan guarantees..............................................................................................................................................26 AT CP Russian international repository...................................................................................................................27 AT CP Sub Seabed disposal .......................................................................................................................................28 AT CP Space Disposal Repositories...........................................................................................................................31 AT CP Ice Sheet Repositories.....................................................................................................................................32 AT CP Remote Island disposal...................................................................................................................................34 AT CP Reprocessing instead of repository................................................................................................................36 AT CP Reprocessing – it causes proliferation extensions........................................................................................38 AT CP Reprocessing – it’s expensive extensions......................................................................................................39 AT CP States................................................................................................................................................................40 AT CP States doesn’t solve proliferation extensions................................................................................................44 AT CP States no jurisdiction extensions...................................................................................................................45 AT CP States lack of consolidation increases terrorism risk extensions................................................................46 AT CP Alternative Energy generic............................................................................................................................47 AT DA Coal..................................................................................................................................................................48 AT DA Politics they say “plan is unpopular”...........................................................................................................49 AT DA Politics they say “plan is popular”................................................................................................................51 AT DA Politics they say “Plan costs political capital”.............................................................................................52 AT DA Politics Obama Good – Iran scenario...........................................................................................................53 AT DA Politics Obama good – Global Gag Rule Scenario......................................................................................55 AT DA Politics Obama good – Global Gag Rule Scenario species loss won’t cause extinction extensions........63 AT DA Politics McCain good – LOST BAD scenario..............................................................................................65 AT DA Russian oil ......................................................................................................................................................67 AT DA: Silver..............................................................................................................................................................71 AT K Framework........................................................................................................................................................73 AT K Generic...............................................................................................................................................................76 AT K Capitalism – Version........................................................................................................................................83 AT K Capitalism – Short Version.............................................................................................................................85 AT K Economic Management – Externalization Module.......................................................................................87 AT K Free Market Environmentalism......................................................................................................................88 AT K Native Americans ............................................................................................................................................89 AT K You Hurt the Poor.............................................................................................................................................91 AT T they say “Nuclear isn’t an alternative energy”...............................................................................................94 AT T Nuclear isn’t an alternative energy – contextual evidence extensions..........................................................97 AT T Only renewables are topical.............................................................................................................................98 AT T Only renewables are topical – contextual evidence extensions...................................................................101 AT T – Substantially.................................................................................................................................................102 GNEP.........................................................................................................................................................................103

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*******MORE NEGATIVE*******......................................................................................................................105 CP Russian international depository.......................................................................................................................106 DA Politics links - International repositories are unpopular................................................................................110 DA Yucca bad – links................................................................................................................................................112 DA Terrorism – Impacts...........................................................................................................................................113

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Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret Contention 1: Inherency Despite a host of incentives the nuclear industry needs one more – a place for waste disposal. Frank N. von Hippel, a nuclear physicist, professor of public and international affairs in Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, prior assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, April/May 2008, “Nuclear Fuel Recycling: More Trouble Than It's Worth”, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=rethinking-nuclear-fuelrecycling&page=5, VP Although a dozen years have elapsed since any new nuclear power reactor has come online in the U.S., there are now stirrings of a nuclear renaissance. The incentives are certainly in place: the costs of natural gas and oil have skyrocketed; the public increasingly objects to the greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels; and the federal government has offered up to $8 billion in subsidies and insurance against delays in licensing (with new laws to streamline the process) and $18.5 billion in loan guarantees. What more could the moribund nuclear power industry possibly want? Just one thing: a place to ship its used reactor fuel. Indeed, the lack of a disposal site remains a dark cloud hanging over the entire enterprise. The projected opening of a federal waste storage repository in Yucca Mountain in Nevada (now anticipated for 2017 at the earliest) has already slipped by two decades, and the cooling pools holding spent fuel at the nation’s nuclear power plants are running out of space.

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Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret Plan: The United States Federal Government should pursue a dual track approach to nuclear waste storage allowing interim dry cask storage and developing a permanent repository.

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Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret Contention 2: Solvency The plan would save the nuclear power industry. Charles D. Ferguson, Council on Foreign Relations28, APRIL 2007 “NUCLEAR ENERGY AT A CROSSROADS”(DS) – Lexis, dru The waste storage problem in the United States is manageable. The United States should pursue a dual-track approach: commit to developing a consensus and then opening up a permanent repository and in parallel store as much spent fuel as possible in dry casks that are hardened against attack at existing reactor sites. The combination of interim storage and commitment to a permanent repository would provide the assurances needed by the public and the investment community for continued use of nuclear power.

And, New technology makes nuclear power more effective and safer. James M. Taylor 12/1/06 “MIT Scientists Find a Nuclear Fuel Design that Is Safer and More Efficient” Published in The Environment & Climate News by The Heartland Institute o.z. http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20260&CFID=5911648&CFTOKEN=55847241 A new fuel design created by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) promises to increase nuclear power output by 50 percent at existing plants, MIT announced on September 20. After three years of research and testing of next-generation fuel technology, MIT scientists discovered that forming uranium into the shape of hollow tubes rather" than solid cylinders allows for more efficient energy exchange and safer operations. Currently, uranium is formed into solid, cylinder-shaped pellets of less than an inch in diameter. In a nuclear reactor, fission releases a tremendous amount of energy in the form of heat that turns water into steam. The steam is then captured and funneled to power turbines that generate electricity. Lower Temperatures Possible The MIT scientists discovered that forming uranium into hollow tubes prior to fission allows more efficient energy exchange by allowing water to interact with a greater uranium surface area. The new design also increases safety because it requires an operating temperature of only 700 degrees Celsius, as compared to 1,800 to 2,800 degrees Celsius under the current design. Currently, a single pickup-truck load of uranium fuel is sufficient to run an entire city for a year. Under the new design, the same amount of uranium fuel will power that city for an extra six months. Promising Nuclear Future According to Pavel Hejzlar and Mujid Kazimi, the MIT scientists who made the discovery, the new fuel design should be available commercially within 10 years. The discovery is expected to form an important bridge to new technologies, such as pebble bed reactors, which are roughly 20 years away from commercial use in the United States. "Nuclear power already was one of the most promising energy sources of the future," observed Jay Lehr, Ph.D., science director for The Heartland Institute. "This breakthrough adds still more momentum to our most affordable cleanburning fuel source. "Pebble bed reactors are the exciting future of nuclear power," Lehr added, "but increasing energy output by 50 percent in existing reactors certainly bridges nuclear power's present to its future. Nuclear power makes more and more economic and environmental sense with each passing day."

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Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret And, We spur a move to dry cask storage which solves the terrorism risk. William J. Burns, former director of the Bureau of Investigation 2007, “A New Agenda for US-Russian Nuclear Leadership” (DS) Lexis In considering alternative storage options, the study assessed, “Dry cask storage has inherent security advantages over spent fuel storage, but it can only be used to store older spent fuel.”24 Removal of older spent fuel would also relieve overcrowded conditions in many spent fuel pools, thus decreasing safety and security risks of the remaining spent fuel in the pools. While some plants have begun using dry cask storage on-site to relieve the storage burden on spent fuel pools, most plants have not. Hardened onsite storage of dry spent fuel casks would reduce the risk of attack or sabotage. Spent fuel could be moved to dry cask storage after cooling for five years in pools. Estimates are that dry cask storage can safely and securely store spent fuel for up to one hundred years.

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Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret Contention 3: Drop It Like Its Hot [Prolif]

Investors need a clear signal that the federal government will allow nuclear power to flourish. Jack Spencer, Research Fellow in Nuclear Energy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, November 15, 2007, The Heritage Foundation, Competitive Nuclear Energy Investment: Avoiding Past Policy Mistakes, nna http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/bg2086.cfm Nuclear power is a proven, safe, affordable, and environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels. It can generate massive quantities of electricity with almost no atmospheric emissions and can offset America's growing dependence on foreign energy sources. The French have used it to minimize their dependence on foreign energy, and at one time the United States was on the path to do the same. However, the commercial nuclear energy industry in the U.S. is no longer thriving. Investors hesitate to embrace nuclear power fully, despite significant regulatory relief and economic incentives. This reluctance is not due to any inherent flaw in the economics of nuclear power or some unavoidable risk. Instead, investors are reacting to the historic role that federal, state, and local governments have played both in encouraging growth in the industry and in bringing on its demise. Investors doubt that federal, state, and local governments will allow nuclear energy to flourish in the long term. They have already lost billions of dollars because of bad public policy. The United States once led the world in commercial nuclear technology. Indeed, the world's leading nuclear companies continue to rely on American technologies. However, in the 1970s and 1980s, federal, state, and local governments nearly regulated the U.S. commercial nuclear industry out of existence. U.S. companies responded by reallocating their assets, consolidating or selling their commercial nuclear capabilities to foreign companies in pro-nuclear countries. This paper reviews how overregulation largely destroyed the nuclear industry and why it remains an obstacle to investment in the industry. This dynamic must be understood and mitigated before the true economics of nuclear power can be harnessed for the benefit of the American people.

Nuclear power expansion is supported by other countries, which undermines U.S. nuclear power leadership. Robert E. Ebel the Director, Energy and National Security Center for Strategic and International Studies Washington, D. C. 6/8/2000. AP. http://www.csis.org/media/csis/congress/ts000608ebel.pdf Clearly, all will benefit if developing countries have access to adequate, clean, and secure sources of energy. At the same time, they will not place environmental policy ahead of economic growth. To assist these consumers, it is essential that clean coal technology is a viable option, given their high coal consumption. Equally important, nuclear power must be promoted as a viable option in the developing world, to supply electricity in rural areas and to promote general industrialization, while keeping nuclear power as a viable option in the developed world. Let me ask, does the United States have a forward-looking plan for nuclear power? No, it does not. Does Russian? Yes, the Minister of Atomic Energy recently stated that there are plans to quadruple the generation of nuclear electric power by the year 2030. Does China? China today has 10 nuclear reactors under construction and will build 20 nuclear power stations by the year 2020. Does Japan’s, despite a recent shift in public opinion? Yes, the government currently plans to add 20 new reactors by the year 2010. I can visualize our leadership slipping away. The nuclear option faces a difficult choice: Exercise the nuclear option, through government support (it is our judgment that the market alone won't do it).

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Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret U.S. needs to add nuclear power plants to internationally extend its influence and stop proliferation. American Council on Global Nuclear Competitiveness, May 2007 LC www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org 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. [Thus], 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 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. maintain in 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.

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Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret And, Prolif will spread globally – timeframe is immediate Utgoff 2, [VICTOR, Dep. Director of Strategy Force and Resources Div of Institute for Defense Analysis,Survival summer, Vol 44, no 2, pg 87-90) Many readers are probably willing to accept that nuclear proliferation is such a grave threat to world peace that every effort should be made to avoid it. However, every effort has not been made in the past, and we are talking about much more substantial efforts now. For new and substantially more burdensome efforts to be made to slow or stop nuclear proliferation, it needs to be established that the highly proliferated nuclear world that would sooner or later evolve without such efforts is not going to be acceptable. And, for many reasons it is not. First, the dynamics of getting to a highly proliferated world could be very dangerous. Proliferating states will feel great pressures to obtain nuclear weapons and delivery systems before any potential opponent does. Those who succeed in outracing an opponent may consider preemptive nuclear war before the opponent becomes capable of nuclear retaliation. Those who lag behind might try to preempt their opponent's nuclear programme or defeat the opponent using conventional forces. And those who feel threatened but are incapable of building nuclear weapons may still be able to join in this arms race by building other types of weapons of mass destruction, such as biological weapons. Second, as the world approached complete proliferation, the hazards posed by nuclear weapons today will be magnified many times over. Fifty or more nations capable of launching nuclear weapons means that the risk of nuclear accidents that could causes serious damage not only to their own populations and environments, but those of others, is hugely increased. The chances of such weapons falling into the hands of renegade military units or terrorists is far greater, as is the number of nations carrying out hazardous manufacturing and storage activities. This will be the end of civilization – it is the most probable scenario

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Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret Contention 4: Commie Love [Russia Relations]

Nuclear energy programs provide a framework for US-Russian cooperation but those frameworks need to be implemented. Daniel Horner, 7-16-07, Nuclear Fuels, Bush-Putin statement pledges increased effort on nuclear issues, lexis, bc The US and Russia this month announced "a new format for enhanced cooperation" on nuclear energy and nonproliferation, pledging to work together to promote the global expansion of nuclear energy, particularly in developing countries, while controlling proliferation. The statement was issued July 3 by US President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, after their July 1-2 meeting in Maine. At a July 3 briefing in Washington, US Special Envoy for Nuclear Nonproliferation Robert Joseph said a "model" for the initiative is the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, which the US and Russia launched a year ago (Nucleonics Week, 27 July '06, 9) and now has more than 50 members. The new initiative, Joseph said, shows how the US and Russia can "work together when our interests intersect." The declaration, he said, "reflects a shared vision of the future in which nuclear power plays a central role." Analysts said the Bush-Putin statement contained little policy language that went beyond previous statements on nuclear energy and nonproliferation. A US official familiar with the issue did not dispute that point and characterized the document as a "broad statement of intent." One section that drew the attention of some analysts speaks of "facilitating and supporting financing to aid construction of nuclear power plants through public and private national and multinational mechanisms, including international financial institutions" and of "providing assistance to states to develop the necessary infrastructure to support nuclear energy, including development of appropriate regulatory frameworks, safety and security programs to assist states in meeting international standards, and training of personnel." The US official described those provisions as "down-the-road stuff" that would not require US government expenditures for at least the next several years. For now, the IAEA's technical cooperation programs are sufficient to provide the needed assistance, he said. The declaration specifically pledges support for expansion of the technical cooperation programs. Bush and Putin also said they want to ensure that the IAEA "has the resources it needs to meet its safeguards responsibilities as nuclear power expands worldwide." In a July 9 interview, Henry Sokolski, the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, said "there is an awful lot of government in this document, and not much of markets." The statement indicates the two presidents would be willing to provide financial support to projects that private industry would not be willing to finance, he said. It seems "weird" to "pay extra for nuclear," Sokolski said. It could make more sense to provide government support for nonnuclear energy options and thus avoid the risks of nuclear proliferation, he said. At the same time, he said, the declaration suggests that Bush and Putin might be willing to interfere with the nuclear fuel market, the one part of the nuclear marketplace that "looks to be commercially viable on its own terms," Sokolski said. One section of the document deals with nuclear fuel assurances, a key part of separate but similar proposals by Bush and Putin to provide enriched uranium as an incentive to countries to refrain from pursuing indigenous enrichment programs. According to the document, US and Russian efforts will include "taking steps to ensure that the commercial nuclear fuel market remains stable and that states are assured of reliable access to nuclear fuel and fuel services for the lifetime of reactors."

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Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret And, Development of civilian nuclear technology key to us leadership and relations with Russia. William J. Burns, former director of the Bureau of Investigation 2007, “A New Agenda for US-Russian Nuclear Leadership” (DS) Lexis Over a half-century ago, at the dawn of the atomic age, President Eisenhower outlined in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly, a plain but powerful vision for cooperation among the world’s nuclear powers. In his “Atoms for Peace” address, he described a shared agenda which had essentially three parts: harnessing the power of the atom for peaceful purposes; curbing the proliferation of nuclear weapons; and urging responsible leadership from America and Russia in managing our own nuclear arsenals. Eisenhower’s proposals led to the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency and later to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), but Cold War conflict eroded much of the promise of his ideas. Fifty years later, the world is a much different place, and Russia and the United States have a much different relationship. We have disagreements and mutual grievances, and obvious elements of competition and rivalry in relations between us, but we are no longer enemies. We have had enough of Cold Wars and disastrous arms races, and while we may not have a strategic partnership that produces a neat coincidence of interest on every issue, we certainly can have a partnership on key strategic issues. Never has there been a moment when the kinds of nuclear questions that Eisenhower foresaw have been more important than they are today, and never has there been a moment when America and Russia, still possessing nuclear capabilities and responsibilities that no other nations on earth can match, have had a greater opportunity to demonstrate real leadership. It would be a huge mistake, not only for the two of us but for the sake of global order, to miss that opportunity. That is exactly why President Bush and President Putin, in Kennebunkport last July, placed such emphasis on realizing the full potential of USRussian nuclear cooperation. Their efforts are already creating a significant legacy, and much more is possible in the months and years ahead. President Putin and President Bush have both recognized the importance of rapidly developing civilian nuclear technology, and making its benefits available to the developing world. For the first time in our history, we initialed a civilian nuclear cooperation framework agreement, commonly known as a “123 Agreement” after Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act, which will help to normalize our commercial nuclear relationship and open up new avenues for collaborative activities on civil nuclear energy, including possibilities for research on advanced reactors and development of innovative recycling and fuel development technologies. If the first pillar in US-Russian nuclear leadership, as Eisenhower foresaw 50 years ago, is the development of civilian nuclear power for the benefit of the entire world, the second indispensable element is ensuring that that happens in a way that does not contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For precisely that purpose, President Putin and President Bush have made similar proposals in recent years to provide nuclear fuel services to other nations under strict international supervision.

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Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret And, Cooperation is critical to prevent the spread of disease and every major impact Sestanovich ‘06 (Stephen- Senior fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies, “Russia's Wrong Direction: What the United States Can and Should Do”, Council on Foreign Relations, March, http://www.cfr.org/publication/9997/ ) U.S.-Russian cooperation can help the United States to handle some of the most difficult challenges it faces: terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, tight energy markets, climate change, the drug trade, infectious diseases, and human trafficking. These problems are more manageable when the United States has Russia on its side rather than aligned against it.

And, Emerging diseases are threatens extinction Zimmerman and Zimmerman, ’96 [Barry and David, both have M.S. Degrees from Long Island University, citing Nobel Prize Winner and Leading authority on emerging diseases Joshua Lederberg, Killer Germs, p. 132]

Then came AIDS…and Ebola and Lassa fever and Marburg and dengue fever. They came, for the most part, from the steamy jungles of the world. Lush tropical rain forests are ablaze with deadly viruses. And changing lifestyles as well as changing environmental conditions are flushing them out. Air travel, deforestation, global warming are forcing never-before-encountered viruses to suddenly cross the path of humanity. The result – emerging diseases. Today some five thousand vials of exotic viruses sit, freeze-dried, at Yale University – imports from the rain forests. They await the outbreak of diseases that can be ascribed to them. Many are carried by insects and are termed arboviruses (arthropod borne). Others, of even greater concern, are airborne and can simply be breathed in. Some, no doubt, could threaten humanity’s very existence. Joshua Lederberg, 1958 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and foremost authority on emerging viruses, warned in a December 1990 article in Discover magazine: “It is still not comprehended widely that AIDS is a natural, almost predictable phenomenon. It is not going to be a unique event. Pandemics will be more surprises, because our fertile imagination does not begin to match all the tricks that nature can play…” According to Lederberg, “The survival of humanity is not preordained… The single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance on the planet is the virus” (A Dancing Matrix, by Robin Marantz Hening.)

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Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret Contention 5: The Addiction Over-reliance on oil makes us dependent on unstable producer states. These states will continue to work as counterweights to American hegemony Josef Braml is editor-in-chief of the Yearbook on International Relations at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) in Berlin. The Washington Quarterly • 30:4 pp. 117–130. 2007 Can the United States Shed Its Oil Addiction?

If the United States continues its overreliance on fossil fuels, it will become increasingly dependent on producing nations that are unstable and that pose a risk to its interests and could come into conflict with other consumer states. Although the United States can still count on Canada and Mexico, which are its two most important petroleum providers, its tense relationship with Venezuela illustrates the challenges in securing energy resources even in its own backyard, let alone the Middle East and other volatile areas. Some observers of petropolitics go as far as to describe an “axis of oil” (Russia, China, and eventually Iran) at work that is “acting as a counterweight to American hegemony”and will deprive the United States of its oil supplies and strategic interests.6 The Persian Gulf, another region the United States used to dominate, has become very volatile and unreliable in terms of delivering energy resources. This region will continue to be vital to U.S. interests in reliable oil supply for at least the next two decades.7 The U.S.–Saudi Arabian relationship in particular is well rooted in bilateral economic and political ties. The Saudi monarchy possesses the world’s largest oil reserves and is one of the United States’ main suppliers of oil. U.S. energy dependence, however, undermines the U.S. National Security Strategy’s aim of fighting terrorism by demanding meaningful political reform from authoritarian regimes to become more democratic and market oriented.8 Through interventions in the markets, Saudi Arabia has helped the United States to stabilize the price of oil, allowing oil consumers to enjoy relatively steady prices from the mid-1980s to 2003. Nevertheless, because oil production has not kept pace with increased worldwide demand for oil, especially from the United States and China, there has been a sharp increase in the price of oil over the past three years.

And, Oil Dependence constrains US Hegemony

Council on Foreign Relations 2006 http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/EnergyTFR.pdf the control over enormous oil revenues gives exporting countries the flexibility to adopt policies that oppose U.S. interests and values. Iran proceeds with a program that appears to be headed toward acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. Russia is able to ignore Western attitudes as it has moved to authoritarian policies in part because huge revenues from oil and gas exports are available to finance that style of government. Venezuela has the resources First,

from its oil exports to invite realignment in Latin American political relationships and to fund changes such as Argentina’s exit from its International Monetary Fund (IMF) standby agreement and Bolivia’s recent decision to nationalize its oil and gas resources. Because of their oil wealth, these and other producer countries are free to ignore U.S. policies and to pursue interests

oil dependence causes political realignments that constrain the ability of the United States to form partnerships to achieve common objectives. Perhaps the most pervasive effect arises as countries dependent on imports subtly modify their policies to be more congenial to suppliers. For example, China is aligning its relationships in the Middle East (e.g., Iran and Saudi Arabia) and Africa (e.g., Nigeria and Sudan) because of its desire to secure oil supplies. France and Germany, and with them much of the European Union, are more reluctant to confront difficult issues with Russia and Iran because of their dependence on imported oil and gas as well as the desire to pursue business opportunities in those countries. These new realignments have further diminished U.S. leverage, particularly in the Middle East and Central Asia. For example, Chinese interest in securing oil and gas supplies challenges U.S. influence in central Asia, notably in Kazakhstan. And Russia’s influence is likely to grow as it exports oil and (within perhaps a decade) large amounts of natural gas to Japan and China. inimical to our national security. Second,

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Nuclear Waste Disposal 1AC – Jaret And, The loss of heg leads to multiple scenarios for extinction Ferguson, 2k4 (Niall, Professor of History at NYU, “A World Without Power,” Foreign Policy, Jul/Aug) For more than two decades, globalization--the integration of world markets for commodities, labor, and capital--has raised living standards throughout the world, except where countries have shut themselves off from the process through tyranny or civil war. The reversal of

globalization--which a new Dark Age would produce--would certainly lead to economic stagnation and even depression. As the United States sought to protect itself after a second September 11 devastates, say, Houston or Chicago, it would inevitably become a less open society, less hospitable for foreigners seeking to work, visit, or do business. Meanwhile, as Europe's Muslim enclaves grew, Islamist extremists' infiltration of the EU would become irreversible, increasing trans-Atlantic tensions over the Middle East to the breaking point. An economic meltdown in China would plunge the Communist system into crisis, unleashing the centrifugal forces that undermined previous Chinese empires. Western investors would lose out and conclude that lower returns at home are preferable to the risks of default abroad. The worst effects of the new Dark Age would be felt on the edges of the waning great powers. The

wealthiest ports of the global economy--from New York to Rotterdam to Shanghai--would become the targets of plunderers and pirates. With ease, terrorists could disrupt the freedom of the seas, targeting oil tankers, aircraft carriers, and cruise liners, while Western nations frantically concentrated on making their airports secure. Meanwhile, limited nuclear wars could devastate numerous regions, beginning in the Korean peninsula and Kashmir, perhaps ending catastrophically in the Middle East. In Latin America, wretchedly poor citizens would seek solace in Evangelical Christianity imported by U.S. religious orders. In Africa, the great plagues of aids and malaria would continue their deadly work. The few remaining solvent airlines would simply suspend services to many cities in these continents; who would wish to leave their privately guarded safe havens to go there? For all these reasons, the prospect of an apolar world should frighten us today a great deal more than it frightened the heirs of Charlemagne. If the United States retreats from global

hegemony--its fragile self-image dented by minor setbacks on the imperial frontier--its critics at home and abroad must not pretend that they are ushering in a new era of multipolar harmony, or even a return to the good old balance of power. Be careful what you wish for. The alternative to unipolarity would not be multipolarity at all. It would be apolarity--a global vacuum of power. And far more dangerous forces than rival great powers would benefit from such a not-so-new world disorder.

And, Nuclear Power is the only option to solve our oil dependency Daniel Martin and David Derbyshire, 1-11-08, Daily Mail, Dash to go nuclear will add 250 to energy bills, lexis, bc A NEW generation of nuclear power stations will be in place within a decade, the Government promised yesterday. MPs were told that the technology was 'tried and tested, safe and secure'. John Hutton said nuclear power would also mean Britain would not have to rely on oil and gas supplies from unstable regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere. The Business Secretary said he had invited energy firms to build new reactors and the first could be in place 'well before' 2020. Critics said the move would see household electricity bills rise by up to £250 a year, partly because of the cost of dealing with waste. They said plants would be built only with taxpayer subsidies. However, EDF, a French nuclear power giant, said yesterday it would submit plans to build four reactors by 2017. Westinghouse, a British nuclear firm, also expressed an interest. Mr Hutton said: 'Giving the go-ahead that nuclear power should play a role in providing the UK with clean, secure and affordable energy is in our country's vital long-term interest. 'Set against the challenges of climate change and security of supply, the evidence in support of new nuclear power stations is compelling. We should positively embrace the opportunity of delivering this important part of our energy policy. 'I therefore invite energy companies to bring forward plans to build and operate new nuclear power stations. 'With a third of our generating capacity coming offline within the next 20 years and increasing reliance on imported energy it is clear we need investment in a range of new energy infrastructure.'

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ADV US-Russian relations US-Russian cooperation is key to solve many extinction scenarios. George F. Kennan, Senior Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies, 06, U.S.-Russia Relations Headed in Wrong Direction, Concludes Council Task Force Chaired by Edwards and Kemp, http://www.cfr.org/publication/10020/ As Russia prepares to host the G8 summit this summer, the report, Russia’s Wrong Direction: What the United States Can and Should Do, affirms that Russia’s cooperation is central to achieving American interests. “On a whole host of issues--Iran, energy, HIV/AIDS, and preventing terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction--it’s vital to have Russia on our side,” said Kemp. “The G8 summit may be a watershed on many of these issues--Iran and energy in particular. It’s a real opportunity to lock in more helpful Russian policies. But if we don’t see progress, people are going to ask what Russia is doing in the G8 in the first place.”

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ADV Poverty Rejecting nuclear power is the same as saying people in developing countries should remain mired in poverty. Myron Ebell 11/23/04 “Cooler Heads” o.z. http://cei.org/gencon/014,04391.cfm Poverty and Global Warming Graham Sarjeant, financial editor of London’s Times adroitly summarized the current policy dilemma in a piece for his paper entitled, “Do you want global warming, nuclear power, or poverty” (Oct. 29). In it he wrote, “On present policies, the rise of China and India from poverty is incompatible with any attempt to slow, let alone halt, global warming. A choice has to be made to keep poor people poor or to take our chances on the environment. “Europe’s drive for wind power and other forms of renewable energy, sensible though they seem, will make no contribution to resolving this dilemma in the foreseeable future. On IEA’s well-founded projections, the share of renewables in EU energy demand will double to 12 per cent from 2002 to 2030. At the same time, nuclear power will shrink from 15 per cent to 7 per cent, so the EU will rely more on fossil fuels.” Sarjeant finished his piece by saying, “Other hard decisions would have to be made if we are to make much difference before 2030. One accepted in Europe but not where it counts—in America—is that petrol should sell at not less than the equivalent of $1 per litre to accelerate the drive for fuel economy. The other is that the West should make a wholesale switch to nuclear power stations, which do not emit carbon dioxide. New generations may be able to use new technologies. For us the choice is between global warming, nuclear power, and trying to keep poor people poor, a choice our leaders lack the courage to make.”

Poverty should be the impact you evaluate first – it’s a systemic impact based on the human choices concerning how wealth is distributed. Mumia Abu-Jamal, 9-19-1998, “A Quiet and Deadly Violence,” www1.minn.net/~meis/quietdv.htm We live, equally immersed, and to a deeper degree, in a nation that condones and ignores wide-ranging "structural" violence, of a kind that destroys human life with a breathtaking ruthlessness. Former Massachusetts prison official and writer, Dr. James Gilligan observes; "By `structural violence' I mean the increased rates of death and disability suffered by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society, as contrasted by those who are above them. Those excess deaths (or at least a demonstrably large proportion of them) are a function of the class structure; and that structure is itself a product of society's collective human choices, concerning how to distribute the collective wealth of the society. These are not acts of God. I am contrasting `structural' with `behavioral violence' by which I mean the nonnatural deaths and injuries that are caused by specific behavioral actions of individuals against individuals, such as the deaths we attribute to homicide, suicide, soldiers in warfare, capital punishment, and so on." -(Gilligan, J., MD, Violence: Reflections On a National Epidemic (New York: Vintage, 1996), 192.) This form of violence, not covered by any of the majoritarian, corporate, ruling-class protected media, is invisible to us and because of its invisibility, all the more insidious. How dangerous is it -- really? Gilligan notes: "[E]very fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed in a nuclear war that caused 232 million deaths; and every single year, two to three times as many people die from poverty throughout the world as were killed by the Nazi genocide of the Jews over a six-year period. This is, in effect, the equivalent of an ongoing, unending, in fact accelerating, thermonuclear war, or genocide on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world." [Gilligan, p. 196]

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ADD ON Soft Power Protecting the environment is key to soft power Nye 2004. (Joseph S. Nye, Jr. former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Dean of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is author of Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. The Decline of America's Soft Power fullaccess.foreignaffairs.org) Anti-Americanism has increased in recent years, and the United States' soft power -- its ability to attract others by the legitimacy of U.S. policies and the values that underlie them -- is in decline as a result. According to Gallup International polls, pluralities in 29 countries say that Washington's policies have had a negative effect on their view of the United States. A Eurobarometer poll found that a majority of Europeans believes that Washington has hindered efforts to fight global poverty, protect the environment, and maintain peace. Such attitudes undercut soft power, reducing the ability of the United States to achieve its goals without resorting to coercion or payment.

Soft power is key to maintaining heg. Fried 06 (Eli, “The Soft Power of Multilateralism,” The Jerusalem Report, Oct 16, proquest) If there is one big lesson to be learned from the war in Lebanon and Iraq, it is that both Israel and the United States can gain as much, if not more, from international cooperation as from the unilateral use of naked power. America's experience in Iraq has demonstrated that no amount of military power can make up for a lack of vital international support. Indeed, as a result of its aggressive and unilateralist post- September 11 policies, Washington found itself unable to play the role of regional broker early on in the Lebanon fighting. However, it went on to pursue a sustainable cease-fire through a process of multilateral engagement, and, with the passing of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, significantly enhanced its persuasive capacity - or "soft power" - in the region. Its pursuit of an agreed- upon policy enabled the United States to co-opt the international community without sacrificing President Bush's paradigmatic division between the forces of good and evil. In other words, it is not the U.S.'s moral partitioning that the world opposes, but rather its perceived neo-colonialist policies and unilateralist tendencies.

Heg is key to global stability Gray ’06 (Colin S. Gray, June 22 2006, Professor of International Politics and Strategic Studies, Director of the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Reading, England, “Stability operations in strategic perspective: a skeptical view; Quadrennial Defense Review”, Lexis) The United States is the global hegemon at present, by default we must add. This hegemony is real, but it is nonetheless only partial, it is context-specific, and it is certain to be challenged. As the hegemonic, "worldordering" power, America's competence, strengths, and reputation or prestige are of vital importance for global stability. International order cannot afford its principal guardian to make major errors in statecraft or strategy. America's national ideology, which is an integral part of its culture, does not travel as well as many Americans believe. The issue is not the merit in the ideology, but rather the power of that ideology to misguide national security policy.

Soft power is key to democracy. Joseph S. Nye, Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations at Harvard, Summer 2004, “Soft Power and American Foreign Policy,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 119, Iss.2; pg. 255, proquest, accessed 07/10/07 According to the National Security Strategy, the greatest threats the American people face are transnational terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and particularly their combination. Yet, meeting the challenge posed by transnational military organizations that could acquire weapons of mass destruction requires the cooperation of other countries -and cooperation is strengthened by soft power. Similarly, efforts to promote democracy in Iraq and elsewhere will require the help of others. Reconstruction in Iraq and peacekeeping in failed states are far more likely to succeed and to be less costly if shared with others rather than appearing as American imperial occupation. The fact that the United States squandered its soft power in the way that it went to war meant that the aftermath turned out to be much more costly than it need have been.

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The impact is extinction. Larry Diamond, Snr Research Fellow at the Hoover Institute, Promoting Democracy in the 1990s, 1995 p. 6-7 This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in the coming years and decades. In the former Yugoslavia nationalist aggression tears at the stability of Europe and could easily spread. The flow of illegal drugs intensifies through increasingly powerful international crime syndicates that have made common cause with authoritarian regimes and have utterly corrupted the institutions of tenuous, democratic ones. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons continue to proliferate. The very source of life on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these new and unconventional threats to security are associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy, with its provisions for legality, accountability, popular sovereignty, and openness. LESSONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY The experience of this century offers important lessons. Countries that govern themselves in a truly democratic fashion do not go to war with one another. They do not aggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their leaders. Democratic governments do not ethnically "cleanse" their own populations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency. Democracies do not sponsor terrorism against one another. They do not build weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another.

Soft Power prevents the spread of terrorism Nye, 2004 (Joseph S. Nye, PhD in political science at Harvard, 2004, Perseus Books group, “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics”, book) Hard power remains crucial in a world of states trying to guard their independence and of non-state groups willing to turn to violence. It forms the core of the Bush administration's new national security strategy. But according to Joseph Nye, the neo-conservatives who advise the president are making a major miscalculation: They focus too heavily on using America's military power to force other nations to do our will, and they pay too little heed to our soft power. It is soft power that will help prevent terrorists from recruiting supporters from among the moderate majority. And it is soft power that will help us deal with critical global issues that require multilateral cooperation among states. That is why it is so essential that America better understands and applies our soft power. This is our guide.

Unchecked Terrorism Will Cause Extinction Yonah Alexander, professor and director of the Inter-University for Terrorism Studies, WASHINGTON TIMES, August 28, 2003, p. http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030827-084256-8999r.htm Last week's brutal suicide bombings in Baghdad and Jerusalem have once again illustrated dramatically that the international community failed, thus far at least, to understand the magnitude and implications of the terrorist threats to the very survival of civilization itself. Even the United States and Israel have for decades tended to regard terrorism as a mere tactical nuisance or irritant rather than a critical strategic challenge to their national security concerns. It is not surprising, therefore, that on September 11, 2001, Americans were stunned by the unprecedented tragedy of 19 al Qaeda terrorists striking a devastating blow at the center of the nation's commercial and military powers. Likewise, Israel and its citizens, despite the collapse of the Oslo Agreements of 1993 and numerous acts of terrorism triggered by the second intifada that began almost three years ago, are still "shocked" by each suicide attack at a time of intensive diplomatic efforts to revive the moribund peace process through the now revoked cease-fire arrangements [hudna]. Why are the United States and Israel, as well as scores of other countries affected by the universal nightmare of modern terrorism surprised by new terrorist "surprises"? There are many reasons, including misunderstanding of the manifold specific factors that contribute to terrorism's expansion, such as lack of a universal definition of terrorism, the religionization of politics, double standards of morality, weak punishment of terrorists, and the exploitation of the media by terrorist propaganda and psychological warfare. Unlike their historical counterparts, contemporary terrorists have introduced a new scale of violence in terms of conventional and unconventional threats and impact. The internationalization and brutalization of current and future terrorism make it clear we have entered an Age of Super Terrorism [e.g. biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear and cyber] with its serious implications concerning national, regional and global security concerns.

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AT CA they say “China and India stop solvency” 1. Nuclear power is increasing worldwide – that’s the first card in our 1AC that says nuclear power is flourishing in Europe and Asia which also makes their DA’s and turns non-unique. 2. Ambitious expansion of nuclear energy can solve worldwide Micheal Totty, news editor for the Wall Street Journal, 6 Jun 2008, The Wall Street Journal, “Energy (a special report); The case for—and against—Nuclear Power”, Proquest, AB The argument for nuclear power can be stated pretty simply: We have no choice. If the world intends to address the threat of global warming and still satisfy its growing appetite for electricity, it needs an ambitious expansion of nuclear power. Scientists agree that greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, are building up in the atmosphere and contributing to a gradual increase in global average temperatures. At the same time, making electricity accounts for about a third of U.S. greenhouse emissions, mostly from burning fossil fuels to produce power.

3. The U.S. is the number one emitter and countries like China and India won’t start to reduce their emissions until the U.S. does. We can wait a few decades for them to act if we start now. Jay Apt (is executive director of the Electricity Industry Center at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business and the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, where he is a Distinguished Service Professor) David W. Keith (is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Energy and the Environment in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering and the Department of Economics at the University of Calgary)

and M. Granger Morgan (is University and Lord Professor and department head of the Department of Spring 2007 "Promoting

Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University and co-director of the Electricity Industry Center)

Low-Carbon Electricity Production”, Issues in Science and Technology, v. 23, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3622/is_200704/ai_n19198506 When past emissions are factored in, the United States is responsible for just over a quarter of all anthropogenic CO2 from fossil fuels currently in the atmosphere. Europe, China, and India are responsible for 19%, 9%, and 3% respectively. The EU has agreed to reduce emissions to 8% below 1990 levels by 2012; the United States has not. EU emissions are the same as in 1990; U.S. emissions have increased by 20%. And because CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere for over a century, the largest single share of CO2 will continue to belong to the United States for many decades, despite China's growth. Since the United States has put the largest single share of CO2 into the air, it must begin to take the lead in reducing it. In a few decades, China, India, Brazil, and other developing countries also will have to undertake serious controls. But they will not do so until we take the lead and show how it can be done in an efficient and affordable way.

4. Turn - US Nuclear leadership can move the developing world toward nuclear power. Robert E. Ebel the Director, Energy and National Security Center for Strategic and International Studies Washington, D. C. 6/8/2000. AP. http://www.csis.org/media/csis/congress/ts000608ebel.pdf Clearly, all will benefit if developing countries have access to adequate, clean, and secure sources of energy. At the same time, they will not place environmental policy ahead of economic growth. To assist these consumers, it is essential that clean coal technology is a viable option, given their high coal consumption. Equally important, nuclear power must be promoted as a viable option in the developing world, to supply electricity in rural areas and to promote general industrialization, while keeping nuclear power as a viable option in the developed world. Let me ask, does the United States have a forward-looking plan for nuclear power? No, it does not. Does Russian? Yes, the Minister of Atomic Energy recently stated that there are plans to quadruple the generation of nuclear electric power by the year 2030. Does China? China today has 10 nuclear reactors under construction and will build 20 nuclear power stations by the year 2020. Does Japan’s, despite a recent shift in public opinion? Yes, the government currently plans to add 20 new reactors by the year 2010. I can visualize our leadership slipping away. The nuclear option faces a difficult choice: Exercise the nuclear option, through government support (it is our judgment that the market alone won't do it).

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5. China increasing nuclear power now. James M. Taylor 7/1/06, “WWF Australia Joins Pro-Nuclear Camp” o.z. http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=19337&CFID=5925006&CFTOKEN=69480619 Pointing out that nuclear plants produce more than three-quarters of France's power, and that nations such as Russia and China are rapidly expanding their nuclear power supply utilizing the latest technological advances, McCain said nuclear roadblocks in the United States are "a NIMBY [not in my backyard] problem, and a waste-disposal problem. It is not a technological problem." "The potential for growth in the United States is positive," Heymer agreed.

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AT CA they say “Proliferation good” 1. Extend Ugutoff 02 – Nuclear proliferation will lead to rampant spread of nuclear weapons – it makes nuclear wars inevitable because of state perception 2. Taylor 02 – this will end in extinction – even the risk of one more state going nuclear can trigger the extinction of civilization – prolif good can never o/w 3. Don’t Evaluate Waltz – Waltz is only talking about how a few states having nuclear weapons is good – he doesn’t assume wildfire nuclear proliferation and is outdated Drake Bennett, March 20, 2005, JaretLK, http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/03/20/give_nukes_a_chance/ KENNETH N. WALTZ, adjunct professor of political science at Columbia University, doesn't like the phrase ''nuclear proliferation.'' ''The term proliferation' is a great misnomer,'' he said in a recent interview. ''It refers to things that spread like wildfire. But we've had nuclear military capabilities extant in the world for 50 years and now, even counting North Korea, we only have nine nuclear countries.'' Strictly speaking, then, Waltz is as against the proliferation of nuclear weapons as the next sane human being. After all, he argues, ''most countries don't need them.'' But the eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons by those few countries that see fit to pursue them, that he's for. As he sees it, nuclear weapons prevent wars. ''The only thing a country can do with nuclear weapons is use them for a deterrent,'' Waltz told me. ''And that makes for internal stability, that makes for peace, and that makes for cautious behavior.'' Especially in a unipolar world, argues Waltz, the possession of nuclear deterrents by smaller nations can check the disruptive ambitions of a reckless superpower. As a result, in words Waltz wrote 10 years ago and has been reiterating ever since, ''The gradual spread of nuclear weapons is more to be welcomed than feared.'' Waltz is not a crank. He is not a member of an apocalyptic death cult. He is perhaps the leading living theorist of the foreign policy realists, a school that sees world politics as an unending, amoral contest between states driven by the will to power. His 1959 book, ''Man, the State, and War,'' remains one of the most influential 20thcentury works on international relations. In recent weeks, however, the spread of nuclear weapons has taken on what might appear to be a wildfire-like quality. North Korea has just declared itself a nuclear power. Iran is in negotiations with the United States and Europe over what is widely suspected to be a secret weapons program of its own. Each could kick off a regional arms race. And North Korea in the past has sold nuclear technology to Libya and Pakistan, while Iran sponsors Hezbollah and Hamas. As the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the backbone of nonproliferation efforts for the past 35 years, comes up for review this May, there's an increasing sense that it is failing. In such a context, Waltz's argument may seem a Panglossian rationalization of the inevitable.

Nuclear proliferation is spreading rapidly – letting weapons continue to spread makes selfdestruction inevitable Tim Reid, February 13, 2004, “Blueprints 'prove Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons'”, JaretLK, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1018735.ece The discovery, made by inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), were disclosed as the agency’s head issued an urgent warning that the world faces destruction because of the rapid spread of atomic weapons technology. Mohamed ElBaradei, following a call on Wednesday by President Bush for tougher curbs on nuclear proliferation, delivered the direst official assessment of how far nuclear technology has spread to rogue nations and terror groups in recent years. Dr ElBaradei said that the possession of nuclear weapons technology by terrorists was inevitable. “Nuclear proliferation is on the rise,” Dr ElBaradei wrote in The New York Times. “If we sit idly by, this trend will continue. Countries that perceive themselves vulnerable . . . will pursue clandestine weapons programmes. “The supply network will grow, making it easier to acquire nuclear weapon expertise and materials. Eventually, inevitably, terrorists will gain technology, if not actual weapons. If the world does not change course, we risk self-destruction.” The blueprints discovered in Iran are based on the “G2” centrifuge, a far more sophisticated design than the “G1” enrichment centrifuge, a version of which Iran has already been mass producing.

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AT CA they say “Global warming stops the ice age” Global warming leads to Ice age Roach 5 John, National Geographic, Global Warming May Alter Atlantic Currents, Study Says, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0627_050627_oceancurrent.html Acting like a conveyor belt, the current transports warm, surface waters toward the Poles and cold, deep waters toward the Equator. In the Atlantic Ocean, these warm surface waters push northward, releasing heat into the atmosphere and becoming cooler and denser. As they do, the waters sink and flow southward in the deep ocean. "The Atlantic circulation moves heat toward the Arctic, and this helps moderate wintertime temperatures in the high-latitude Northern Hemisphere," said Ruth Curry, a physical oceanography research specialist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Curry noted that excessive amounts of freshwater dumped into the North Atlantic could alter seawater density and, in time, affect the flow of the North Atlantic ocean current. (Global warming has boosted freshwater runoff in the form of glacier meltwater and additional precipitation, Curry said.) Just how much extra freshwater it would take to alter the circulation system, known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, is a gray area of climate science. Broken Belt? Suffice it to say that the conveyor belt continues to work today. But freshwater runoff into the North Atlantic has increased in recent decades, and runoff is expected to increase further as global temperatures climb higher, Curry said.

link turn – Global warming causes quick cooling Hartmann 4 Thom, How Global Warming May Cause the Next Ice Age..., http://www.commondreams.org/cgibin/print.cgi?file=/views04/0130-11.htm While global warming is being officially ignored by the political arm of the Bush administration, and Al Gore's recent conference on the topic during one of the coldest days of recent years provided joke fodder for conservative talk show hosts, the citizens of Europe and the Pentagon are taking a new look at the greatest danger such climate change could produce for the northern hemisphere - a sudden shift into a new ice age. What they're finding is not at all comforting. In quick summary, if enough cold, fresh water coming from the melting polar ice caps and the melting glaciers of Greenland flows into the northern Atlantic, it will shut down the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe and northeastern North America warm. The worst-case scenario would be a full-blown return of the last ice age - in a period as short as 2 to 3 years from its onset - and the mid-case scenario would be a period like the "little ice age" of a few centuries ago that disrupted worldwide weather patterns leading to extremely harsh winters, droughts, worldwide desertification, crop failures, and wars around the world

Here’s more comparative evidence: Global Warming is empirically proven to result in global cooling. Stefan Rahmstorf and Andrey Ganopolski, October 30, 2004, Springerlink, “Long-Term Global Warming Scenarios Computed with an Efficient Coupled Climate Model,” nna http://www.springerlink.com/content/l02mm8757231t250/ We present global warming scenarios computed with an intermediate-complexity atmosphere-oceansea ice model which has been extensively validated for a range of past climates (e.g., the Last Glacial Maximum). Our simulations extend to the year 3000, beyond the expected peak of CO2 concentrations. The thermohaline ocean circulation declines strongly in all our scenarios over the next 50 years due to a thermal effect. Changes in the hydrological cycle determine whether the circulation recovers or collapses in the long run. Both outcomes are possible within present uncertainty limits. In case of a collapse, a substantial long-lasting cooling over the North Atlantic and a drying of Europe is simulated.

3. They say that cooling is worse than heating but Extend our Podesta, Stern, and Batten ’07 card that states that Global warming will lead to widespread disease, regional conflicts, and environmental damage.

4. They say an Ice age will lead to global extinction but the probability of one is highly unlikely. The last time there was an Ice Age humans lived through it so it is highly improbable that their impact will lead to human extinction

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Here’s more comparative evidence:

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AT CA they say “Backstopping” Empirically Denied – Current transition to alternative energy should have caused the link, but oil prices are still high. No Timeframe: Backstopping won’t occur for a couple years. OPEC will do everything possible to continue selling oil at the high price that it is. No Link: OPEC no longer has the capacity to flood the market

Hatch 8 Senator Orrin G. Hatch, HATCH ASKS ENERGY COMMITTEE TO LIFT MORATORIUM ON OIL SHALE DEVELOPMENT, Trade Observatory, http://www.tradeobservatory.org/headlines.cfm?refID=102799

Second, OPEC no longer has anywhere near the spare capacity necessary to flood the world market. In fact, due to the meteoric rise in global demand for oil, I doubt OPEC has the capacity to cause even a significant drop in the price of oil. Thirdly, technology and regulatory protections in every aspect of oil, gas, and mining have matured impressively since the early 1980's. Those advances not only make oil shale development much more viable, but they also ensure much better protections for the environment.

No Link: OPEC can no longer influence prices

Sodhi 2008 (The Myth of OPEC, The center for independent studies http://www.cis.org.au/executive_highlights/EH2008/eh63608.html)

The massive reserves of Saudi Arabia have also historically been a tool to encourage quota compliance. The Saudis, with their massive oil reserves and high levels of spare production capacity, have in the past threatened to flood the market with oil to engineer a collapse in price. With the world’s cheapest production costs and lots of spare capacity, it was a threat the Saudis could theoretically carry out. Not anymore. Saudi Arabia no longer has the buffer of excess production, and there is a lack of confidence in the sustainability of its largest fields. The long standing threat to flood the market with cheap oil has now become a bluff, and the other members of OPEC know it. OPEC goes to great trouble to pretend that it can influence prices. It holds regular meetings where it ordains a new production target with much ceremony. But honestly, you would have to be a mug to believe that OPEC countries are purposefully limiting production. When oil prices rise, so does the opportunity cost of sticking to the allocated quota. So while its possible to maintain a cartel when prices are low, you can bet your life that each member is pumping out as much crude as it possibly can at $140 a barrel.

No Link: OPEC can’t control pricing through flooding the market Gary Nicks Daily Star June 23, 2008 HEADLINE: PLEASE SIR. . .COULD WE HAVE MORE OIL; Brown makes fuel plea to rich Saudis It's the kind of thing he could do here at home." And Tory Alan Duncan blasted: "The idea that Opec can just go like that and flood the market with oil and bring the price down shows Gordon Brown does not understand global markets." The summit was arranged after oil doubled in a year to hit a record $140 per barrel two weeks ago, sending prices rocketing so high at UK forecourts that gangs of thieves are draining lorry fuel tanks across the country.

No Link: OPEC has lost control over prices- they’re on a downward spiral Brown 2008 (May, OPEC's Days Are Numbered, http://www.rightsideadvisors.com/public/commentary.go/rsa/commentary/commenergy/20080513_032411_msg.html/OPECs-Days-Are-Numbered.html)

There was an excellent article by Jim Kingsdale this weekend on the coming end of OPEC. You are probably thinking why would OPEC disappear when their control over oil prices is so strong. Unfortunately that is no longer true. OPEC has lost control over prices and that was the main reason the organization was formed in 1960.

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Nuclear Power will remain price competitive with oil. Thus, even if OPEC lowered prices by a lot, the DA won’t occur. Turn: Nuclear power solves dependency, it’s best for the environment and will save 100,000 lives per year from air pollution. Bernard L. Cohen, Professor Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, 1990 “The Nuclear Energy Option” http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/BOOK.html With minor exceptions, these new plants will have to be powered by coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear fuels. There are lots of good reasons for avoiding the use of oil and gas to generate electricity: They are substantially more expensive than coal or nuclear fuels. World supplies are quite limited on a long-term perspective. They are essentially our only option for providing transportation by land, sea, or air. They are vitally needed as feedstock for manufacture of plastics, organic chemicals, and other products essential for our technology. Paying for imported oil is a heavy strain on our national economy, and this problem is rapidly getting worse. Our oil supplies are vulnerable to being cut off for political reasons. Oil prices are susceptible to very large and rapid increases. Oil dependence can lead to war. For the most part, therefore, our new electrical generating capacity must be powered by coal or nuclear fuels, although oil and gas will still be used to some degree. Burning coal, oil, and gas leads to a wide variety of environmental problems. They are major contributors to the greenhouse effect, which threatens to cause highly disruptive climate changes: Agriculture will suffer severe blows like an end to growing soybeans and corn in the South and corn and wheat in the Great Plains. Farmers will also have to deal with increased livestock disease, and heavy damage from insect pests. Forests will undergo stress, as some species of trees will die off and have to be replaced by others. Seacoast areas will be subject to flooding. Waterfowl and various types of aquatic life will be seriously affected by reduction in wetlands areas. Insect plagues, droughts, forest fires, tornadoes, and floods will increase. Burning coal is the major contributor to acid rain which, in some areas, is heavily damaging forests and fish in lakes. This acid rain is straining relations between Canada and the United States, and between several pairs of European nations. But perhaps the most serious environmental problem with burning fossil fuels is air pollution, which is estimated to be killing about 100,000 Americans every year. Attempts to solve this problem are very expensive, and there is little reason to be confident that the limited objectives these attempts target will solve it. Air pollution causes a variety of illnesses, and it has several other unpleasant aspects, such as foul odors and the degrading of all sorts of objects from stone carvings to clothing. Coal burning causes many other environmental problems, such as destruction of land surfaces by strip-mining, acid mine drainage, which pollutes our rivers and streams, land subsidence, which damages and destroys buildings, and waste banks from washing coal, which are ugly and lead to air pollution. Coal mining is a harsh and unpleasant occupation. Miners are frequently killed in accidents, and constant exposure to coal dust causes severe degradation in their health, often leading to premature death from an assortment of lung diseases. Oil has its environmental problems too. It contributes substantially to air pollution and to acid rain. Oil spills in our oceans have fouled beaches and caused severe damage to aquatic life. Oil causes fires, odors, and water pollution. The use of natural gas can lead to fires and explosions and can kill people through asphyxiation. All of the adverse health and environmental effects resulting from burning coal, oil, or natural gas to produce electricity can be avoided by the use of nuclear power.

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AT CP Loan guarantees Perm – do the plan and all non mutually exclusive components of the counterplan. Lots of investors are interested in building nuclear power plants but want to ensure there will be multiple projects not just one – that can’t happen without waste disposal options. WNN – World Nuclear News, 18 June 2008, “Global investors circle new nuclear markets” (ds) http://www.world-nuclear news.org/C_Global_investors_circle_new_nuclear_markets_1806081.html?jmid=2647&j=132755411&utm_sou rce=JangoMail&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=WNN+Weekly+18+%2D+25+June+2008+%281327554 11%29&utm_content=comments%40usnuclearenergy%2Eorg Investors see the USA as the best place in the world to engage in nuclear build projects. Next come the UK and China, followed by South Africa. Banks and utilities, however, are yet to make serious moves. The list of countries comes from Ernst & Young research commissioned by the UK government, a summary of which was presented in London today by Adam Dawson of the country's department of business and enterprise as part of SMI's inaugural Financing Nuclear Power conference. Delegates heard that there is widespread confidence in the new nuclear power markets among investors. Pieter Stor of RBS presented ABN Amro research which had nuclear power as the cheapest generation source of all when carbon costs were taken into account. He said his figures were based on conservative values of $60 per barrel of oil and €30 ($46) per tonne of carbon dioxide and concluded: "Why invest in nuclear new build? Because it's deemed to be profitable." However, very large uncertainties remain in the market for new reactors, which is yet to see many significant orders outside of China. Items at the top of financiers' list of concerns according to both Stor and the Ernst & Young research concern political and regulatory stability as well as volatility in prices for energy and carbon dioxide emissions. Stor said each investor had to make up its mind what energy prices would do in the long term. These concerns are compounded by the capital required to build nuclear power plants - the cost of financing construction amounts to around 55% of the final cost of electricity. Stor said that banks are not keen to finance individual projects, which they think have too much uncertainty during application and build, but would prefer to be involved in fleets of new reactors and are becoming more comfortable with that idea. Ernst & Young's research consisted of interviews with 18 investors from Europe and North America. Dawson said the results indicated that the USA is "almost in a league of its own" because of its sheer scale, the ease of doing business and the relative regulatory certainty. In addition, the US government has announced certain amounts of funding and loan guarantees for the first companies to test the licensing process and begin building respectively. The 32 new reactors at various stages of planning are testimony to this. Dawson said he was pleased the UK came in as the second best place to do nuclear business, with China at a similar level. Next he said South Africa was moving up rapidly, and was ahead of European countries which had the possibility of multiple new reactors. He added that the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf states were not yet on the list, but they probably would be soon. The US government's financial support for nuclear has helped to overcome nervousness among companies of being the first to try new regimes, said Malcolm Keay, a fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Referring to the USA and the UK, he said that once firm orders are made for new nuclear plants there could be a "stampede" from companies that don't wish to be left behind. Similarly, the current position of many companies expressing interest in nuclear is in some part due to strategic reasons. The real state of the market, he said, would only be known once companies begin to take hard decisions in a few years' time.

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AT CP Russian international repository Perm – do the plan and all non mutually exclusive components of the counterplan. Without a fix in Russian-Iranian weapons cooperation, the US won’t make a nuclear waste trade treaty to use a Russian permanent repository. Glenn Schweitzer and Kelly Robbins, Editors, Committee on Issues in Consolidating Spent Nuclear Fuel at International Storage Sites, Office for Central Europe and Eurasia Development, National Research Council, 2008, National Academy of Sciences, “Setting the Stage for International Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facilities: International Workshop Proceedings”, rks, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12191.html. Finally, while the concept of spent fuel storage in Russia has promise, it will not be possible for the United States to support practical steps in this direction until the problem of Russian cooperation with Iran is resolved. The United States does not authorize retransfer of nuclear material to countries to which it could not transfer nuclear material directly. Therefore, the United States and Russia must have an agreement for cooperation in force before any spent fuel with U.S.-origin nuclear material may be shipped to Russia. No such agreement is in force. The transmittal report to Congress for a proposed agreement for cooperation must include an assessment of the proliferation record of the other party. The United States would only be in a position to negotiate such an agreement once Russia addressed U.S. concerns regarding Russian-Iranian nuclear, missile, chemical, biological, and advanced conventional weapons cooperation. The Bush administration has firmly linked the storage of spent fuel containing U.S.-origin nuclear material in Russia to resolution of this concern.

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AT CP Sub Seabed disposal Perm – do the plan and all non mutually exclusive components of the counterplan. Yucca Mountain is the only option for a permanent repository. Natural Gas Weekly, 6-9-08, Yucca Mountain Application Hits Deadline, But Debate Still Raging lexis, bc The only site earmarked by Congress, the Yucca Mountain Repository, ensconced in the Nevada desert about 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has already cost $27 billion since the Nuclear Waste Fund was set up in 1983. And it's likely to cost billions more as vociferous debate over the project drags on.

Delay would be devastating for nuclear power – that’s our 1AC that investors are ready to go but they need a strong signal from the federal government that they are committed to nuclear waste disposal they don’t have any evidence that space disposal would accomplish that. Sub-seabed disposal puts the ocean at risk and would violate international agreements. U.S Department of Energy 4/08 (U.S Department of energy, 4/08, JD, http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ym_repository/about_project/waste_explained/do.shtml) Scientists considered burying nuclear waste under the ocean floor. This option could be viable because deep within the ocean floor, the radiation from the waste would not harm people or the environment. One of the problems associated with this option includes the difficulty of recovering the waste, if necessary, once it is emplaced deep in the ocean. Also, establishing an effective international structure to develop, regulate, and monitor a sub-seabed repository would be extremely difficult. Beyond technical and political considerations, the United States signed the London Convention in October 1993. This international agreement, which remains in force until 2018, places prohibitions on disposing of radioactive materials at sea. After that time, the sub-seabed disposal option can be revisited at 25-year intervals.

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Failure to protect the ocean risks extinction. Craig 3 Robin Kundis, Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law, 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155, Lexis Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they do for terrestrial ecosystems, but these arguments have thus far rarely been raised in political debates. For example, besides significant tourism values - the most economically valuable ecosystem service coral reefs provide, worldwide - coral reefs protect against storms and dampen other environmental fluctuations, services worth more than ten times the reefs' value for food production. n856 Waste treatment is another significant, non-extractive ecosystem function that intact coral reef ecosystems provide. n857 More generally, "ocean ecosystems play a major role in the global geochemical cycling of all the elements that represent the basic building blocks of living organisms, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as other less abundant but necessary elements." n858 In a very real and direct sense, therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems impairs the planet's ability to support life. Maintaining biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the functions of marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an ecosystem's ability to keep functioning in the face of disturbance is strongly dependent on its biodiversity, "indicating that more diverse ecosystems are more stable." n859 Coral reef ecosystems are particularly dependent on their biodiversity. [*265] Most ecologists agree that the complexity of interactions and degree of interrelatedness among component species is higher on coral reefs than in any other marine environment. This implies that the ecosystem functioning that produces the most highly valued components is also complex and that many otherwise insignificant species have strong effects on sustaining the rest of the reef system. n860 Thus, maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to maintaining and restoring the ecosystem services that they provide. Non-use biodiversity values for marine ecosystems have been calculated in the wake of marine disasters, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. n861 Similar calculations could derive preservation values for marine wilderness. However, economic value, or economic value equivalents, should not be "the sole or even primary justification for conservation of ocean ecosystems. Ethical arguments also have considerable force and merit." n862 At the forefront of such arguments should be a recognition of how little we know about the sea - and about the actual effect of human activities on marine ecosystems. The United States has traditionally failed to protect marine ecosystems because it was difficult to detect anthropogenic harm to the oceans, but we now know that such harm is occurring - even though we are not completely sure about causation or about how to fix every problem. Ecosystems like the NWHI coral reef ecosystem should inspire lawmakers and policymakers to admit that most of the time we really do not know what we are doing to the sea and hence should be preserving marine wilderness whenever we can - especially when the United States has within its territory relatively pristine marine ecosystems that may be unique in the world. We may not know much about the sea, but we do know this much: if we kill the ocean we kill ourselves, and we will take most of the biosphere with us. The Black Sea is almost dead, n863 its once-complex and productive ecosystem almost entirely replaced by a monoculture of comb jellies, "starving out fish and dolphins, emptying fishermen's nets, and converting the web of life into brainless, wraith-like blobs of jelly." n864 More importantly, the Black Sea is not necessarily unique. The Black Sea is a microcosm of what is happening to the ocean systems at large. The stresses piled up: overfishing, oil spills, industrial discharges, nutrient pollution, wetlands destruction, the introduction of an alien species. The sea weakened, slowly at first, then collapsed with [*266] shocking suddenness. The lessons of this tragedy should not be lost to the rest of us, because much of what happened here is being repeated all over the world. The ecological stresses imposed on the Black Sea were not unique to communism. Nor, sadly, was the failure of governments to respond to the emerging crisis. n865 Oxygen-starved "dead zones" appear with increasing frequency off the coasts of major cities and major rivers, forcing marine animals to flee and killing all that cannot. n866 Ethics as well as enlightened self-interest thus suggest that the United States should protect fullyfunctioning marine ecosystems wherever possible - even if a few fishers go out of business as a result.

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4. Sub Seabed Causes Many Potential Problems U.S Department of Energy 4/08 (U.S Department of energy, 4/08, JD, http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ym_repository/about_project/waste_explained/do.shtml) Sub-seabed disposal has been studied to a much lesser extent than geologic repository disposal. It is important to distinguish sub-seabed disposal from sea dumping of radioactive waste. Sea dumping involves the disposal of waste into the water, where it is certain to become dispersed. By contrast, sub-seabed disposal would place the waste beneath the sea floor. If successfully accomplished, the waste would not disperse into the oceans. There are two approaches to sub-seabed disposal as it has been considered so far: put the waste in holes drilled tens of meters deep into the ocean floor put the waste in canisters shaped like long projectiles that penetrate into the ocean floor. The penetration depth in soft clays may be several tens of meters.5 A site in the North Pacific Ocean with 100 million square kilometers of ocean floor covered with soft red clays up to 100 meters deep has often been mentioned as a possible site. 6 The main advantage of sub-seabed disposal relative to geologic disposal is that large radiation doses via the drinking water pathway are highly unlikely. Water used for drinking and irrigation is generally regarded as the most important radiation exposure pathway that would result from geologic disposal.7 However, radiation doses via the food pathway are possible. Based on current technology, deliberate human intrusion would be far more difficult than with geologic disposal. Given that rapid technological change is likely to continue, deliberate intrusion might be possible, though the lack of markers or any other surface manifestations should make this less likely than for land-based repositories. Inadvertent intrusion would appear to be far more unlikely under the ocean, especially in areas away from coastal areas and where there are no readily accessible seabed mineral resources. Because less research has been done into sub-seabed disposal, less is known about the potential problems with this storage method. However, troubling questions have been raised. For instance, oceanographers Hessler and Jumars have noted that while the density of living matter in the deep sea is low, life there is very diverse. Several factors promote this diversity of life in the deep-sea environment, notably the fact that it is very stable: "Such stability minimizes the likelihood of extinctions even for species maintaining extremely low population densities, and thereby allows the diversity of communities to build to high levels.... "While no one has yet measured the tolerances of abyssal [deep-sea] organisms, it is almost a certainty that they can adjust to only a small degree of environmental change....Thus any kind of human activity on the deepsea floor - be it waste disposal, nodule mining, or anything else - is likely to have a far more deleterious effect than would a comparable disturbance in shallow water."8 In the long run, questions of isolation from the human environment in the case of sub-seabed disposal may be broadly similar to those facing geologic disposal. Transportation, waste emplacement, and licensing also pose significant challenges. Finally, the international convention against sea dumping of radioactive wastes may prohibit sub-seabed disposal. Given the potential vulnerability of life in the deep-sea to human activity, sub-seabed disposal cannot be viewed as a "solution" to the waste disposal problem. But its relative problems may not be more severe than those with geologic repositories, though the specific issues are somewhat different. Hence, at the present time, sub-seabed disposal should be allocated significant research resources. These resources should not be used to add radioactive materials into the oceanic or sub-seabed environment. International collaborative sub-seabed disposal research could be a major component of the conversion of Cold War naval apparatus in the nuclear weapons states to peaceful purposes.9 One disadvantage of subseabed disposal is that it would involve disposal in the global commons. Countries that have made inadvisable decisions regarding nuclear power and weapons would be able to dispose of waste without taking the commensurate domestic liability for the problem. To make matters worse, countries that have not generated high-level radioactive wastes would share in potential adverse consequences. The use of subseabed disposal or any other international approach should be considered only in the context of the complete and irrevocable phase-out of nuclear power and of fissile materials and tritium production for weapons purposes.

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AT CP Space Disposal Repositories Perm – do the plan and all non mutually exclusive components of the counterplan. Yucca Mountain is the only option for a permanent repository. Natural Gas Weekly, 6-9-08, Yucca Mountain Application Hits Deadline, But Debate Still Raging lexis, bc The only site earmarked by Congress, the Yucca Mountain Repository, ensconced in the Nevada desert about 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has already cost $27 billion since the Nuclear Waste Fund was set up in 1983. And it's likely to cost billions more as vociferous debate over the project drags on.

Delay would be devastating for nuclear power – that’s our 1AC that investors are ready to go but they need a strong signal from the federal government that they are committed to nuclear waste disposal they don’t have any evidence that space disposal would accomplish that. Space Disposal impossible and too risky. U.S Department of Energy 4/08 (U.S Department of energy, 4/08, JD, http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ym_repository/about_project/waste_explained/do.shtml) The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Energy have researched several methods of disposal in space. Possibilities included launching waste containers into orbit around the sun. Space disposal offers the attraction of permanent separation of waste from the human environment. However, the risk of an accident during launch makes this an unacceptable option. In addition, space disposal is impractical because of the number of launches that would be required. Establishing international agreements on how such a program would be operated and regulated would also be difficult.

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AT CP Ice Sheet Repositories Perm – do the plan and all non mutually exclusive components of the counterplan. Yucca Mountain is the only option for a permanent repository. Natural Gas Weekly, 6-9-08, Yucca Mountain Application Hits Deadline, But Debate Still Raging lexis, bc The only site earmarked by Congress, the Yucca Mountain Repository, ensconced in the Nevada desert about 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has already cost $27 billion since the Nuclear Waste Fund was set up in 1983. And it's likely to cost billions more as vociferous debate over the project drags on.

Delay would be devastating for nuclear power – that’s our 1AC that investors are ready to go but they need a strong signal from the federal government that they are committed to nuclear waste disposal they don’t have any evidence that space disposal would accomplish that. Ice Sheet Disposal is expensive, violates international law and radioactive waste could be released into the ocean. U.S Department of Energy 4/08 (U.S Department of energy, 4/08, JD, http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ym_repository/about_project/waste_explained/do.shtml) Scientists have considered disposing of nuclear wastes in the ice at Antarctica or Greenland. This would involve placing waste containers on the surface or in a shallow hole where the heat from the waste would cause them to slowly melt to the bottom of the ice sheet. Cables could be used to anchor the waste containers to limit the descent depth and to allow retrieval. Advantages to this option include the lack of population in polar regions and the stability and thickness of polar ice. As with sub-seabed or remote island disposal, transportation of the waste would be a challenge. Another drawback to this option is the potential effect of future climate changes on the stability and size of polar ice masses. Radioactive wastes could be released into the environment if global climate changes increased polar ice melting. This option also would be extremely expensive due to the remote locations and adverse weather. Finally, the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 prohibits disposing of radioactive waste on the Antarctic continent.

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Failure to protect the ocean risks extinction. Craig 3 Robin Kundis, Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law, 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155, Lexis Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they do for terrestrial ecosystems, but these arguments have thus far rarely been raised in political debates. For example, besides significant tourism values - the most economically valuable ecosystem service coral reefs provide, worldwide - coral reefs protect against storms and dampen other environmental fluctuations, services worth more than ten times the reefs' value for food production. n856 Waste treatment is another significant, non-extractive ecosystem function that intact coral reef ecosystems provide. n857 More generally, "ocean ecosystems play a major role in the global geochemical cycling of all the elements that represent the basic building blocks of living organisms, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as other less abundant but necessary elements." n858 In a very real and direct sense, therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems impairs the planet's ability to support life. Maintaining biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the functions of marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an ecosystem's ability to keep functioning in the face of disturbance is strongly dependent on its biodiversity, "indicating that more diverse ecosystems are more stable." n859 Coral reef ecosystems are particularly dependent on their biodiversity. [*265] Most ecologists agree that the complexity of interactions and degree of interrelatedness among component species is higher on coral reefs than in any other marine environment. This implies that the ecosystem functioning that produces the most highly valued components is also complex and that many otherwise insignificant species have strong effects on sustaining the rest of the reef system. n860 Thus, maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to maintaining and restoring the ecosystem services that they provide. Non-use biodiversity values for marine ecosystems have been calculated in the wake of marine disasters, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. n861 Similar calculations could derive preservation values for marine wilderness. However, economic value, or economic value equivalents, should not be "the sole or even primary justification for conservation of ocean ecosystems. Ethical arguments also have considerable force and merit." n862 At the forefront of such arguments should be a recognition of how little we know about the sea - and about the actual effect of human activities on marine ecosystems. The United States has traditionally failed to protect marine ecosystems because it was difficult to detect anthropogenic harm to the oceans, but we now know that such harm is occurring - even though we are not completely sure about causation or about how to fix every problem. Ecosystems like the NWHI coral reef ecosystem should inspire lawmakers and policymakers to admit that most of the time we really do not know what we are doing to the sea and hence should be preserving marine wilderness whenever we can - especially when the United States has within its territory relatively pristine marine ecosystems that may be unique in the world. We may not know much about the sea, but we do know this much: if we kill the ocean we kill ourselves, and we will take most of the biosphere with us. The Black Sea is almost dead, n863 its once-complex and productive ecosystem almost entirely replaced by a monoculture of comb jellies, "starving out fish and dolphins, emptying fishermen's nets, and converting the web of life into brainless, wraith-like blobs of jelly." n864 More importantly, the Black Sea is not necessarily unique. The Black Sea is a microcosm of what is happening to the ocean systems at large. The stresses piled up: overfishing, oil spills, industrial discharges, nutrient pollution, wetlands destruction, the introduction of an alien species. The sea weakened, slowly at first, then collapsed with [*266] shocking suddenness. The lessons of this tragedy should not be lost to the rest of us, because much of what happened here is being repeated all over the world. The ecological stresses imposed on the Black Sea were not unique to communism. Nor, sadly, was the failure of governments to respond to the emerging crisis. n865 Oxygen-starved "dead zones" appear with increasing frequency off the coasts of major cities and major rivers, forcing marine animals to flee and killing all that cannot. n866 Ethics as well as enlightened self-interest thus suggest that the United States should protect fullyfunctioning marine ecosystems wherever possible - even if a few fishers go out of business as a result.

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AT CP Remote Island disposal Perm – do the plan and all non mutually exclusive components of the counterplan. Yucca Mountain is the only option for a permanent repository. Natural Gas Weekly, 6-9-08, Yucca Mountain Application Hits Deadline, But Debate Still Raging lexis, bc The only site earmarked by Congress, the Yucca Mountain Repository, ensconced in the Nevada desert about 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has already cost $27 billion since the Nuclear Waste Fund was set up in 1983. And it's likely to cost billions more as vociferous debate over the project drags on.

Delay would be devastating for nuclear power – that’s our 1AC that investors are ready to go but they need a strong signal from the federal government that they are committed to nuclear waste disposal they don’t have any evidence that space disposal would accomplish that. Remote Island Disposal expensive, risks the ocean, they can’t find any suitable islands and is opposed internationally. U.S Department of Energy 4/08 (U.S Department of energy, 4/08, JD, http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ym_repository/about_project/waste_explained/do.shtml) Scientists looked at burying radioactive waste beneath unpopulated remote islands. Islands that were considered potential candidates lacked valuable resources and were far from large continental landmasses. One drawback to remote island disposal concerned the risks associated with ocean transport. The potential for opposition from other countries was an additional consideration.

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Failure to protect the ocean risks extinction. Craig 3 Robin Kundis, Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law, 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155, Lexis Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they do for terrestrial ecosystems, but these arguments have thus far rarely been raised in political debates. For example, besides significant tourism values - the most economically valuable ecosystem service coral reefs provide, worldwide - coral reefs protect against storms and dampen other environmental fluctuations, services worth more than ten times the reefs' value for food production. n856 Waste treatment is another significant, non-extractive ecosystem function that intact coral reef ecosystems provide. n857 More generally, "ocean ecosystems play a major role in the global geochemical cycling of all the elements that represent the basic building blocks of living organisms, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as other less abundant but necessary elements." n858 In a very real and direct sense, therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems impairs the planet's ability to support life. Maintaining biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the functions of marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an ecosystem's ability to keep functioning in the face of disturbance is strongly dependent on its biodiversity, "indicating that more diverse ecosystems are more stable." n859 Coral reef ecosystems are particularly dependent on their biodiversity. [*265] Most ecologists agree that the complexity of interactions and degree of interrelatedness among component species is higher on coral reefs than in any other marine environment. This implies that the ecosystem functioning that produces the most highly valued components is also complex and that many otherwise insignificant species have strong effects on sustaining the rest of the reef system. n860 Thus, maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to maintaining and restoring the ecosystem services that they provide. Nonuse biodiversity values for marine ecosystems have been calculated in the wake of marine disasters, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. n861 Similar calculations could derive preservation values for marine wilderness. However, economic value, or economic value equivalents, should not be "the sole or even primary justification for conservation of ocean ecosystems. Ethical arguments also have considerable force and merit." n862 At the forefront of such arguments should be a recognition of how little we know about the sea - and about the actual effect of human activities on marine ecosystems. The United States has traditionally failed to protect marine ecosystems because it was difficult to detect anthropogenic harm to the oceans, but we now know that such harm is occurring - even though we are not completely sure about causation or about how to fix every problem. Ecosystems like the NWHI coral reef ecosystem should inspire lawmakers and policymakers to admit that most of the time we really do not know what we are doing to the sea and hence should be preserving marine wilderness whenever we can - especially when the United States has within its territory relatively pristine marine ecosystems that may be unique in the world. We may not know much about the sea, but we do know this much: if we kill the ocean we kill ourselves, and we will take most of the biosphere with us. The Black Sea is almost dead, n863 its once-complex and productive ecosystem almost entirely replaced by a monoculture of comb jellies, "starving out fish and dolphins, emptying fishermen's nets, and converting the web of life into brainless, wraith-like blobs of jelly." n864 More importantly, the Black Sea is not necessarily unique. The Black Sea is a microcosm of what is happening to the ocean systems at large. The stresses piled up: overfishing, oil spills, industrial discharges, nutrient pollution, wetlands destruction, the introduction of an alien species. The sea weakened, slowly at first, then collapsed with [*266] shocking suddenness. The lessons of this tragedy should not be lost to the rest of us, because much of what happened here is being repeated all over the world. The ecological stresses imposed on the Black Sea were not unique to communism. Nor, sadly, was the failure of governments to respond to the emerging crisis. n865 Oxygen-starved "dead zones" appear with increasing frequency off the coasts of major cities and major rivers, forcing marine animals to flee and killing all that cannot. n866 Ethics as well as enlightened self-interest thus suggest that the United States should protect fully-functioning marine ecosystems wherever possible - even if a few fishers go out of business as a result.

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AT CP Reprocessing instead of repository CP expensive and dangerous. Frank N. von Hippel, a nuclear physicist, professor of public and international affairs in Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, prior assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, April/May 2008, “Nuclear Fuel Recycling: More Trouble Than It's Worth”, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=rethinking-nuclear-fuelrecycling&page=5, VP So this strategy is not without precedent. But, as I discuss below, reprocessing is an expensive and dangerous road to take.

2. Status-Quo solves the CP. Extend our Hipple ’08 evidence from the 1A.C this assumes Status Quo action indicating that all current, “Incentives,” to do Nuclear Power are failing. The Plan is, uniquely, key to re-invigorate the Nuclear Industry; this is the internal link to all of our Advs. Extend our Bellatoni ’03 evidence from the 1A.C this evidence indicates the re-invigoration of the Nuclear Industry, via Waste Repositories, is key to prevent proliferation. The Impact is our Taylor ’02 evidence. Dry Cast Storage Is the Safest Interim option for Waste Management Frank N. von Hippel, a nuclear physicist, professor of public and international affairs in Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, prior assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, April/May 2008, “Nuclear Fuel Recycling: More Trouble Than It's Worth”, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=rethinking-nuclear-fuelrecycling&page=5, VP In the meantime, spent fuel can be safely stored at the reactor sites in dry casks. And even after it is placed in a geologic repository, it would remain retrievable for at least a century. So in the unlikely event that technology or economic circumstances change drastically enough that the benefits of reprocessing exceed the costs and risks, that option would still be available. But it makes no sense now to rush into an expensive and potentially catastrophic undertaking on the basis of uncertain hopes that it might reduce the long-term environmental burden from the nuclear power industry.

5. There is a significant TF to the CP. In the Sqou, Reprocessing is a greater RISK than a Benefit to the Nuclear Industry. Even if the Negative can access a smaller TF than we can, the probability of reprocessing to be a viable option is, incredibly, low.

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Reprocessing can’t Solve the Waste Problems Frank N. von Hippel, a nuclear physicist, professor of public and international affairs in Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, prior assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, April/May 2008, “Nuclear Fuel Recycling: More Trouble Than It's Worth”, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=rethinking-nuclear-fuelrecycling&page=5, VP These drawbacks become strikingly clear when one examines the experiences of the nations that have embarked on reprocessing programs. In France, the world leader in reprocessing technology, the separated plutonium (chemically combined with oxygen to form plutonium dioxide) is mixed with uranium 238 (also as an oxide) to make a “mixed oxide,” or MOX, fuel. After being used to generate more power, the spent MOX fuel still contains about 70 percent as much plutonium as when it was manufactured; however, the addition of highly radioactive fission products created inside a reactor makes this plutonium difficult to access and make into a bomb. The used MOX fuel is shipped back to the reprocessing facility for indefinite storage. Thus, France is, in effect, using reprocessing to move its problem with spent fuel from the reactor sites to the reprocessing plant. Japan is following France’s example. The U.K. and Russia simply store their separated civilian plutonium—about 120 tons between them as of the end of 2005, enough to make 15,000 atom bombs.

Turn Reprocessing causes proliferation. Frank N. von Hippel, a nuclear physicist, professor of public and international affairs in Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, prior assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, April/May 2008, “Nuclear Fuel Recycling: More Trouble Than It's Worth”, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=rethinking-nuclear-fuelrecycling&page=5, VP The Element from Hell Grasping my reasons for rejecting nuclear fuel reprocessing requires nothing more than a rudimentary understanding of the nuclear fuel cycle and a dollop of common sense. Power reactors generate heat— which makes steam to turn electricity-generating turbines—by maintaining a nuclear chain reaction that splits (or “fissions”) atoms. Most of the time the fuel is uranium, artificially enriched so that 4 to 5 percent is the chain-reacting isotope uranium 235; virtually all the rest is uranium 238. At an enrichment of only 5 percent, stolen reactor fuel cannot be used to construct an illicit atom bomb.

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AT CP Reprocessing – it causes proliferation extensions That leads to Increased Proliferation Frank N. von Hippel, a nuclear physicist, professor of public and international affairs in Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, prior assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, April/May 2008, “Nuclear Fuel Recycling: More Trouble Than It's Worth”, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=rethinking-nuclear-fuelrecycling&page=5, VP In the reactor, some of the uranium 238 absorbs a neutron and becomes plutonium 239, which is also chain-reacting and can in principle be partially “burned” if it is extracted and properly prepared. This approach has various drawbacks, however. One is that extraction and processing cost much more than the new fuel is worth. Another is that Recycling the Plutonium reduces the Waste Problem only minimally. Most important, the separated plutonium can readily serve to make nuclear bombs if it gets into the, Wong Hands; as a result, much effort has to be expended to keep it secure until it is once more a part of Sent Fel.

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AT CP Reprocessing – it’s expensive extensions Reprocessing is expensive Frank N. von Hippel, a nuclear physicist, professor of public and international affairs in Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, prior assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, April/May 2008, “Nuclear Fuel Recycling: More Trouble Than It's Worth”, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=rethinking-nuclear-fuelrecycling&page=5, VP Is there enough physical room to keep them? Yes, there is plenty of space for more casks at U.S. nuclear power plants. Even the oldest operating U.S. reactors are having their licenses extended for another 20 years, and new reactors will likely be built on the same sites. So there is no reason to think that these storage areas are about to disappear. Eventually, of course, it will be necessary to remove the spent fuel and put it elsewhere, but there is no need to panic and adopt a policy of reprocessing, which would only make the situation much more dangerous and costly than it is today.

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AT CP States Perm – do the plan and all non mutually exclusive components of the counterplan. The counterplan can’t offer cradle-to-grave fuel cycle services which undermines antiproliferation efforts - the impact to that is extinction. American Council on Global Nuclear Competitiveness, May 2007 LC www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org 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.

Yucca will still be used for military waste which makes all their storage DA’s non-unique. Ralph Vartabedian, Times Staff Writer, 6-4-08, LA Times, U.S. seeks the go-ahead for Nevada nuclear dump; State officials say they remain committed to blocking the long-planned waste site at Yucca Mountain, lexis, bc The nation has been trying to resolve the issue since the late 1970s. In 1982, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. In his first term, President Bush, with congressional approval, selected Yucca Mountain as the designated site for what is mostly spent fuel from commercial reactors but also military nuclear waste. Since then, Nevada has waged an effective legal, political and technical fight against it, drawing on the state's growing fiscal and political clout.

CP wouldn’t be able to use Yucca Mountain – it’s on federal land. This is a massive solvency since it would take a long time to get another site approved. Isaac J. Winograd and Eugene H. Roseboom Jr, Emeritus, U.S. Geological Survey, AAAS Science Magazine, 13 June 2008, NUCLEAR WASTE: Yucca Mountain Revisited, nna The physical setting of the proposed YM repository (i.e., in consolidated rocks ~300 meters above the water table) lends itself to such an approach by permitting ready access to and monitoring of the wastes (the major assets of surface storage), while isolating them at depth at a single location (the chief asset of geologic disposal) on remote federal land.

No solvency - Without Yucca no rebirth of nuclear power. Hertel, professor of nuclear engineering @ Georgia Tech, ’07 (Nolan, Atlanta JournalConstitution, July 27, p. A15, twm) Nuclear waste, or rather the lack of a workable scheme for storing the waste at a central location, could delay the rebirth of nuclear power simply because Wall Street wants to see some signs of progress on resolving the waste problem before investing in a new generation of nuclear power plants. The fact that no new nuclear plants have been built in the United States in years is a threat to all of us. Nuclear power is needed to help meet the increasing demand for electricity, because it's the only energy source that can provide large amounts of power without emitting carbon dioxide or other global warming gases. Nuclear power can also reduce our dependence on Middle East oil. It is safe, reliable and affordable. But unless more nuclear plants are built to replace older units and meet growing demand for clean power generation, nuclear power's share of the nation's electricity capacity will fall below its current level of 20 percent. If that happens, the danger is that we will not have a balanced mix of clean energy sources to keep electricity costs down. For nuclear power, Yucca Mountain is the key.

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No solvency – the federal government has complete jurisdiction over nuclear waste disposal and so the courts would strike down any attempt by the states to do waste storage. The NRC has allowed some states to control low level radioactive waste but even that required congressional approval which proves the cp links to politics. Kraft, Director Nuclear Energy Information Service, ’98 (David, http://www.neis.org/literature/Reports&Testimonies/icctest-984.htm, April 24, twm) Recognizing their unique nature, Congress has enacted separate laws for the perpetual storage ("disposal") of these wastes. Jurisdiction over HLRW matters resides with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and Department of Energy (DOE). NRC has, with Congress' approval, bestowed jurisdiction over LLRW matters to "agreement states" which have demonstrated that methods used in the storage, treatment, transportation and disposal of LLRW are not in contradiction with federal standards. Illinois is an "agreement state."

Consolidation of nuclear wastes decreases the risk of terrorism – the cp would result in states all over having waste dumps. Struglinski ’02 (Suzanne, Enviornment and Energy Daily, Feb. 18, Vol. 10, #9, twmh , p. l/n) "I want to praise President Bush for keeping the federal government's commitment to electric utility customers who have invested over $16 billion for the future development of a safe, secure and centralized facility," Hastert said. "In these times, Americans deserve the peace of mind that spent nuclear fuel will be consolidated into one secure location rather than scattered across the country in over 130 various sites."

the impact is us lashout killing hundreds of millions Easterbrook – Fellow at the Brookings Institute – 2001 (Greg, CNN, “America's New War: Nuclear Threats,” 11-1-2001, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0111/01/gal.00.html) EASTERBROOK: Well, what held through the Cold War, when the United States and Russia had thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at each other, what held each side back was the fact that fundamentally they were rational. They knew that if they struck, they would be struck in turn. Terrorists may not be held by this, especially suicidal terrorists, of the kind that al Qaeda is attempting to cultivate. But I think, if I could leave you with one message, it would be this: that the search for terrorist atomic weapons would be of great benefit to the Muslim peoples of the world in addition to members, to people of the United States and Western Europe, because if an atomic warhead goes off in Washington, say, in the current environment or anything like it, in the 24 hours that followed, a hundred million Muslims would die as U.S. nuclear bombs rained down on every conceivable military target in a dozen Muslim countries. And that -- it is very much in the interest the Muslim peoples of the world that atomic weapons be kept out of the hands of Islamic terrorists, in addition to being in our interests.

or no state will take it - nimby No other subject of regulatory licensing triggers the NIMBY syndrome more than nukes' spent fuel. Michael Skelly , the Democratic candidate for the gerrymandered 7th Congressional District in Houston, told Natural Gas Week "we've got to open Yucca Mountain" before any progress can be made in the next wave of nuclear generation.

No Solvency advocate – this is a voting issue for reasons of predictability. No requirement to have evidence gives the negative virtually infinite counterplan options. Zero solvency - If they don’t have an advocate you should assign their counterplan ZERO solvency.

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The California economy is on the brink because of budget deficits – the plan would force shortfalls or raising taxes, ensuring there’s no change a budget gets passed Evan Halper, LA Times, 7-1-2008, “State will pay,” ln Legislators are making little progress closing a $15.2-billion shortfall. Democrats demand new taxes. Republicans say that is out of the question. Meanwhile, their inability to strike a deal threatens millions of Californians who rely on the government for healthcare and other services. Budget delays are not unusual. But the consequences will be particularly harsh this year. Many of the healthcare clinics and other service providers that have used private loans to get by during past budget stalemates are unlikely to have easy access to such cash this year, as a result of the ongoing credit crunch brought on by the mortgage crisis. Independent service providers aren't the only ones that could soon be scraping to find money. Short-term bonds that finance officials rely upon to replenish state coffers cannot be sold without a budget in place, and getting them to market takes at least a month. The state may have to turn to a syndicate of investment banks for short-term financing, on terms that could prove costly, said H.D. Palmer, deputy director of the state Department of Finance. The financing could cost $140 million more than bond borrowing would have, he said. "In this budget environment," he said," I can think of a lot better uses for that money." Despite the grim state of affairs at the Capitol, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers Monday played down their failure to get a budget together and the dim prospects of reaching a deal soon. "I don't know at what stage they are in at this time," Schwarzenegger said at a news conference. "I know one thing, they are all working. . . . Everyone knows we are short on time. I think everyone knows it is a complicated, difficult budget." Schwarzenegger, who has been playing only a minor role in budget deliberations of late, turned the microphone over to Assembly Speaker Karen Bass. "We have been working," she said. "We spent four hours yesterday working." Democrats in both houses have released budget plans that call for as much as $11 billion in new taxes. But so far they have not identified which taxes they would like to raise. Bass demurred again Monday. "We will see what happens as the process moves forward this week," she said. The governor later joked about his optimism that the state will not run out of cash by pulling out a personal money clip full of bills. "I still have some left," he said. Not all Republicans were in such good spirits. "Until we get to a spot where Democrats realize that taxes are not going to work, it will

be tough to move the budget forward," said Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines of Clovis. Credit agencies will be watching closely: California has the second-lowest credit rating among states in the country, and some economists say a downgrade could be coming. The last time the state's creditworthiness was downgraded was during the budget crisis of 2003, when its bond ratings fell to nearly junk status. The shortfall lawmakers faced then was roughly the size it is now.

California is key to the US economy and they are cutting budgets to save their economy. Nutting, 11-9-2007, MarketWatch, “Could California be in recession?” lexis, tk The state of California isn't taking any chances. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered state agencies to plan for a 10% cutback in their budgets for next year, figuring that tax receipts could fall significantly along with home prices. California matters to the national economy, but trends in California do not necessarily presage what will happen nationally. About one in every eight Americans live in California. Its state gross product was $1.6 trillion in 2005, representing about 13% of the nation's economic output, slightly more than its 12% share of the population. In 2006, the median household income in California was $54,385, compared with $48,023 nationally. Between 1997 and 2005, California household incomes grew 4.4% annually, the fourth fastest growing state. Some of that growth came from the technology boom of the late 1990s, and some came from the housing boom, which, in just five years, doubled average home prices in the state to about $500,000. Now, of course, home prices are falling nationally, but especially in California. California's economy has a lot going for it. It's incredibly diverse, from the highest of high tech and Hollywood to the basic old-economy industries of agriculture, retail and manufacturing. California is by far the biggest farming state, with its annual output nearly three times its nearest competitor, Texas. California's agricultural output - nearly 20% of the nation's total -- matches the output of all the Farm Belt states combined. California accounts for about 11% of U.S. manufacturing output by value and 13% of construction. California accounts for 19% of the country's information services including media and software. And it contributes 12% of the national output of financial services, trailing only New York in the financial sector.

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Failure to create a federal repository means the federal government has to pay $300 million per year for dry casks – the states counterplan doesn’t solve this because it’s a legal obligation the federal government has to energy companies. Frank N. von Hippel, a nuclear physicist, professor of public and international affairs in Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, prior assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, April/May 2008, “Nuclear Fuel Recycling: More Trouble Than It's Worth”, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=rethinking-nuclear-fuelrecycling&page=5, VP Most nuclear utilities are therefore beginning to store older spent fuel on dry ground in huge casks, each typically containing 10 tons of waste. Every year a 1,000-megawatt reactor discharges enough fuel to fill two of these casks, each costing about $1 million. But that is not all the industry is doing. U.S. nuclear utilities are suing the federal government, because they would not have incurred such expenses had the U.S. Department of Energy opened the Yucca Mountain repository in 1998 as originally planned. As a result, the government is paying for the casks and associated infrastructure and operations—a bill that is running about $300 million a year.

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AT CP States doesn’t solve proliferation extensions No solvency for proliferation – the USFG has to take back some waste to ensure conversion to low-enriched uranium fuels worldwide – the impact to this is extinction. Glenn Schweitzer and Kelly Robbins, Editors, Committee on Issues in Consolidating Spent Nuclear Fuel at International Storage Sites, Office for Central Europe and Eurasia Development, National Research Council, 2008, National Academy of Sciences, “Setting the Stage for International Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facilities: International Workshop Proceedings”, rks, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12191.html. The United States has maintained a strong program of international cooperation in the area of radioactive waste management to assist other states in managing their own spent fuel and radioactive waste. For example, U.S. nuclear cooperation committee meetings with Taiwan and the Republic of Korea have been held for more than 15 and 25 years, respectively, and spent fuel and radioactive waste management have been on the agenda of most of those meetings. Many states have gained an understanding of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) site evaluation methodology and repository science programs. States, however, should not expect to see the United States giving consideration to taking irradiated U.S.-origin fuel supplied for electricity generation back for storage and/or disposal, in Yucca Mountain or elsewhere. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978 makes any plan for the return of such fuel subject to stringent conditions, including submission to Congress, which has the option to reject it. Subsequently, Congress has prohibited the executive branch from even spending money to formulate or review such a plan. Despite U.S. policy against taking back spent nuclear power reactor fuel, the United States has operated an international spent fuel disposal system of sorts, taking back spent U.S.-origin research reactor fuel for disposal. This is part of the effort to reduce worldwide use of highly enriched uranium, an effort that has been successful in encouraging the conversion of most research reactors to the use of low-enriched uranium fuels. The bulk of spent highly enriched uranium fuel will be repatriated before the U.S. program ends in 2009. The United States is also working with Russia and the IAEA on a similar program involving the return to Russia of highly enriched uranium fuel and spent fuel from exported Soviet-era research reactors.

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AT CP States no jurisdiction extensions They States are UNABLE to solve; due to a 1959 court case, the state cannot regulate radiological hazards. Alden Solovy, The education reporter for the Decatur Herald & Review, He was an Illinois Issues intern this spring under the Public Affairs Reporting Program at Sangamon State University, 10-24-1980, “Federal preemption of nuclear power regulation”, Illinois Issue, rks, http://www.lib.niu.edu/1980/ii801024.html. THE CONFLICT between state sovereignty and federal supremacy has found another battleground: regulation of the nuclear power industry. And in cases like Northern States Power Co. v. Minnesota the states haven't fared well. For the past few years the Illinois General Assembly has attempted to pass legislation regulating nuclear power plants and disposal of high level nuclear waste legislation similar to that struck down in Northern States. The courts have consistently quashed state attempts to regulate nuclear power in California, New York, New Jersey and Oklahoma. In 1959 Congress amended the Atomic Energy Act to clarify those areas of the nuclear power industry which states could regulate. The amendment allowed "State regulation of activities for purposes other than protection against radiation hazards." Regulation of radiation hazards was preempted in the amendment, but Congress left the interpretation of radiation hazards up to the courts. The courts have not set a specific rule of thumb in determining the difference between radiological hazards (which the states can't regulate) and nonradiological hazards (which they can). Yet, the courts seem to have established on a case-by-case basis that any state law or regulation dealing however tangentially with radiological matters is preempted by the federal government. The Northern States case is probably the leading court test on the preemption question. This 1971 case, heard in the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and affirmed in summary judgment by the Supreme Court, was over a Minnesota state waste disposal permit which limited the level of radioactive discharges (liquid and gaseous) from a nuclear power plant and required specific programs for detecting radioactive releases. These requirements were more stringent than the federal regulations.

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AT CP States lack of consolidation increases terrorism risk extensions Consolidation decreases terrorism risk. Sherman ’02 (Mark, AP Online, April 18, p. l/n) "There are compelling national interests that require us to complete the siting process and move forward with the development of a repository as Congress mandated 20 years ago," Abraham wrote in January. He said increased unease about terrorist attacks makes it even more important that the nation's radioactive waste be consolidated.

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AT CP Alternative Energy generic 1. Cant Solve the Advantages -A. Prolif – a strong nuclear power industry is key to asserting influence globally on non-prolif issues – the impact is rapid nuclear war and extinction B. Russia – US must expand its nuclear power capacity in order to foster relationship with Russia – only nuclear power can foster this framework – the impact is extinction C. Oil Dependence – Nuclear power is the best option in order to solve this -- impact is nuclear war and all impacts for extinction 2. Perm: Do Both – there is no reason why we cant use both AE 3. It will take 1200 years for other alternative energies to catch nuclear power CFR, Council on Foreign Relations, November 6, 2007 http://www.cfr.org/publication/14718/nuclear_power_in_response_to_climate_change.html KP It’s a shame this is an online discussion, because surely Michael Mariotte couldn’t have written his remarks with a straight face. You do the math: Nuclear energy annually has provided 20 percent of U.S. electricity supplies since the early 1990s, and even with a marked increase in overall electricity demand, it constitutes more than 70 percent of the electricity that comes from sources that do not emit greenhouse gases or controlled pollutants into the atmosphere. Renewable energy technologies over that same time period—even with subsidies like production tax credits in place—have increased their share of U.S. electricity production to 3.1 percent from 2.9 percent. At that rate of growth, it will take renewable technologies another twelve hundred years just to equal the share of electricity production that nuclear energy has provided since 1992. 4. Nuclear power is comparatively the superior alternative – all the others cant solve our advantages Daniel Koffler, Staff Writer, July 8, 2008, The Guardian, The Case For Nuclear Power, nna http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/08/nuclearpower.energy Nuclear power is green in multiple senses. The most important criteria by which to judge any viable alternative to petroleum is the magnitude of its contribution to global warming. Well, uranium or petroleum fission produces no carbon emissions whatsoever, since there is no carbon involved. The cooling process does produce water vapour, but water vapour and carbon dioxide are both greenhouse gases in the same sense that Roger Federer and I are both tennis players (and water vapour emissions, moreover, can be controlled). The environmental downsides of nuclear power are therefore not any more severe than other alternative energy sources, such as wind or solar power, and are arguably less severe than biofuels like the ethanol that Obama heartily supports. These energy sources all entail waste heat, produce solid waste and have other drawbacks but the environmental drawbacks of all of them, nukes included, are quite modest. From a fiscal perspective, nuclear power enjoys enormous advantages over other environmentally friendly energies. At their present state of technological development, nuclear reactors can already power large industrial societies. Wind and solar power are not there yet, and biofuels (particularly ethanol) are something of an embarrassing racket, being extraordinarily inefficient and requiring huge government subsidies to be propped up. 5. Independently, Nuclear energy key to prevent a nuclear holocaust Bernard L. Cohen, Professor Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, 1990 “The Nuclear Energy Option” http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/BOOK.html If one attempts to develop scenarios that might lead to a major nuclear holocaust, fights over energy resources such as Middle East oil must be at or near the top of the list. Anything that can give all of the major nations secure energy sources must therefore be viewed as a major deterrent to nuclear war. Reprocessing of power reactor fuel can provide this energy security, and therefore has an important role in averting a nuclear holocaust. That positive role of reprocessing is, to most observers, more important than any negative role it might play in causing such a war through proliferation of nuclear weapons.

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AT DA Coal 1. Non-unique: Nuclear power currently produced within the US M2 PressWIRE March 13, 2008, Research and Markets: Most Comprehensive Report on U.S. Nuclear Power Plants, Lexis VF

The United States produces the most nuclear energy, with nuclear power providing 20% of the electricity it consumes, while France produces the highest percentage of its electrical energy from nuclear reactors - 80% as of 2006. In the European Union as a whole, nuclear energy provides 30% of the electricity. Nuclear energy policy differs between European Union countries, and some, such as Austria and Ireland, have no active nuclear power stations. In comparison, France has a large number of these plants, with 16 multi-unit stations in current use. Analysis of the Major Nuclear Power Plants in the United States takes a view of the overall nuclear power industry worldwide, with an analysis of the basics of nuclear power, and an overview of the nuclear power industry in the United States. The report focuses on the major nuclear power plants in the U.S. over 75 plants are focused upon in this report.

2. No Link: Our plan won’t cause an immediate decrease in the coal industry. It will not affect the market for a year or two. 3. No specific link - They do not read a specific link to nuclear energy. They only state that an increase in alternative energy will lead to a coal industry tradeoff. Any increase in alternative energy would lead to the negative’s impacts.

4. No Impact:

Extend our Oxford Economics from 2007 that says nuclear energy is key to the sustaining the growth of the United States economy.

5. Nuclear energy boosts the economy States News Service, July 14, 2008, Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Guiterrez Remarks to Detroit Economic Club Detroit, Michigan, Lexis VF

But we also need to diversify our sources. Take nuclear power, for example. The last construction permit for a currently operating nuclear reactor in the United States was approved in 1978. We get roughly 20 percent of our electricity from nuclear, while France gets more than 80 percent. Building new nuclear power plants will boost our economy. This high-tech industry spurs innovation, has large trade and investment potential, can assure the retention of high-skilled U.S. manufacturing capacity, and can create or sustain tens of thousands of jobs.

Impact Turn: The current global coal boom will lead to global warming – advancing the industry is suicide Jeff Goodell, January 25, 2007, “Big Coal’s Dirty Move”, JaretLK, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13159559/national_affairs_big_coals_dirty_move

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a suicidal act is one that is "dangerous to oneself or to one's interests; self-destructive or ruinous." By this standard, the coal boom that is currently sweeping America is the atmospheric equivalent of a swan dive off a very tall building. At precisely the moment that scientists have reached a consensus that we need to drastically cut climate-warming pollution, the electric-power industry is racing to build more than 150 new coal plants across the United States. Coal is by far the dirtiest fossil fuel: If the new plants are built, they will dump hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year for decades to come — virtually guaranteeing that the U.S. will join China in leading civilization's plunge into a superheated future.

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AT DA Politics they say “plan is unpopular” Public loves it – environmental benefits and reduced safety fears Wood and McKibbon, 3/23/08 (Susan and Mal, chairwoman of the board of directors for Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness in Aiken, S.C.; and the executive director emeritus and a consultant for CNTA, augusta chronicle) A much-needed nuclear power renaissance is sweeping the world There is no doubt that a renaissance of nuclear power is under way in the United States and around the world.The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which licenses and regulates commercial nuclear activities, has received expressions of interest for building 32 new reactors. They have received four license applications for combined construction and operation, and several utilities have submitted Early Site Permits, including Southern Nuclear (Georgia Power) and Duke Power. Many countries are building new reactors or plan to, including Canada, Brazil, England, France, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Finland, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and others. The reason is clear. People have become aware that for several decades, nuclear power has had an incredibly good record of safety, environmental protection and low costs, and everyone wants a way to produce electricity that does not pollute. A wise person once said, "Facts are stubborn things." Here are some pertinent facts: * Safety. No one has died from the radiation from power reactors, spent fuel or radioactive waste except in the Chernobyl accident, which could not happen anywhere else - yet the only competitors of nuclear power, coal and natural gas, each cause several thousand deaths each year, worldwide, from coal-mining accidents, gas explosions and fires. Also, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have estimated that 30,000 people die prematurely each year in the United States from the emissions of coal-powered plants. Nuclear is safer by a huge margin, and the next generation of nuclear plants, already being built, will be even safer. * Environment. The outstanding environmental record of nuclear power plants is becoming legendary. They have no emissions that make acid rain, smog, global warming, ozone depletion or heavy-metal pollution. Many professional environmentalists and ecologists support nuclear power. A partial list includes: Dr. Patrick Moore, founder and past president of Greenpeace; Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalogue; James Lovelock, considered the founder of the environmental movement; Anglican Bishop Hugh Montefiore; Friends of the Earth; and Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute. Global warming is indeed occurring, and the principal human contributor is carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from the burning of trees, coal, oil, and gas. Fortunately, we can do something about that without reducing our standard of living by going to nuclear production of electricity and using hydrogen for transportation. It is likely that the cheapest way to make hydrogen will be in nuclear plants. * Cost. The operating cost for making electricity in nuclear plants is lower than any of its competitors. In 2006, nuclear plant operating cost in the United States averaged 1.72 cents per kilowatt-hour, coal 2.37, natural gas 6.75 and oil 9.63. Since then, the cost advantage of nuclear over coal has grown in part because coal plants are spending money to reduce their emissions. If construction costs are included, nuclear is already competitive, and is expected to gain an advantage as the price of new nuclear plants comes down, and the cost and time to get licenses is reduced. * Public support. Americans have become aware of these advantages, and are supportive of nuclear power. Several national polls show that 68 to 70 percent of adult Americans support building more to meet our growing need for electricity. Support among people living near existing nuclear plants is 87 percent, and among college graduates with a technical degree is 85 percent.

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Global warming concerns have made nuclear power popular. Tribune Business News ’08 (9 Jul, Dee DePass, Financial and Political reporter for the Tribune Business News, “An enriched opportunity for Alliant: As the appeal of nuclear power grows, Alliant Techsystems is set to become a key player”, AB, Proquest) The 'clear' in nuclear power ATK's foray into nuclear energy comes at an opportune time. After accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island put nuclear power in the hot seat, the idea of nuclear's carbon-neutral energy production has found favor again amid worries about global warming. Majority of American public supports nuclear energy Bisconti, 2006 (Ann Stouffer, Ph.D. and President of Bisconti Research Inc., “Clear Majority of Americans Agree Nuclear Energy Will Play Important Future Role in Electricity Supply”, May) There is a consensus among Americans that nuclear energy will play an important role in meeting the nation’s electricity needs in the years ahead, according to two March national public opinion surveys conducted by Bisconti Research Inc. with GfK NOP (formerly NOPWorld and RoperASW). Eighty-six percent of the public and 88 percent of college graduate voters agree that nuclear energy will play an important role in meeting future electricity demand. Majorities also support license renewal for existing nuclear power plants and “definitely building” new nuclear power plants. Seventy-three percent of Americans would find it acceptable to add a new reactor at the nearest existing nuclear power plant site. The Nuclear Energy Institute sponsored the two surveys. The general public survey was based on telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,000 U.S. adults age 18 and older. The margin of error in this survey was plus or minus three percentage points. A national sample of 500 college graduates who are registered to vote also was surveyed, with a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points. Congress supports dry cask storage. Whitney ’08, staff writer, McClatchy Newspapers, Lexis, tk. At a House Science and Technology Committee hearing Wednesday, expansion of nuclear power was viewed as an opportunity. Gone are the days when lawmakers questioned the safety of reactor technology. Even among those for whom waste is an issue, there is a high comfort level with storing used fuel in dry casks for decades at the reactor sites while a more comprehensive solution is studied.

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AT DA Politics they say “plan is popular” Yucca mountain is a key issue for Nevada voters – they oppose it strongly Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nov. 28, 2007, “Poll finds Nevada voters strongly oppose Yucca, Survey shows 76 percent are against nuclear waste project”, JaretLK, http://www.lvrj.com/news/11882701.html ellipses in original RENO -- Nevada voters remain overwhelmingly opposed to federal plans to store the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, according to a statewide poll published Tuesday. The survey of 600 likely Nevada voters conducted for the Reno Gazette-Journal found that 76 percent oppose the project and 57 percent say the issue will be important in making their choice for president. The survey also found that opposition to the project crosses party lines, but Democrats think it's a more important issue in the presidential election than Republicans. Seventy-four percent of Democrats said the issue is important to them in the presidential race, compared with 38 percent of Republicans. The poll was conducted Nov. 16-19 by Maryland-based Research 2000. The margin of error is 4 percent. "From a national perspective, any campaign that wants to win the hearts and minds of Nevada voters has to be prepared to talk about long-term radioactive storage," said GOP strategist Greg Ferraro of Reno. "These numbers will also force the candidates to look at alternatives for the waste." Yucca Mountain has gained more attention from presidential candidates since Nevada moved up its presidential caucuses to Jan. 19, following Iowa on Jan. 3 and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8. Nevada's congressional delegation is adamantly opposed to the project. Congress in 2002 picked the Yucca Mountain site about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas to entomb 77,000 tons of spent nuclear reactor fuel. Political analysts said the issue's importance in presidential elections has been questionable. They cite President Bush's ability to carry Nevada in 2004, despite his support of the Yucca Mountain site. "Yucca Mountain is not going to swing it for them from one candidate to another," said Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. "Among Democrats, this is a far more salient issue. There is no nuance allowed. ... Republicans, even those who are opposed to Yucca Mountain, are not as adamant as are the Democrats," he said. Every Democratic presidential candidate has come out against Yucca Mountain, but Rep. Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate to come out strongly against it. The Department of Energy is preparing a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct the project. Yucca is one of the nation’s biggest political disputes. Ralph Vartabedian, Times Staff Writer, 6-4-08, LA Times, U.S. seeks the go-ahead for Nevada nuclear dump; State officials say they remain committed to blocking the long-planned waste site at Yucca Mountain, lexis, bc The dump has become one of the biggest geographic disputes in modern U.S. history, pitting Nevada against a nuclear power industry centered in the East. California's two senators, as well as others in the West, have supported Nevada's opposition to the dump. Empirically, introducing Yucca causes political controversy. Alexander Duncan,12-10-07, Electric Utility Week, Climate bill wins crucial approval, sending measure on to action by Senate next year, lexis, bc The Isakson package would have clarified federal loan guarantee language to facilitate new projects, eliminated the mandatory adjudicatory hearing for uncontested nuclear power plant license applications, encouraged policies to develop a skilled workforce to build nuclear reactors and provided tax incentives for new construction of nuclear plants. Boxer, a noted nuclear skeptic, said she would consider the nuclear issues on the floor. Yet overall she decried these and other Republican "killer amendments" designed to fracture the "delicate balance" in her committee. "I don't think we want to bring Yucca Mountain into this," she said. "That would sink this bill pretty fast." Long-time nuclear advocate and bill cosponsor Lieberman said that carbon caps would be plenty to help the industry. "You've got to set the goal, and American innovation will meet them," he said. Senator Tom Carper, Democrat of Delaware, also plans to offer an amendment on the Senate floor aimed at giving emission allowances to nuclear and renewable plants.

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AT DA Politics they say “Plan costs political capital” alternative energy builds political capital McGinnis 08 [Michael P. McGinnis, Staff Writer, “Inland Views; Bush Can Still Salvage His Energy Legacy”, The Press Enterprise, 06/25/08, LexisNexis] There is plenty of room for criticism in the handling of the wars, and undoubtedly, it will be discussed in great detail for

Bush's greatest failure will be his energy policy, or more precisely, the lack of a cohesive energy policy. In his final months as a lame-duck president, Bush many years to come. But I feel that

still has one deadly weapon: the veto. Our president makes no bones about being an oilman, and it's no great secret that oil money has played a role throughout his presidency. Bush is blatantly pandering to big oil by threatening to veto any

the development of alternative fuels. This would undoubtedly be the crowning touch to an ignoble administration. We have an energy crisis. There is no doubt that we are a great nation that is full of rich resources action by Congress to remove oil-industry tax breaks and use those funds to further

and a tremendous wealth of brainpower. We have demonstrated time and again our "can-do" attitude. So why do we insist on an energy policy that depends on foreign oil and the utilization of food crops to augment our fuel supply? We are subsidizing every gallon of ethanol produced in this country and placing a tariff on every gallon imported to protect this boondoggle. Some California utilities are showing leadership, such as Southern California Edison's commitment to a large-scale solar energy installation, which will exceed 250 megawatts. Additionally, Edison will be involved in one of the

. This is the kind of leadership that must come from our president and Congress. We must have a viable national energy policy with clearly largest wind turbine parks with the Tehachapi wind project

defined goals. We need to develop our vast coal reserves; and yes, we have the technology to make coal energy cleaner. But, as always, it is expensive to make a clean-burning fuel. Nuclear generation looks interesting, but only if we can resolve the problem with the disposal of spent fuel. Unfortunately, the free ride with cheap energy is over, but as I see it, solar energy is the Holy Grail, the panacea for our future. It's not cheap (yet), but the price is dropping and new technologies are coming forth. The amount of money going to an exceedingly wealthy industry (big oil) could be better

. Bush can still shape his presidential legacy in a positive way by just doing the right thing to establish a viable energy policy that lessens our dependence on oil. spent on developing more efficient alternative fuels

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AT DA Politics Obama Good – Iran scenario 1. Mccain will win – hillary defectors, independents and latin voters Perce, 7-3-08 (Joseph, Editor @ Political Bull, http://www.politicalbull.net/why_i_believe_mccain_will_win_the_election.html) Help for McCain will come from former Clinton supporters that will come to his side during the November Election. According to a recent article on CBS News, "Twelve percent of Democrats say they will support McCain in the general election. That's higher than the 8 percent of Democrats who defected to President Bush in 2004. Nearly a quarter of Clinton supporters say they will back McCain instead of Obama in the general election". The same article goes on to point out that McCain leads Obama by 8 votes among registered Independent voters. Two other important factors to consider in November are the Latino vote and the vote from the so-called "Red States". Despite claims that Obama is making in-roads in the Red States, the numbers seem to prove otherwise. Obama has won 14 red states and over half of them have not voted for a Democrat to be president in the general election in over 40 years, according to an article on the Washington Post. The article states, "Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 campaign was the last Democrat who won Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Utah and Virginia. Meanwhile, five states have backed a Democratic presidential candidate sometime in the past 20 years: Colorado (1992), Georgia (1992), Missouri (1996), Louisiana (1996) and Iowa (2000)." Obama will certainly have a tough time getting a majority of the Latino vote as well, as the Florida primary exemplifies (Despite the fact that it was not counted). Ultimately, it is my opinion for the reasons stated above, that McCain will win the 2008 election.

2. Storage is very controversial. Jim Green, National nuclear campaigner - Friends of the Earth, Australia, 2007-05-29, “US-led Global Nuclear Energy Partnership”, jlk, http://www.foe.org.au/campaigns/anti-nuclear/issues/power/us-led-global-nuclear-energypartnership/?searchterm=legislate RADIOACTIVE WASTE Establishing interim storage and permanent disposal facilities for nuclear waste has been a protracted and controversial issue in the US and it is a long way from resolution. The waste management problems could jeopardise plans to build new reactors. The US House Committee (2006) questions whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would licence new reactors in the absence of a clear disposal path for spent fuel, and notes that DOE's response is to seek legislation eliminating the availability of disposal space in a permanent repository as a consideration for the NRC in licensing new reactors. The Committee argues that attempting to "legislate away" the waste problem is not a responsible course of action. The estimated opening date for the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada has been pushed back to 2017 — initially it was planned to be in operation in 1998.

3. Turn - Nuclear power is still a hot button issue. Waste News, 10-1-07, Revisiting the nuke debate, lexis, bc It's back! After some 30 years, applications have been made for two new nuclear power plants in the United States. And that likely will heat up the nuclear power debate. NRG Energy is seeking to build two new facilities in Texas, the first serious attempt at new nuclear power operations since the infamous accident at Three Mile Island in 1979. Time only has slightly cooled nuclear power as a hot button topic since then.

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Turn - Public opinion changing is changing. Support for alternate energy and emission limits are declining. Chemical News and Intelligence, 4/10/08 The tide may be changing on US climate change issues By Joe Kamalick WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--Recent US news reports have challenged popular and congressional wisdom about global warming but the reports were significant more for their venue than content - and they suggest a small but telling shift in public opinion. Citing various scholars and scientists, the news reports said that biofuels might not be the panacea for US energy and environmental problems and that emissions caps might damage the US economy without any effect on climate change. None of this is very new stuff, really, and has been reported here and elsewhere on ICIS news, other focused media and government studies for considerable time. However, these new challenging reports appeared in recent issues of Time magazine and The New York Times, two news outlets that are hip-deep in the US mainstream. The fact that those grand dames of US media are questioning basic tenets of climate change philosophy indicates that a sea change in opinion may be under way. Perhaps most surprising and damning was the Time magazine story of 27 March titled "The Clean Energy Myth" on the newsstand magazine's cover and [1]"The Clean Energy Scam" on its Web site. In its 6 April edition, The New York Times said in a story headlined "[2]A Shift in the Debate Over Global Warming" that the popular policy goal of imposing caps on greenhouse gas emissions to force energy conservation and spur non-polluting technologies is now doubtful. "Now, with recent data showing an unexpected rise in global emissions and a decline in energy efficiency, a growing chorus of economists, scientists and students of energy policy are saying that whatever benefits the cap approach yields, it will be too little and come too late," the Times said.

McCain’s hardline stance is limited to sanctions – he does not want a military strike Rosen 7-9-08. (James, Washington Correspondent, “America’s Election Headquarters for July 9, 2008”, Fox News Network, lexis) ROSEN: To that, John McCain, the likely Republican nominee said, "Channels of communication have been opened and will remain open." I would continue to quote McCain, "but the time has now come for effective sanctions on Iran which will then," McCain said, "or can have a modifying effect on their very aggressive behavior." To be clear about this, E.D., neither Democrat Barack Obama nor Republican John McCain presently advocates a military strike on Iran, which is also why they are suspected of developing a nuclear weapons capability - - E.D.

6. Iraq empirically denies their impacts – all of their impacts say what other countries would do if we attacked a country in the middle east which we have already done.

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AT DA Politics Obama good – Global Gag Rule Scenario McCain will win – Hillary defectors, independents, red states and Latin voters Perce, 7/3/08 (Joseph, Editor @ Political Bull, http://www.politicalbull.net/why_i_believe_mccain_will_win_the_election.html) Help for McCain will come from former Clinton supporters that will come to his side during the November Election. According to a recent article on CBS News, "Twelve percent of Democrats say they will support McCain in the general election. That's higher than the 8 percent of Democrats who defected to President Bush in 2004. Nearly a quarter of Clinton supporters say they will back McCain instead of Obama in the general election". The same article goes on to point out that McCain leads Obama by 8 votes among registered Independent voters. Two other important factors to consider in November are the Latino vote and the vote from the so-called "Red States". Despite claims that Obama is making in-roads in the Red States, the numbers seem to prove otherwise. Obama has won 14 red states and over half of them have not voted for a Democrat to be president in the general election in over 40 years, according to an article on the Washington Post. The article states, "Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 campaign was the last Democrat who won Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Utah and Virginia. Meanwhile, five states have backed a Democratic presidential candidate sometime in the past 20 years: Colorado (1992), Georgia (1992), Missouri (1996), Louisiana (1996) and Iowa (2000)." Obama will certainly have a tough time getting a majority of the Latino vote as well, as the Florida primary exemplifies (Despite the fact that it was not counted). Ultimately, it is my opinion for the reasons stated above, that McCain will win the 2008 election.

Polls are wrong – electoral votes favor McCain MONTOPOLI 6/25/06 [BRIAN political correspondent, CBS NEWS http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/06/25/politics/horserace/entry4207063.shtml] Obama is no Dukakis: The Illinois senator is a far more charismatic campaigner, and will not take the sort of time off from running for president that Dukakis disastrously did in 1988. And as Power Line points out, June polls have become far more predictive of final results since Dukakis’ failed run. But even now, McCain’s chances may be better than these early national polls suggest: CBS News chief political consultant Marc Ambinder examined the general election map Friday and found that between base states and those leaning towards McCain, the Arizona senator could claim 220 electoral votes. Obama could claim 212.

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Obama Will lose – Iraq flip flop dooms him – 3 reasons Telegraph, 7/4/08 Senator Barack Obama has rushed to clarify his position on the Iraq War after he appeared to wobble on a commitment to withdraw US ground troops within 16 months, a central plank of his candidacy. The Democratic presidential nominee used a press conference to say that the timetable was not set in stone and that he would adjust his plans based on conditions on the ground when he visits Iraq later this month. On his website, Mr Obama promises he "will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months". But he told journalists in North Dakota that those policies could be "refined" in the light of what he finds in Iraq. "I've always said the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability," he said. "When I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I'm sure I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies." The comments were immediately seized upon by his rival, Republican Senator John McCain, a supporter of the Iraq War who has taunted Mr Obama over his failure to visit Iraq for more than two years. Brian Rogers, a spokesman for Mr McCain, said: “Since announcing his campaign in 2007, the central premise of Barack Obama’s candidacy was his commitment to begin withdrawing American troops from Iraq immediately. Today, Barack Obama reversed that position proving once again that his words do not matter. "Now that Barack Obama has changed course and proven his past positions to be just empty words, we would like to congratulate him for accepting John McCain’s principled stand on this critical national security issue. "If he had visited Iraq sooner or actually had a oneon-one meeting with General (David) Petraeus, he would have changed his position long ago.” The charge stung Mr Obama into a swift response. He held a second press conference just a few hours later to clarify his comments. He accused the McCain camp of suggesting "we were changing our policy when we haven't". "I've given no indication of a change in policy. I intend to end this war. That position has not changed. I have not equivocated on that position. I am not searching for maneuvering room with respect to that position," Mr. Obama said. The charge that he is changing his mind is toxic for three reasons. It allows Mr McCain to argue that he, not Mr. Obama, has a better understanding of what now needs to be done in Iraq. Secondly, it gives Republicans evidence to use to depict Mr. Obama as just another cynical politician prepared to change his position to win votes. Finally, any shift on Iraq risks alienating the left-wing of his own party, who have grown uneasy at some more moderate positions he has struck in recent weeks.

link turn - Storage is very controversial. Jim Green, National nuclear campaigner - Friends of the Earth, Australia, 2007-05-29, “US-led Global Nuclear Energy Partnership”, jlk, http://www.foe.org.au/campaigns/anti-nuclear/issues/power/us-led-global-nuclear-energypartnership/?searchterm=legislate RADIOACTIVE WASTE Establishing interim storage and permanent disposal facilities for nuclear waste has been a protracted and controversial issue in the US and it is a long way from resolution. The waste management problems could jeopardise plans to build new reactors. The US House Committee (2006) questions whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would licence new reactors in the absence of a clear disposal path for spent fuel, and notes that DOE's response is to seek legislation eliminating the availability of disposal space in a permanent repository as a consideration for the NRC in licensing new reactors. The Committee argues that attempting to "legislate away" the waste problem is not a responsible course of action. The estimated opening date for the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada has been pushed back to 2017 — initially it was planned to be in operation in 1998.

Turn - Nuclear power is still a hot button issue. Waste News, 10-1-07, Revisiting the nuke debate, lexis, bc It's back! After some 30 years, applications have been made for two new nuclear power plants in the United States. And that likely will heat up the nuclear power debate. NRG Energy is seeking to build two new facilities in Texas, the first serious attempt at new nuclear power operations since the infamous accident at Three Mile Island in 1979. Time only has slightly cooled nuclear power as a hot button topic since then.

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Turn - Public opinion changing is changing. Support for alternate energy and emission limits are declining. Chemical News and Intelligence, 4/10/08 The tide may be changing on US climate change issues By Joe Kamalick WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--Recent US news reports have challenged popular and congressional wisdom about global warming but the reports were significant more for their venue than content - and they suggest a small but telling shift in public opinion. Citing various scholars and scientists, the news reports said that biofuels might not be the panacea for US energy and environmental problems and that emissions caps might damage the US economy without any effect on climate change. None of this is very new stuff, really, and has been reported here and elsewhere on ICIS news, other focused media and government studies for considerable time. However, these new challenging reports appeared in recent issues of Time magazine and The New York Times, two news outlets that are hip-deep in the US mainstream. The fact that those grand dames of US media are questioning basic tenets of climate change philosophy indicates that a sea change in opinion may be under way. Perhaps most surprising and damning was the Time magazine story of 27 March titled "The Clean Energy Myth" on the newsstand magazine's cover and [1]"The Clean Energy Scam" on its Web site. In its 6 April edition, The New York Times said in a story headlined "[2]A Shift in the Debate Over Global Warming" that the popular policy goal of imposing caps on greenhouse gas emissions to force energy conservation and spur non-polluting technologies is now doubtful. "Now, with recent data showing an unexpected rise in global emissions and a decline in energy efficiency, a growing chorus of economists, scientists and students of energy policy are saying that whatever benefits the cap approach yields, it will be too little and come too late," the Times said.

Case turns the DA prolif causes war which would be way more devastating to the environment. Internationally, women won’t choose abortion – they prefer large numbers of children for subsistence and health care Margaret in 6 Non-Profit teacher and Social Worker, September 17, Living Economies, google Shiva also explains that overpopulation is the direct result of the scarcity of resources. This is another common misconception that I hear, that if people could only get affordable access to birth control, overpopulation would be solved. Access to family planning services is a human right, I agree. However, in many cases, impoverished "Third World" families are actually engaging in family planning, just with different goals and results. In some cases, in order for a family to survive they must "plan" for a certain number of children to contribute labor. In addition, with the absence of adequate health care and social security, "an Indian woman has to produce six children to ensure at least one son will survive to take care of her and her husband when she is 60." This is not unique to India.

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AFF turns the DA - Global warming causes species loss that’s our 1ac evidence from Henderson ’05 – it says global warming will cause “the extinction of almost every existing species.” And, WARMING KILLS AT LEAST 50 PERCENT OF ALL SPECIES

Lynas 7 Mark, Environmental Activist, Educational focus on Politics and History, Six Degrees, pg. 177

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Fertility is low now Lindsay in 5 Jeff, Is Human Population Really the Problem?, Corporate Patent Strategist, PhD in Chemical Engineering, http://www.jefflindsay.com/Overpop.shtml A remarkable phenomenon has been observed in the past two centuries: a sustained decline in fertility, yielding long-term reductions in family size in many countries, particularly in Europe. But in the past few decades the trend has also been seen on other countries like Japan, Cyprus, Puerto Rico and Costa Rica (Nicholas Eberstadt, "Population, Food, and Income: Global Trends in the Twentieth Century," in The True State of the Planet, ed. Ronald Bailey, New York: The Free Press, 1995, pp. 7-47, esp. pp. 15-16). Total fertility rate (TFR), the average number of births per woman during childbearing years, has been tracked by the United Nations and shows a consistent decline in the past few decades for both developed and less developed countries. Around 1950 TFR was around 5, but by 1995 dropped to about 3 -- a 40% decline (Eberstadt, pp. 18-19). Some countries have TFR rates below the replacement level of 2.1, so that the population of those countries is currently shrinking (this is true of sixty-one countries according to the article "Total Fertility Rates" at Overpopulation.com). In fact, officials at the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs in the United Nations have expressed concern over the implications of the low fertility rates, as discussed by Austin Russe in the online article, "United Nations Warns About Declining Population." The UN report can be found at http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/migration/migration.htm. See also "U.N. Study Ends Overpopulation Fears."

Population is declining now Brand in 5 Environmental Heresies, Stewart, http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/14406/page1/ Take population growth. For 50 years, the demographers in charge of human population projections for the United Nations released hard numbers that substantiated environmentalists' greatest fears about indefinite exponential population increase. For a while, those projections proved fairly accurate. However, in the 1990s, the U.N. started taking a closer look at fertility patterns, and in 2002, it adopted a new theory that shocked many demographers: human population is leveling off rapidly, even precipitously, in developed countries, with the rest of the world soon to follow. Most environmentalists still haven't got the word. Worldwide, birthrates are in free fall. Around one-third of countries now have birthrates below replacement level (2.1 children per woman) and sinking. Nowhere does the downward trend show signs of leveling off. Nations already in a birth dearth crisis include Japan, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Russia -- whose population is now in absolute decline and is expected to be 30 percent lower by 2050. On every part of every continent and in every culture (even Mormon), birthrates are headed down. They reach replacement level and keep on dropping. It turns out that population decrease accelerates downward just as fiercely as population increase accelerated upward, for the same reason. Any variation from the 2.1 rate compounds over time.

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Gag rule is toothless – pro-abortion groups can still receive funding via huge loopholes Freddoso 03. (David, political reporter for Evans and Novak Inside Report and Capital Hill commentator, “Abortion Groups Can Circumvent Mexico City Policy”, Human Events Online, April 17, lexis) International family planning groups have discovered a huge loophole in the policy that is supposed to prevent them from getting U.S. tax dollars. The "Mexico City" policy-a Reagan directive revived by President Bush to keep foreign aid out of the hands of abortion providers and promoters-has developed such enormous loopholes it is now practically meaningless, say congressional pro-lifers. Last October, ten conservative congressmen, including Reps. Chris Smith (R.-N.J.) and Roscoe Bartlett (R.-Md.), decried the ineffectual policy. The congressmen signed a letter to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) citing a grant of $65 million to a program run by the Population Council, the group that holds the patent on the abortion drug RU486. A spokesman for USAID-the government's main foreign aid arm-agreed that abortion groups, while following the strict letter of the Mexico City rule, can continue to collect government money without substantially changing their activities. The Mexico City policy forbids U.S. foreign aid designated for "family planning" from going to groups that provide or promote abortions. However, the policy does not prevent abortion groups from collecting other kinds of federal grants. Population Action International (PAI) has published a 16-page booklet instructing groups on how to circumvent the Mexico City policy (it is available on that PAI's website). PAI, which says it does not receive government funding, seeks to promote international family-planning NGOs-helping them to help themselves to federal money. Their booklet, "What You Need to Know about the Global Gag Rule Restrictions: the Unofficial Guide," explains that simply by altering its stated mission from "family planning" to other terms that cover the same activities a group can get U.S. tax dollars. For example, if a group says it does "birth spacing" instead of "family planning," or if it refers to condom distribution as "HIV prevention," it ceases to be a "family planning" operation and falls outside the Mexico City policy. Reagan's Original Intent The booklet also notes that while groups that receive family planning funds cannot lobby foreign governments for certain abortion laws, "eligibility for USAID support is not jeopardized merely by participating in research that others may use in advancing abortion law reform." Thus abortion groups can continue to receive federal funds while advocating, referring and performing abortions overseas. "I think that you're saying is very true. It's all about how you package it," PAI spokeswoman Kimberly Cline told HUMAN EVENTS when asked about her group's booklet. USAID spokesman Alfonso Aguilar agreed with PAI's analysis, telling HUMAN EVENTS that these groups can continue to collect tax dollars by repackaging their family planning activities as "AIDS prevention" or "child health" activities. "Yes, I would say that's right," he said. "The Mexico City policy applies only to family planning funding." Last week, conservatives called on the Bush administration to correct the situation by strengthening the Mexico City rules. They are especially worried that funds from the President's planned $15 billion program to alleviate AIDS in Africa might go to abortion groups.

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Empirically proven there is no impact to species loss – they are redundant and won’t collapse the ecosystem Davidson 00 [Carlos, Conservation biologist with background in economics Economic Growth and the Environment: Alternatives to the Limits Paradigm 5-1] Biodiversity limits. The original rivet metaphor (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1981) referred to species extinction and biodiversity loss as a limit to human population and the economy. A wave of species extinctions is occurring that is unprecedented in human history (Wilson 1988, 1992, Reid and Miller 1989). The decline of biodiversity represents irreplaceable and incalculable losses to future generations of humans. Is biodiversity loss a case of limits, as suggested by the rivet metaphor, or is it a continuum of degradation with local tears, as suggested by the tapestry metaphor? In the rivet metaphor, it is not the loss of species by itself that is the proposed limit but rather some sort of ecosystem collapse that would be triggered by the species loss. But it is unclear that biodiversity loss will lead to ecosystem collapse. Research in this area is still in its infancy, and results from the limited experimental studies are mixed. Some studies show a positive relationship between diversity and some aspect of ecosy stem function, such as the rate of nitrogen cycling (Kareiva 1996, Tilman et al. 1996). Others support the redundant species concept (Lawton and Brown 1993, Andren et al. 1995), which holds that above some low number, additional species are redundant in terms of ecosystem function. Still other studies support the idiosyncratic species model (Lawton 1994), in which loss of some species reduces some aspect of ecosystem function, whereas loss of others may increase that aspect of ecosystem function. The relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function is undoubtedly more complex than any simple metaphor. Nonetheless, I believe that the tapestry metaphor provides a more useful view of biodiversity loss than the rivet metaphor. A species extinction is like a thread pulled from the tapestry. With each thread lost, the tapestry gradually becomes threadbare. The loss of some species may lead to local tears. Although everything is linked to everything else, ecosystems are not delicately balanced, clocklike mechanisms in which the loss of a part leads to collapse. For example, I study California frogs, some of which are disappearing. Although it is possible that the disappearances signal some as yet unknown threat to humans (the miner's canary argument), the loss of the frogs themselves is unlikely to have major ecosystem effects. The situation is the same for most rare organisms, which make up the bulk of threatened and endangered species. For example, if the black toad (Bufoexsul) were to disappear from the few desert springs in which it lives, even careful study would be unlikely to reveal ecosystem changes. To argue that there are not limits is not to claim that biodiversity losses do not matter. Rather, in calling for a stop to the destruction, it is the losses themselves that count, not a putative cliff that humans will fall off of somewhere down the road.

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Even if you win a risk of ecosystem collapse, the time frame is incredibly long The San Francisco Chronicle 01 [7-26 lexis] The collapse of ecosystems often occur over a long period. In one example, when Aleut hunters killed the Alaskan sea otter about 2,500 years ago, the population of their natural prey, the sea urchin, grew larger than its normal size. In turn, the urchins grazed down the kelp forests, important habitat for a whole host of ocean life. Then, when fur traders in the 1800s hunted the otters and sea cows almost to extinction, the kelp forests disappeared and didn't start to regenerate until the federal government protected the sea otters in the 20th century. In California, the diversity of spiny lobsters, sheephead fish and abalone kept down the urchin numbers. At present in Alaska, the kelp beds are declining again in areas where killer whales are preying on sea otters. Biologists think the killer whales switched to otters for food because there are fewer seals and sea lions to eat.

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AT DA Politics Obama good – Global Gag Rule Scenario species loss won’t cause extinction extensions Species extinction won't cause human extinction – humans and the environment are adaptable. Doremus 00. [Holly, Professor of Law at UC Davis Washington & Lee Law Review, "The Rhetoric and Reality of Nature Protection: Toward a New Discourse," 57 Wash & Lee L. Rev. 11] In recent years, this discourse frequently has taken the form of the ecological horror story. That too is no mystery. The ecological horror story is unquestionably an attention-getter, especially in the hands of skilled writers [*46] like Carson and the Ehrlichs. The image of the airplane earth, its wings wobbling as rivet after rivet is carelessly popped out, is difficult to ignore. The apocalyptic depiction of an impending crisis of potentially dire proportions is designed to spur the political community to quick action . Furthermore, this story suggests a goal that appeals to many nature lovers: that virtually everything must be protected. To reinforce this suggestion, tellers of the ecological horror story often imply that the relative importance of various rivets to the ecological plane cannot be determined. They offer reams of data and dozens of anecdotes demonstrating the unexpected value of apparently useless parts of nature. The moth that saved Australia from prickly pear invasion, the scrubby Pacific yew, and the downright unattractive leech are among the uncharismatic flora and fauna who star in these anecdotes. n211 The moral is obvious: because we cannot be sure which rivets are holding the plane together, saving them all is the only sensible course. Notwithstanding its attractions, the material discourse in general, and the ecological horror story in particular, are not likely to generate policies that will satisfy nature lovers. The ecological horror story implies that there is no reason to protect nature until catastrophe looms. The Ehrlichs' rivet-popper account, for example, presents species simply as the (fungible) hardware holding together the ecosystem. If we could be reasonably certain that a particular rivet was not needed to prevent a crash, the rivet-popper story suggests that we would lose very little by pulling it out. Many environmentalists, though, would disagree. n212 Reluctant to concede such losses, tellers of the ecological horror story highlight how close a catastrophe might be, and how little we know about what actions might trigger one. But the apocalyptic vision is less credible today than it seemed in the 1970s. Although it is clear that the earth is experiencing a mass wave of extinctions, n213 the complete elimination of life on earth seems unlikely. n214 Life is remarkably robust. Nor is human extinction probable any time soon. Homo sapiens is adaptable to nearly any environment. Even if the world of the future includes far fewer species, it likely will hold people. n215 One response to this credibility problem tones the story down a bit, arguing not that humans will go extinct but that ecological disruption will bring economies, and consequently civilizations, to their knees. n216 But this too may be overstating the case. Most ecosystem functions are performed by multiple species. This functional redundancy means that a high proportion of species can be lost without precipitating a collapse.

Species loss won’t risk extinction – no credible reason it will snowball Sagoff – 1997 [Mark, Pew Scholar in Conservation and the Environment and past President of the International Society of Environmental Ethics “Do we consume too much?” The Atlantic Monthly, June] There is no credible argument, moreover, that all or even most of the species we are concerned to protect are essential to the functioning of the ecological systems on which we depend. (If whales went extinct, for example, the seas would not fill up with krill.) David Ehrenfeld, a biologist at Rutgers University, makes this point in relation to the vast ecological changes we have already survived. "Even a mighty dominant like the American chestnut," Ehrenfeld has written, "extending over half a continent, all but disappeared without bringing the eastern deciduous forest down with it." Ehrenfeld points out that the species most likely to be endangered are those the biosphere is least likely to miss. "Many of these species were never common or ecologically influential; by no stretch of the imagination can we make them out to be vital cogs in the ecological machine."

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Only a small number of species are needed – your concerns of extinction are exaggerated. Kimbrell 02 [Andrew, Executive Director of the International Center for Technology Assessment and the Center for Food Safety , The Fatal Harvest Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture, p. 83-4] There is a second practical problem with assigning value to biological diversity. In a chapter called “The Conservation Dileema” in my book The Arrogance of Humanism, I discuss the problem of what I call nonresources. The sad fact that few conservationists care to face is that many species, perhaps most, probably do not have any conventional value at all, even hidden conventional value. True, we cannot be sure which particular species fall into this category, but it is hard to deny that a great many of them do. And unfortunately, the species whose members are the fewest in number, the rarest, the most narrowly distributed – in short, the ones most likely to become extinct – are obviously the ones least likely to be missed by the biosphere. Many of these species were never common or ecologically influential; by no stretch of the imagination can we make them out to be vital cogs in the ecological machine. If the California condor disappears forever from the California hills, it will be a tragedy. But don’t expect the chaparral to die, the redwoods to wither, the San Andreas Fault to open up, or even the California tourist industry to suffer – they won’t. So it is with plants. We do not know how many species are needed to keep the planet green and healthy, but it seems very unlikely to be anywhere near the more than quarter of a million we have now.

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AT DA Politics McCain good – LOST BAD scenario Signing LOST would allow America access to some of the largest energy reserves in the world King 7, staff writer, Wall Street Journal, Michael Jr., August 22nd, “Politics & Economics: Sea Treaty Unites Unlikely Allies; Environmentalists, Oil Interests and Military Urge Senate to Back Pact”, tk, Lexis The 208-page Law of the Sea Convention, debated since the 1930s and sealed in 1982, has stirred passions for decades in Washington. Critics in the Senate have repeatedly blocked its ratification, saying the pact would undercut U.S. sovereignty. Supporters tout the treaty as a pillar of international law and key to longterm U.S. security. The U.S. is now one of fewer than 40 countries, and the only significant power, not to have joined. That is now almost certain to change, for three reasons: scarce energy sources, the thawing Arctic ice cap and the U.S. Navy's desire for unfettered access to the world's seaways. These motivations have helped galvanize an odd coalition of environmentalists, oil interests and military brass to persuade enough senators to back the treaty. The renewed interest has grown more intense amid a scramble to claim undersea territories in the resource-rich Arctic. Looking to buttress its legal case for ownership of a massive undersea ridge, Russia planted its flag earlier this month on a seabed more than 15,000 feet below the North Pole. Canada, asserting its disputed rights, plans a new fleet of ice-breaking ships and a deepwater Arctic port; yesterday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper asserted his country's claim to the so-called Northwest Passage along its northern coast during a meeting with Mr. Bush in Quebec. And Denmark is sending a research team to push its own claim to undersea holdings that extend far from Greenland. All this has put the U.S. in a jam. The Law of the Sea Treaty allows countries -- even nonsignatories -- exclusive rights to the seabed extending 200 nautical miles from their shores. Countries can then present evidence to claim rights to any of their continental shelf beyond that. Claims and disputes fall to one of several arbitration bodies established by the treaty. Without being a party to the treaty, the U.S. has no clear way -- short of threatening force -- to assert its claims. U.S. officials said the stakes are literally vast. In the Arctic alone, the U.S. could lay claim to more than 200,000 square miles of additional undersea territories. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy is in the region to continue mapping the ocean floor to help strengthen the U.S. case. By some estimates, the country's total additional undersea holdings, including extensions off the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, could exceed 300,000 square miles, or roughly twice the size of California. Recent estimates have found the Arctic could contain the equivalent of more than 400 billion barrels of oil and gas and massive amounts of another potential energy source, crystallized methane. The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated the amount of carbon found in hydrate form world-wide is "conservatively" twice the amount found in all the world's fossil fuels. This decreases dependency on foreign oil (read Dependency ADV) Neg is non-unique—LOST will be passed regardless of elections King 7, staff writer, Wall Street Journal, Michael Jr., August 22nd, “Politics & Economics: Sea Treaty Unites Unlikely Allies; Environmentalists, Oil Interests and Military Urge Senate to Back Pact”, tk, Lexis The 208-page Law of the Sea Convention, debated since the 1930s and sealed in 1982, has stirred passions for decades in Washington. Critics in the Senate have repeatedly blocked its ratification, saying the pact would undercut U.S. sovereignty. Supporters tout the treaty as a pillar of international law and key to longterm U.S. security. The U.S. is now one of fewer than 40 countries, and the only significant power, not to have joined. That is now almost certain to change, for three reasons: scarce energy sources, the thawing Arctic ice cap and the U.S. Navy's desire for unfettered access to the world's seaways. These motivations have helped galvanize an odd coalition of environmentalists, oil interests and military brass to persuade enough senators to back the treaty.

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America’s maverick refusal to sign LOST undermines multilaterism Chayes ‘8, Antonia, Summer 2008, professor of International Politics and Law at Tufts University, “How American Treaty Behavior Threatens National Security”, International Security Magazine, Lexis. tk American treaty behavior is no longer an esoteric subject. Many people outside legal, academic, and diplomatic circles have taken notice, and what they observe does not reflect well upon the United States. America has been both lauded and criticized for its exceptionalism in the past. But even America's staunchest allies are concerned by behavior that goes beyond a superpower's notion of entitlement to special treatment. There is bewilderment at the inconsistency and unreliability that seem to characterize the United States' attitude and actions toward international agreements. On such fundamental issues as nuclear proliferation, terrorism, human rights, civil liberties, environmental disasters, and commerce, the United States has generated both confusion and anger abroad. Such a climate is not conducive to needed cooperation in the conduct of foreign and security policy. Americans regard themselves as law-abiding and chide others who are not. But to many in the world, the highly visible deviations from international legal obligations by the United States, such as failing to pay UN dues and attacking a nation without UN approval, are signs of lawlessness. Refusal to accept agreements that most other nations regard as important--such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), prohibition against the use of land mines, goals and timetables to slow climate change, and protection of the rights of the child--are viewed, incorrectly perhaps, as a disregard for international law. Historically, failure to join the rest of the world in the League of Nations or to break agreements with Native American tribes--nations within U.S. borders--had little impact on U.S. security. Today American treaty behavior serves neither the national interest nor American security. Current U.S. treaty behavior is anachronistic in an era of globalization and interdependence. It denies Americans the international support required to resolve critical global and regional problems. The United States has long been ambivalent in its attitude toward international agreements; both leader and laggard. It exhorts others to change their behavior in international law but hedges American acquiescence with delays and conditions. Today this attitude has hardened into near contempt for the law of nations. Ironically, the exhortation of other nations to change their ways continues unabated. But to the rest of the world, it sounds like hypocrisy. Until now, this American behavior has sought justification in the U.S. constitutional system. Now, however, the very constitution and domestic laws on which American treaty behavior relied seem to be undermined by the same contempt and arrogance that has pervaded U.S. attitudes toward international law. Although the United States remains the world's sole superpower, the inconvenient fact is that it can neither accomplish its goals nor function effectively in this "flattened" world without the lubricant of dependable, cooperative international treaty behavior. Time is running out. A lack of multilateralism leads to nuke war—look at the Cold War Ignatius ‘7, staff writer, Washington Post, May 7, “New World Disorder”, Lexis. tk After the Iraq debacle, nearly everyone seems to agree that "unilateralism" in foreign policy is a bad thing. Leading the march of born-again multilateralists is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has been meeting with representatives of Syria, Iran and several dozen other nations in the hope that they can apply a collective tourniquet to Iraq, where America's go-it-alone approach is failing. The "neighbors" meeting is an example of the kind of cooperative problem solving that everyone favors in theory. The difficulty is that nobody today has any real experience with how a genuinely multilateral system might work. And the more you think about it, the more potential obstacles you begin to see in the passage from unilateral hell to multilateral heaven. The nuclear strategist Herman Kahn pondered this problem in a 1983 essay on "multipolarity and stability." Kahn made his name by "thinking about the unthinkable" -- namely, the consequences of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. But he recognized that the bipolar world of the Cold War had an inherent stability. The two superpowers understood the rules of the game, and because the dangers of conflict were so great, they learned to discipline themselves and their respective allies. A multipolar world eventually would be stable, too, Kahn argued. He hypothesized that by 2000, there would be seven economic giants -- the United States, Japan, the Soviet Union, China, Germany, France and Brazil -- and that they would gradually work out orderly rules.

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AT DA Russian oil Non-unique – Russia’s oil production has peaked in the SQ – can’t sell significantly more to contribute to their economy Alexander Kolyandr, Dow Jones Newswires, 7/1 2008 OIL CONGRESS: Russia's Oil Output Has Reached Plateau -Dep Min http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20080701%5cACQDJON200807010803DOWJONES DJONLINE000223.htm&&mypage=newsheadlines&title=OIL%20CONGRESS:%20Russia's%20Oil%20Output%2 0Has%20Reached%20Plateau%20-Dep%20Min MADRID -(Dow Jones)- Russia's oil production will grow only marginally this year and in the near term, Russia's deputy minister for energy said Tuesday, and has in effect hit a plateau for now. "No one should expect that Russia's oil production growth will match the one we've witnessed in the past eight years," Anatoly Yanovsky said on the sidelines of the World Petroleum Congress. Over that period, Russia's annual oil production grew from 360 million metric tons to just above 490 million tons. "Nothing like that will happen", the official said, adding, that Russia's oil production has hit a plateau which will remain unchanged until new large fields in Eastern Siberia and offshore come upstream. After several years of stable growth, production of oil and gas condensate in Russia dropped 0.3% in the first four months of this year compared with the same period a year previously, to 161 million tons, or 1.18 billion barrels, according to the government.

No Link – Oil price drop would have no effect on the Russian economy. Prices could get as low as $55 a barrel and the effect would still be insignificant Russia & CIS Banking & Finance Weekly 6/20, 2008 headline: russia does not fear drop in oil prices kudrin Russia should be prepared for both further growth as well as a rapid drop in oil prices, he said. It is better for Russia when oil prices are high, he said, but these prices must be utilized soundly and oil windfalls should not be wasted. "If oil prices are higher and is spent immediately, the ruble's exchange rate will strengthen," he said, stressing that the appreciation of the ruble would have a negative effect on Russian industry. A decline in the price of oil will not have a significant impact on the Russian budget, Kudrin said. "Russia is not afraid of a price drop," Kudrin said in an interview with Vesti 24 TV while in Osaka following the meeting of the G8 finance chiefs. "Our budget would not have a deficit at a price of $55 per barrel. The tax system for our oil companies is set up so that as the price of oil declines, taxation declines. So no substantial changes

will take place. It will have some effect on our GDP growth, but an insignificant one compared with the earlier period. I repeat, the effect will be insignificant," he said.

Case Solves – even if Russia’s economy collapses – US-Russian relations fostered by the plan would solve for the impact Oil Dependency Adv O/W – Extend Furguson – Heg fostered off kicking our oil dependency would solve every major impact globally – this takes out the DA impact

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No Impact – Uranium sales to fuel US nuclear power industry will check back Russian oil revenue losses Charles Digges, 04/02-2008, “Russian nuke industry predicts boom in US uranium sales”, JaretLK, http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2008/rusus_uraniumdeal The agreement is predicted to provide US utilities with a supply of nuclear fuel by allowing Russia to boost exports to the United States while striving to minimizing any disruption to the United States' domestic enrichment industry. "The agreement will encourage bilateral trade in Russian uranium products for peaceful purposes," US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said in remarks to reporters over the weekend. "It will also help to ensure that U.S. utilities have an adequate source of enriched uranium for US utility consumers. Gutierrez and Sergei Kiriyenko, director of Russia’s atomic energy agency Rosatom Federal signed the deal allowing for sales of Russian enriched uranium directly to US utilities. Before the agreement, such direct transactions were not permitted by anti-dumping legislation dating back to 1991. During the last 17 years, the US government has restricted Russian uranium shipments, fearing Russia would dump uranium in the US market and financially hurt the major American uranium supplier, USEC Inc. End of Megatons to Megawatts opens floodgates USEC, for its part, has long had a monopoly on selling Russian produced uranium in the United States as a part of its “Megatons to Megawatts” programme, a non-proliferation initiative under which USEC buys down blended highly enriched uranium for use in commercial reactors in the United States. Uranium sold to the US under this programme was not subject to the anti-dumping barrier tax. The programme was designed to curb the proliferation of bomb grade uranium in Russia by taking highly enriched uranium from nuclear warheads and blending it down to low enriched uranium. Some 44 percent of US reactors are powered by down blended uranium sold to the United States under the Megatons to Megawatts programme, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported. Kiriyenko anxious to buck fixed prices and reap gold rush But Rosatom under Kiriyenko is leery of the low fixed price that USEC pays for this uranium, which is well below the world market value of $185 per kilogram. With the Megatons to Megawatts programme set to end in 2013, Kiriyenko smells a bonanza. Where Russia has netted between $400m and $500m annually since 1994 through the Megatons to Megawatts programme, Kiriyenko projects that the lifting of the 118 percent US barrier tax against Russian uranium will net Russia between $1.1 billion and $2 billion a year based on soaring 2007 uranium prices. According to the USEC website, Russia has made a total of $4.6 billion since 1994 on uranium sold to the US by the Megatons to Megawatts programme. The entire contract is for a sale of $7.6 billion. The new deal Under the newly signed uranium fuel import deal, Russian uranium exports to the United States would increase slowly over a 10-year period, beginning in 2011, when shipments would be allowed to reach 16,559 tons, a spokeswoman for Tekhsnabexport (Tenex), the Russian nuclear fuel giant which has overseen the Megatons to Megawatts programme said. Exports would then increase about 50 percent annually over the next two years and increase more than tenfold from 41,398 tons in 2013 to 485,279 tons the next year, said the spokeswoman.

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No Impact – Low oil prices will not affect Russia - they have shielded themselves from price decline and diversified their economy.

Belfast Telegraph, Mary Dejevsky, "Russia will not cut oil and gas production, Putin says" September 17, 2007 lexis Mr Putin was answering questions from foreign Russia-watchers at his summer residence near the southern resort city of Sochi. What had prompted a response that should reassure Russia's Western customers, at least in the short term, was a comment by a senior official two days before to the effect that Russia's oil and gas bonanza was almost as much trouble as it was worth. He had said that, while Russia had benefited hugely from the high energy prices of recent years, these had also created problems. Because the Russian

economy simply could not absorb so much money productively in such a short time, the government had to spend much specialist time and energy on how best to use it. A proportion goes to the "stabilisation fund", now standing at $130bn, seen as an insurance against energy prices falling. Another share goes into an "investment fund" for infrastructure projects, higher pensions and public service salaries. What is left over is invested abroad, much of it in foreign bonds, to be as safe as possible. Russia's foreign investment policy was, the official said, deliberately"conservative". The official also said that Russia was looking to invest more in foreign companies, and would already have done so but for what it saw as unwarranted suspicion of Russia's intentions and closet protectionism on the part of foreign governments. It was in this context that a participant in the discussion with Mr Putin asked this question: Why, if Russia found administering its new oil and gas wealth so burdensome, did it not consider cutting production? Keeping the stuff in the ground, he suggested, would have several beneficial effects for Russia. It would raise the world price, so yielding more money for less effort. It would, assuming no dramatic fall in prices in the near future, guarantee Russia a good income for many more years. And it would save ministers the time and effort involved in figuring out how to invest its windfall. The question clearly appealed to Mr Putin. He smiled and described the proposition as interesting, as he seemed to turn it over in his mind. But his response was categorical. "We will extend and increase production of both oil and gas, and we

will do that because global demand is growing." He said that Russia had no intention of banking on further rises in energy prices. "We remember that there was a time when coal was the main source of energy, and then all at once the price fell sharply. What good would come of speculating?" Russia, he said, "wants to behave responsibly" not for its own sake, but because "harmonious relations" with the rest of the world was as much in the national interest as high energy prices. Apparently alluding to Western charges that Russia used its position as an energy supplier as a weapon, Mr Putin said that Russia had never " blackmailed" the world market. He went on: "We are not a member of Opec though we keep a close eye on what it does and one reason is that we don't have the level of state monopoly over energy production that most Opec countries have."

Impact Turn – Democracy High oil prices are collapsing democracy and creating increased authoritarianism in Russia States News Service 6/24, 2008 HEADLINE: AS OIL WEALTH RISES IN EURASIA, DEMOCRACY DECLINES SIGNIFICANTLY To coincide with today's release of the Freedom House Nations in Transit 2008 report, three of the study's authors gathered at RFE/RL's Washington, DC headquarters to discuss one of its key findings - that, as oil and natural gas revenues surge in Russia and Central Asia, democratic institutions in these countries are eroding significantly. [Read more about the Nations in Transit 2008 Report] "The resource curse is taking root," Freedom House Director of Studies Christopher Walker told the group. "The growing authoritarianism in oil and natural gas-rich countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan is severely restricting the ability of democratic institutions to operate." According to the report, the regression in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia has occurred systematically and across sectors, including in the areas of electoral process, civil society, independent media and judicial independence. "Russia's decline in all of the report's categories over the past eight years is dramatic," said Robert Orttung, the author of the section on Russia and a Senior Fellow at the Jefferson Institute. "For years, Vladimir Putin has been using oil and natural gas revenues to build up his police forces and consolidate power in such a way that there is no space for democracy to grow."

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Failure of democracy in Russia will cause global nuclear war

Muravchik 2001 (Joshua- Resident Scholar at the AEI, “Democracy and Nuclear Peace”

July 14, http://www.npec-web.org/Syllabus/Muravchik.pdf, Date Accessed 7/29/2006) That this momentum has slackened somewhat since its pinnacle in 1989, destined to be remembered as one of the most revolutionary years in all history, was inevitable. So many peoples were swept up in the democratic tide that there was certain to be some backsliding. Most countries' democratic evolution has included some fits and starts rather than a smooth progression. So it must be for the world as a whole. Nonetheless, the overall trend remains powerful and clear. Despite the backsliding, the number and proportion of democracies stands higher today than ever before. This progress offers a source of hope for enduring nuclear peace. The danger of nuclear war was radically reduced almost overnight when Russia abandoned Communism and turned to democracy. For other ominous corners of the world, we may be in a kind of race between the emergence or growth of nuclear arsenals and the advent of democratization. If this is so, the greatest cause for worry may rest with the Moslem Middle East where nuclear arsenals do not yet exist but where the prospects for democracy may be still more remote.

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AT DA: Silver 1. Alt causes to silver demand. Mike Caggeso, Associate Editor, 7/8/08. Straight Stocks. “Silver Prices Ready to Rocket; Four Reasons Why and Two Ways to Buy,” http://www.straightstocks.com/current-market-news/silver-prices-ready-to-rocket-four-reasonswhy-and-two-ways-to-buy/ MH Silver prices have vaulted an extraordinary 106% in the past two and a half years. More impressive, silver prices have gained 33% since mid December. Now, compare that to how U.S. stocks have fared since then: The Dow Jones Industrial Average has plunged 13.6%; The Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled 10.5%; The S&P 500 Index has fallen 11.1%. Like gold, silver is a safe haven from inflation and a weak dollar. The prices of the two metals often move parallel to one another. However, silver is poised to rocket - handing investors not only gains in our bear-market economy, but steeper gains than gold. James Turk, founder of GoldMoney, said in his annual forecast that the U.S. economy “will get much worse in 2008, making gold the premier asset of choice, but not the best performing precious metal. That honor will go to silver, which I expect will clear $30 in 2008.” From silver’s current price of $18.33 an ounce, $30 an ounce would be a 63.7% gain. And here are four reasons why that’s more than probable: * Supply and Demand: Silver, quite simply, has better supply and demand characteristics than gold. For 18 straight years now, we’ve consumed more silver above ground than we’ve been able to extract from below ground (compared to only four to five years for gold). That’s because only a portion of silver demand comes from investors. Commercial demand for silver is growing, whether for jewelry, electrical conductors, photographic film or disinfectants. And the rate at which iyndustry finds new, unique uses for the white metal is staggering compared to gold. * Above Ground Supply: Unlike gold, which has been hoarded by central banks for decades, there’s no appreciable aboveground supply of silver. Therefore, whatever is needed must be mined. And there’s very little threat of central banks selling large tranches of silver into the market, which is always an overhanging concern with gold. * Emerging Markets: Despite fears to the contrary, robust industrial demand for silver will continue even if United States slips into recession. That’s because the true driver toward higher commodity prices, in general, is emerging markets like China, India, Russia and Eastern Europe. China’s expansion alone can be compared to the industrial explosions that took place in Japan in the 1960s and the United States at the turn of the last millennium. * Market Capitalization: The silver market is much less capitalized than the gold market. Fewer dollars trade daily on the silver exchange than on the gold exchange. As a result, every dollar spent on silver will have a greater impact on the silver market than dollars spent on gold will have on the gold market. To visualize this concept, consider the relative impact of a rock tossed into a pond versus the same rock being tossed into a puddle.

2. No shortage of silver coming. Financial Express, 5/3/08. “Investment demand to drive silver prices later this year,” Lexis MH Net investor buying is expected to keep silver prices strong in 2008, although seasonal price weakness is anticipated during the second and third quarters this year, CPM Group said in its 2008 Silver Yearbook. On silver outlook for 2008, the New York-based precious metals consultants predicted that higher silver prices are expected later this year and in beginning 2009. Annual silver price volatility stood at 26.1% in 2007, down from 45% in the prior year. The research report found that the sharp increase in the price of silver last year reflected strong investment demand from many parts of the world and from many types of investors. They also found silver interesting because it has stronger fundamentals behind it. Investors were buying silver for all of the same reasons they were buying gold: As a safe haven during times of financial market distress, as an inflation hedge, as a hedge against a falling dollar, and more. Total silver fabrication demand is projected to rise modestly by 2.2% to 740.2 million ounces in 2008. Demand for silver use in jewellery and silverware is projected to rise 4.6% to 273.5 million ounces this year. In 2007, silver fabrication demand increased by 0.9% to 724 million ounces. "While higher prices should be expected to restrain the growth of silver use in jewellery and other applications, the price effect may be relatively limited," CPM report said. In 2007, total silver supply was 784.8 million ounces of which 68% came from mine production, according to CPM report. World mine production of silver increased 4.1% to a record 533.7 million ounces last year. This year total supply is projected to increase to 815.1 million ounce, a 3.9% increase mostly attributable to a sharp increase in mine production. Total mine production is projected to be 557.4 million ounces, up 4.1% from last year.

3. No Link – Your evidence does not talk about nuclear power using silver.

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4. Turn- alternative energy innovations spur breakthrough growth not decline. William B. Bonvillian, Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center in D.C. Issues in Science and Technology, 2004. “Meeting the new challenge to U.S economic competitiveness,” Lexis MH A school of economic theory that has developed during the past two decades argues that technological and related innovation accounts for more than half of historical U.S. economic growth, which makes this a far more significant factor than capital and labor supply, which are the dominant factors in traditional economic analysis. These economic growth theorists see a pattern shared by important breakthrough technologies such as railroads, steamships, electricity, telecommunications, aerospace, and computing. The new technology ignites a chain reaction of related innovation that leads to a surge in productivity improvements throughout the economy and thus to overall economic growth. The most recent example is the productivity boom that occurred in the mid-1990s following the IT revolution that spread through the manufacturing and service sectors.

5. No Internal Link - The US ran out of silver in 2002 and nothing happened. Jason Hommel, Editorial writer for Gold-Eagle, 2005, Gold-Eagle, “Silver Users Fear Silver Shortage”, NM, http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_05/hommel102505.html But what about the existing above ground supply of silver? Precious metals are held privately, and are not able to be tracked or traced, so nobody truly knows what the above ground supply of silver of might be. However, experts maintain that about 40 billion ounces of silver has been mined throughout all of human history, and that about 90% of that has been irretrevably consumed by industry, jewelry, and photography. Most of the approximately 3-5 billion ounces of silver left is in the form of jewelry, mostly held in India. Silver that is in the form of above-ground, refined, deliverable, identifiable silver is about 150 million ounces, mostly held at COMEX. The U.S. government once held up to 6 billion ounces of silver, but around 2002, the U.S. ran out, and had to buy silver on the open market for its Silver Eagle coin program. The COMEX once had up to 1.5 billion ounces of silver about 10-15 years ago, but today has less than 1/10th of that: 117 million ounces.

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AT K Framework Our interpretation of fiat is that the aff should defend the political implementation of the plan and the negative has to defend the status quo or a competitive policy option. This is a voter for the following reasons. And, even if you don’t reject the team, reject the argument. A- Reciprocity- Both sides should be prepared to debate implementation questions surrounding resolutional focus B- Plan is the focus of the debate where negative strategies should be based C- Philosophical education isn’t unique- only plan provides relevant education about policy making in terms of alternative energy D- Ground- DAs and CPs check- these are CORE negative arguments that are essential to neg wins E - Our framework for political action is the only way to prevent the collapse of progressive reform and leftist politics David McClean, philosopher, writer and business consultant, 2001, Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, http://www.google.com/search?q=David+McClean&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:enUS:official&client=firefox-a Or we might take Foucault who, at best, has provided us with what may reasonably be described as a very long and eccentric footnote to Nietzsche (I have once been accused, by a Foucaltian true believer, of "gelding" Foucault with other similar remarks). Foucault, who has provided the Left of the late 1960s through the present with such notions as "governmentality," "Limit," "archeology," "discourse" "power" and "ethics," creating or redefining their meanings, has made it overabundantly clear that all of our moralities and practices are the successors of previous ones which derive from certain configurations of savoir and connaisance arising from or created by, respectively, the discourses of the various scientific schools. But I have not yet found in anything Foucault wrote or said how such observations may be translated into a political movement or hammered into a political document or theory (let alone public policies) that can be justified or founded on more than an arbitrary aesthetic experimentalism. In fact, Foucault would have shuddered if any one ever did, since he thought that anything as grand as a movement went far beyond what he thought appropriate. This leads me to mildly rehabilitate Habermas, for at least he has been useful in exposing Foucault's shortcomings in this regard, just as he has been useful in exposing the shortcomings of others enamored with the abstractions of various Marxian-Freudian social critiques. Yet for some reason, at least partially explicated in Richard Rorty's Achieving Our Country, a book that I think is long overdue, leftist critics continue to cite and refer to the eccentric and often a priori ruminations of people like those just mentioned, and a litany of others including Derrida, Deleuze, Lyotard, Jameson, and Lacan, who are to me hugely more irrelevant than Habermas in their narrative attempts to suggest policy prescriptions (when they actually do suggest them) aimed at curing the ills of homelessness, poverty, market greed, national belligerence and racism. I would like to suggest that it is time for American social critics who are enamored with this group, those who actually want to be relevant, to recognize that they have a disease, and a disease regarding which I myself must remember to stay faithful to my own twelve step program of recovery. The disease is the need for elaborate theoretical "remedies" wrapped in neological and multi-syllabic jargon. These elaborate theoretical remedies are more "interesting," to be sure, than the pragmatically settled questions about what shape democracy should take in various contexts, or whether private property should be protected by the state, or regarding our basic human nature (described, if not defined (heaven forbid!), in such statements as "We don't like to starve" and "We like to speak our minds without fear of death" and "We like to keep our children safe from poverty"). As Rorty puts it, "When one of today's academic leftists says that some topic has been 'inadequately theorized,' you can be pretty certain that he or she is going to drag in either philosophy of language, or Lacanian psychoanalysis, or some neo-Marxist version of economic determinism. . . . These futile attempts to philosophize one's way into political relevance are a symptom of what happens when a Left retreats from activism and adopts a spectatorial approach to the problems of its country. Disengagement from practice produces theoretical hallucinations"(italics mine).(1) Or as John Dewey put it in his The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy, "I believe that philosophy in America will be lost between chewing a historical cud long since reduced to woody fiber, or an apologetics for lost causes, . . . . or a scholastic, schematic formalism, unless it can somehow bring to consciousness America's own needs and its own implicit principle of successful action." Those who suffer or have suffered from this disease Rorty

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refers to as the Cultural Left, which left is juxtaposed to the Political Left that Rorty prefers and prefers for good reason. Another attribute of the Cultural Left is that its members fancy themselves pure culture critics who view the successes of America and the West, rather than some of the barbarous methods for achieving those successes, as mostly evil, and who view anything like national pride as equally evil even when that pride is tempered with the knowledge and admission of the nation's shortcomings. In other words, the Cultural Left, in this country, too often dismiss American society as beyond reform and redemption. And Rorty correctly argues that this is a disastrous conclusion, i.e. disastrous for the Cultural Left. I think it may also be disastrous for our social hopes, as I will explain. Leftist American culture critics might put their considerable talents to better use if they bury some of their cynicism about America's social and political prospects and help forge public and political possibilities in a spirit of determination to, indeed, achieve our country - the country of Jefferson and King; the country of John Dewey and Malcom X; the country of Franklin Roosevelt and Bayard Rustin, and of the later George Wallace and the later Barry Goldwater. To invoke the words of King, and with reference to the American society, the time is always ripe to seize the opportunity to help create the "beloved community," one woven with the thread of agape into a conceptually single yet diverse tapestry that shoots for nothing less than a true intra-American cosmopolitan ethos, one wherein both same sex unions and faith-based initiatives will be able to be part of the same social reality, one wherein business interests and the university are not seen as belonging to two separate galaxies but as part of the same answer to the threat of social and ethical nihilism. We who fancy ourselves philosophers would do well to create from within ourselves and from within our ranks a new kind of public intellectual who has both a hungry theoretical mind and who is yet capable of seeing the need to move past high theory to other important questions that are less bedazzling and "interesting" but more important to the prospect of our flourishing - questions such as "How is it possible to develop a citizenry that cherishes a certain hexis, one which prizes the character of the Samaritan on the road to Jericho almost more than any other?" or "How can we square the political dogma that undergirds the fantasy of a missile defense system with the need to treat America as but one member in a community of nations under a "law of peoples?" The new public philosopher might seek to understand labor law and military and trade theory and doctrine as much as theories of surplus value; the logic of international markets and trade agreements as much as critiques of commodification, and the politics of complexity as much as the politics of power (all of which can still be done from our arm chairs.) This means going down deep into the guts of our quotidian social institutions, into the grimy pragmatic details where intellectuals are loathe to dwell but where the officers and bureaucrats of those institutions take difficult and often unpleasant, imperfect decisions that affect other peoples' lives, and it means making honest attempts to truly understand how those institutions actually function in the actual world before howling for their overthrow commences. This might help keep us from being slapped down in debates by true policy pros who actually know what they are talking about but who lack awareness of the dogmatic assumptions from which they proceed, and who have not yet found a good reason to listen to jargonriddled lectures from philosophers and culture critics with their snobish disrespect for the so-called "managerial class." A2: Negative Ground 1) The affirmative always gets to choose the topic of the debate 2) It’s on the burden of the negative to show why the plan is a bad idea. If they think it is outside the resolution, then topicality is reserved for the negative team A2: Affirmative Ground 1) Their interpretation is ridiculous. They can’t expect us to have answers to some K that more than 75% of the debate community doesn’t understand. 2) If we only had one thing to run against the negative, debate would become so boring and education would be compromised A2: Limits 1) Their definition actually unlimits the topic to infinite CPs, DAs, and Ks. Our definition is better. 2) By debating just policy debate, we are able to learn about all aspects of the educational world not just philosophy. A2: Don’t solve Offense 1) Even if the negative could run something even sketchier, our definition of fiat remains…Ks are illegit

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AT K Generic Read Framework Perm – do the plan and all non-mutually exclusive aspects of the alternative. This perm proves there is no link because there is no reason why any type of society (even an unknown one) can’t have nuclear waste storage. Perm Double Bind: Either capitalism is so strong the alternative can never solve or the perm captures enough solvency to remove any risk of their impacts and solves all their ethical obligations. Perm: Do the plan, keep nuclear power, and reject all other instances of capitalism. The net benefit to this permutation is poverty. It makes no sense to have an ethical obligation to keep people in poverty Myron Ebell 11/23/04 “Cooler Heads” o.z. http://cei.org/gencon/014,04391.cfm Poverty and Global Warming Graham Sarjeant, financial editor of London’s Times adroitly summarized the current policy dilemma in a piece for his paper entitled, “Do you want global warming, nuclear power, or poverty” (Oct. 29). In it he wrote, “On present policies, the rise of China and India from poverty is incompatible with any attempt to slow, let alone halt, global warming. A choice has to be made to keep poor people poor or to take our chances on the environment. “Europe’s drive for wind power and other forms of renewable energy, sensible though they seem, will make no contribution to resolving this dilemma in the foreseeable future. On IEA’s well-founded projections, the share of renewables in EU energy demand will double to 12 per cent from 2002 to 2030. At the same time, nuclear power will shrink from 15 per cent to 7 per cent, so the EU will rely more on fossil fuels.” Sarjeant finished his piece by saying, “Other hard decisions would have to be made if we are to make much difference before 2030. One accepted in Europe but not where it counts—in America—is that petrol should sell at not less than the equivalent of $1 per litre to accelerate the drive for fuel economy. The other is that the West should make a wholesale switch to nuclear power stations, which do not emit carbon dioxide. New generations may be able to use new technologies. For us the choice is between global warming, nuclear power, and trying to keep poor people poor, a choice our leaders lack the courage to make.”

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This impact is substantially bigger than their’s and proves that their ethical framework is flawed. Mumia Abu-Jamal, 9-19-1998, “A Quiet and Deadly Violence,” www1.minn.net/~meis/quietdv.htm We live, equally immersed, and to a deeper degree, in a nation that condones and ignores wide-ranging "structural" violence, of a kind that destroys human life with a breathtaking ruthlessness. Former Massachusetts prison official and writer, Dr. James Gilligan observes; "By `structural violence' I mean the increased rates of death and disability suffered by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society, as contrasted by those who are above them. Those excess deaths (or at least a demonstrably large proportion of them) are a function of the class structure; and that structure is itself a product of society's collective human choices, concerning how to distribute the collective wealth of the society. These are not acts of God. I am contrasting `structural' with `behavioral violence' by which I mean the nonnatural deaths and injuries that are caused by specific behavioral actions of individuals against individuals, such as the deaths we attribute to homicide, suicide, soldiers in warfare, capital punishment, and so on." -(Gilligan, J., MD, Violence: Reflections On a National Epidemic (New York: Vintage, 1996), 192.) This form of violence, not covered by any of the majoritarian, corporate, ruling-class protected media, is invisible to us and because of its invisibility, all the more insidious. How dangerous is it -- really? Gilligan notes: "[E]very fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed in a nuclear war that caused 232 million deaths; and every single year, two to three times as many people die from poverty throughout the world as were killed by the Nazi genocide of the Jews over a six-year period. This is, in effect, the equivalent of an ongoing, unending, in fact accelerating, thermonuclear war, or genocide on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world." [Gilligan, p. 196]

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AT K Capitalism – Long Version

Perm – do the plan and all non-mutually exclusive aspects of the alternative. This solves best because you get the 1AC advantages and reject capitalism The permutation proves there is no link because there is no reason why any type of society (even an unknown one) can’t have nuclear power repositories By rejecting all capitalism except that needed to do the plan, we gain 99.9% of the K impact. Thus, we o/w and remaining impact that they can claim Perm Double Bind: A)Either capitalism is so strong to solve the SQUO and the plan, thus the perm solves OR B)The alt doesn’t solve Perm: Do the plan, keep nuclear power, and reject all other instances of capitalism. The net benefit to this permutation is poverty. It makes no sense to have an ethical obligation to keep people in poverty. Rejecting nuclear power is the same as saying people in developing countries should remain mired in poverty. Myron Ebell 11/23/04 “Cooler Heads” o.z. http://cei.org/gencon/014,04391.cfm Poverty and Global Warming Graham Sarjeant, financial editor of London’s Times adroitly summarized the current policy dilemma in a piece for his paper entitled, “Do you want global warming, nuclear power, or poverty” (Oct. 29). In it he wrote, “On present policies, the rise of China and India from poverty is incompatible with any attempt to slow, let alone halt, global warming. A choice has to be made to keep poor people poor or to take our chances on the environment. “Europe’s drive for wind power and other forms of renewable energy, sensible though they seem, will make no contribution to resolving this dilemma in the foreseeable future. On IEA’s well-founded projections, the share of renewables in EU energy demand will double to 12 per cent from 2002 to 2030. At the same time, nuclear power will shrink from 15 per cent to 7 per cent, so the EU will rely more on fossil fuels.” Sarjeant finished his piece by saying, “Other hard decisions would have to be made if we are to make much difference before 2030. One accepted in Europe but not where it counts—in America—is that petrol should sell at not less than the equivalent of $1 per litre to accelerate the drive for fuel economy. The other is that the West should make a wholesale switch to nuclear power stations, which do not emit carbon dioxide. New generations may be able to use new technologies. For us the choice is between global warming, nuclear power, and trying to keep poor people poor, a choice our leaders lack the courage to make.” Since there are millions of instances of incentives, Double bind: either there is no residual link to the plan OR the alternative doesn’t solve – 1 rejection. This also answers their aff choice arbitrary argument: without a specific link to our nuclear affirmative, we win our interpretation of framework. No link – the incentives we give is given to businesses. The companies can decide whether or not they want to accept this aid or not, we aren’t deciding anything for them, couldn’t increase capitalism.

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Capitalism and free trade are good – it’s responsible for most of the good in the world. The root cause of structural violence is a lack of free markets. Areas that have started to develop must transition to the next level of capitalism or they will be locked in misery for a very long time. The plan is a swipe at institutions but instead you need to align yourself with these institutions it is responsible for remarkable progress. Goklany ’07 (Indur, Author of The Improving State of the World: Why We're Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet, Mar. 23, http://www.reason.com/news/show/119252.html, twm, Indur Golanky is an independent scholar who has more than 25 years of experience working and writing on global and national environmental issues. He has published several peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on an array of issues including air pollution, climate change, biodiversity, the role of technology and economic growth in creating, as well as solving, environmental problems, and the impact of international environmental regimes on people living in less-developed countries.)

Environmentalists and globalization foes are united in their fear that greater population and consumption of energy, materials, and chemicals accompanying economic growth, technological change and free trade—the mainstays of globalization—degrade human and environmental well-being. Indeed, the 20th century saw the United States’ population multiply by four, income by seven, carbon dioxide emissions by nine, use of materials by 27, and use of chemicals by more than 100. Yet life expectancy increased from 47 years to 77 years. Onset of major disease such as cancer, heart, and respiratory disease has been postponed between eight and eleven years in the past century. Heart disease and cancer rates have been in rapid decline over the last two decades, and total cancer deaths have actually declined the last two years, despite increases in population. Among the very young, infant mortality has declined from 100 deaths per 1,000 births in 1913 to just seven per 1,000 today. These improvements haven’t been restricted to the United States. It’s a global phenomenon. Worldwide, life expectancy has more than doubled, from 31 years in 1900 to 67 years today. India’s and China’s infant mortalities exceeded 190 per 1,000 births in the early 1950s; today they are 62 and 26, respectively. In the developing world, the proportion of the population suffering from chronic hunger declined from 37 percent to 17 percent between 1970 and 2001 despite a 83 percent increase in population. Globally average annual incomes in real dollars have tripled since 1950. Consequently, the proportion of the planet's developing-world population living in absolute poverty has halved since 1981, from 40 percent to 20 percent. Child labor in low income countries declined from 30 percent to 18 percent between 1960 and 2003. Equally important, the world is more literate and better educated than ever. People are freer politically, economically, and socially to pursue their well-being as they see fit. More people choose their own rulers, and have freedom of expression. They are more likely to live under rule of law, and less likely to be arbitrarily deprived of life, limb, and property. Social and professional mobility have also never been greater. It’s easier than ever for people across the world to transcend the bonds of caste, place, gender, and other accidents of birth. People today work fewer hours and have more money and better health to enjoy their leisure time than their ancestors. Man’s environmental record is more complex. The early stages of development can indeed cause some environmental deterioration as societies pursue first-order problems affecting human well-being. These include hunger, malnutrition, illiteracy, and lack of education, basic public health services, safe water, sanitation, mobility, and ready sources of energy. Because greater wealth alleviates these problems while providing basic creature comforts, individuals and societies initially focus on economic development, often neglecting other aspects of environmental quality. In time, however, they recognize that environmental deterioration reduces their quality of life. Accordingly, they put more of their recently acquired wealth and human capital into developing and implementing cleaner technologies. This brings about an environmental transition via the twin forces of economic development and technological progress, which begin to provide solutions to environmental problems instead of creating those problems.All of which is why we today find that the richest countries are also the cleanest. And while many developing countries have yet to get past the “green ceiling,” they are nevertheless ahead of where today’s developed countries used to be when they were equally wealthy. The point of transition from "industrial period" to "environmental conscious" continues to fall. For example, the US introduced unleaded gasoline only after its GDP per capita exceeded $16,000. India and China did the same before they reached $3,000 per capita. This progress is a testament to the power of globalization and the transfer of ideas and knowledge (that lead is harmful, for example). It's also testament to the importance of trade in transferring technology from developed to developing countries—in this case, the technology needed to remove lead from gasoline. This hints at the answer to the question of why some parts of the world have been left behind while the rest of the world has thrived. Why have improvements in well-being stalled in areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab world? The proximate cause of improvements in well-being is a “cycle of progress” composed of the mutually reinforcing forces of economic development and technological progress. But that cycle itself is propelled by a web of essential institutions, particularly property rights, free markets, and rule of law. Other important institutions would include science- and technology-based problem-solving founded on skepticism and experimentation; receptiveness to new technologies and ideas; and freer trade in goods, services—most importantly in knowledge and ideas. In short, free and open societies prosper. Isolation, intolerance, and hostility to the free exchange of knowledge, technology, people, and goods breed stagnation or regression. Despite all of this progress and good news, then, there is still much unfinished business. Millions of people die from hunger, malnutrition, and preventable disease such as malaria, tuberculosis, and diarrhea. Over a billion people still live in absolute poverty, defined as less than a dollar per day. A third of the world’s eligible population is still not enrolled in secondary school. Barriers to globalization, economic development, and technological change—such as the use of DDT to eradicate malaria, genetic engineering, and biotechnology—are a big source of the problem. Moreover, the global population will grow 50 percent to 100 percent this century, and per capita consumption of energy and materials will likely increase with wealth. Merely preserving the status quo is not enough. We need to protect the important sustaining institutions responsible for all of this progress in the developed world, and we need to foster and nurture them in countries that are still developing. Man’s remarkable progress over the last 100 years is unprecedented in human history. It’s also one of the more neglected big-picture stories. Ensuring that our incredible progress continues will require not only recognizing and appreciating the progress itself, but also recognizing and preserving the important ideas and institutions that caused it, and ensuring that they endure.

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***Don’t Read Link Turns with Impact Turns***

Link Turn: The Aff is ethical – access to clean energy is a fundamental right – government intrusion into the economy is justified in this instance Tully Postdoctoral Fellow of the ESRC Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation and of the Law Department 2006 Stephen Northwestern University Journal of International Human Rights Spring page lexis The human rights paradigm also pursues the accountability of governments and others through the application of the rule of law. Persons or groups denied rights are entitled to access effective judicial and other remedies at national and international levels. n131 Victims of human rights violations are entitled to adequate reparations including restitution, compensation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition. National ombudsmen, human rights commissions, and similar institutions may be entrusted with addressing violations. To a similar end the private sector can be made more responsive to the needs of lowincome urban households by increasing the latter's level of participation. n132 Although direct corporate accountability to their customers can be enhanced, legislative or policy measures crafted by governments could equally be avoided. n133 Nevertheless, the private sector, under the human rights paradigm, is expected to contribute to realizing human rights. However, trend s toward direct corporate legal responsibility for violations, while discernable, remain underdeveloped. n134 Further, an individual right affirms the obligations incumbent upon government. Governments have undertaken to promote universal respect for and observation of human rights and fundamental freedoms. n135 They accordingly become subject to positive or

negative obligations to protect, promote, and provide each human right and to abstain from violations. Providing access to basic social services, including energy, is considered to be a fundamental responsibility of government. n136 This responsibility arises even when governments delegate functional roles to third parties. Notwithstanding market-oriented electricity sector reforms, "in all cases the State remains ultimately responsible for the delivery of electricity." n137 For example, the Electricity Corporation of Guyana is obliged to provide public services which are safe, adequate, efficient, [*534] reasonable, and non-discriminatory. n138 The New Zealand Electricity Commission is similarly expected to produce and deliver electricity to all consumers in an efficient, fair, reliable, and environmentally sustainable manner. n139 A human rights obligation enforceable against governments would maintain their active participation within deregulated electricity markets and, moreover, circumscribe permissible behavior.

Capitalism is inevitable---only the plan can spread capitalism at a local level---this eliminates the negative aspects of it

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Impact Turn: Imperial wars pre-date capitalism by centuries, war is illogical under capitalism because it destroys wealth MacKenzie 3 D.W. MacKenzie graduate student in economics at George Mason University Does Capitalism Require War? Monday, April 07, 2003 http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1201 Perhaps the oddest aspect of these various, but similar, claims is that their proponents appeal so often to historical examples. They often claim that history shows how capitalism is imperialistic and warlike or at least benefits from war. Capitalism supposedly needs a boost from some war spending from time to time, and history shows this. Robert Higgs demonstrated that the wartime prosperity during the Second World War was illusory[i]. This should come to no surprise to those who lived through the deprivations of wartime rationing.

History is rife with examples of imperialism

We do not need wars for prosperity, but does capitalism breed war and imperialism anyway? . The Romans, Alexander, and many others of the ancient world waged imperialistic wars. The Incan Empire and the empire of Ancient China stand as examples of the universal character of imperialism. Who could

Imperialism precedes modern industrial capitalism by many centuries. Uneven wealth distribution or underconsumption under capitalism obviously did not cause these instances of imperialism. Of course, this fact does not prove that modern capitalism lacks its own imperialistic tendencies. The notion that income gets underspent or maldistributed lies at the possibly claim that imperialism grew out of the prosperity of these ancient civilizations?

heart of most claims that capitalism either needs or produces imperialistic wars. As J.B. Say argued, supply creates its own demand through payments to factors of production. Demand Side economists Hobson and Keynes argued that there would be too little consumption and too little investment for continuous full employment. We save too much to have peace and prosperity. The difficulty we face is not in oversaving, but in underestimating the workings of markets and the desires of consumers. Doomsayers have been downplaying consumer demand for ages. As demand side economist J.K. Galbraith claimed, we live in an affluent society, where most private demands have been met. Of course, Hobson made the same claim much earlier. Earlier and stranger still, mercantilists claimed that 'wasteful acts' such as tea drinking, gathering at alehouses, taking snuff, and the wearing of ribbons were unnecessary luxuries that detracted from productive endeavors. The prognostications of esteemed opponents of capitalism have consistently failed to predict consumer demand. Today, consumers consume at levels that few long ago could have imagined possible. There is no reason to doubt that consumers will continue to press for ever higher levels of consumption. Though it is only a movie, Brewster's Millions illustrates how creative people can be at spending money. People who do actually inherit, win, or earn large sums of money have little trouble spending it. Indeed, wealthy individuals usually have more trouble holding on to their fortunes than in finding ways to spend them. We are never going to run out of ways to spend money. Many of the complaints about capitalism center on how people save too much. One should remember that there really is no such thing as saving. Consumers defer consumption to the future only. As economist Eugen Böhm-Bawerk demonstrated, people save according to time preference. Savings diverts resources into capital formation. This increases future production. Interest enhanced savings then can purchase these goods as some consumers cease to defer their consumption. Keynes' claim that animal spirits drive investment has no rational basis. Consumer preferences are the basis for investment. Investors forecast future consumer demand. Interest rates convey knowledge of these demands. The intertemporal coordination of production through capital markets and interest rates is not a simple matter. But Keynes' marginal propensities to save and Hobson's concentration of wealth arguments fail to account for the real determinants of production through time. Say's Law of Markets holds precisely because people always want a better life for themselves and those close to them. Falling interest rates deter saving and increase investment. Rising interest rates induce saving and deter investment. This simple logic of supply and demand derives from a quite basic notion of self interest. Keynes denied that the world worked this way. Instead, he claimed that bond holders hoard money outside of the banking system, investment periodically collapses from 'the dark forces of time and uncertainty, and consumers save income in a mechanical fashion according to marginal propensities to save. None of these propositions hold up to scrutiny, either deductive or empirical. Speculators do not hoard cash outside of banks. To do this means a loss of interest on assets. People do move assets from one part of the financial system to another. This does not cause deficient aggregate demand. Most money exists in the banking system, and is always available for lending. In fact, the advent of e-banking makes such a practice even less sensible. Why hoard cash when you can move money around with your computer? It is common knowledge that people save for homes, education, and other expensive items, not because they have some innate urge to squirrel some portion of their income away. This renders half of the market for credit rational. Investors do in fact calculate rates of return on investment. This is not a simple matter. Investment entails some speculation. Long term investment projects entail some uncertainty, but investors who want to actually reap profits will estimate the returns on investment using the best available data. Keynes feared that the dark forces of time and uncertainty could scare investors. This possibility, he thought, called for government intervention. However, government intervention (especially warfare) generally serves to increase uncertainty. Private markets have enough uncertainties without throwing politics into the fray. The vagaries of political intervention serve only to darken an already uncertain future. Capital markets are best left to capitalists. Nor is capital not extracted surplus value. It comes not from exploitation. It is simply a matter of people valuing their future wellbeing. Capitalists will hire workers up to the point where the discounted marginal product of their labor equals the wage rate. To do otherwise would mean a loss of potential profit. Since workers earn the marginal product of labor and capital derives from deferred consumption, Marxist arguments about reserve armies of the unemployed and surplus extraction fail. It is quite odd to worry about capitalists oversaving when many complain about how the savings rate in the U.S. is too low. Why does the U.S., as the world's 'greatest capitalist/imperialist power', attract so much foreign investment? Many Americans worry about America's international accounts. Fears about foreigners buying up America are unfounded, but not because this does not happen. America does have a relatively low national savings rate. It does attract much foreign investment, precisely because it has relatively secure property rights. Indeed, much of the third world suffers from too little investment. The claims of Marxists, and Hobson, directly contradict the historical record. Sound theory tells us that it should. The Marxist claim that capitalists must find investments overseas fails miserably. Larry Kudlow has put his own spin on the false connection between capitalism and war. We need the War as shock therapy to get the economy on its feet. Kudlow also endorses massive airline subsidies as a means of restoring economic prosperity. Kudlow and Krugman both endorse the alleged destructive creation of warfare and terrorism. Kudlow has rechristened the Broken Window fallacy the Broken Window principle. Kudlow claims that may lose money and wealth in one way, but we gain it back many time over when the rebuilding is done. Kudlow and Krugman have quite an affinity for deficits. Krugman sees debt as a sponge to absorb excess saving. Kudlow see debt as a short term nuisance that we can dispel by maximizing growth. One would think that such famous economists would realize that competition does work to achieve

While these economists have expressed their belief in writing, they could do more. If the destruction of assets leads to increased prosperity, then they should teach this principle by example. Kudlow and Krugman could, for instance, help build the economy by demolishing their own private homes. This would have the immediate effect of stimulating demand for demolition experts, and the longer term affect of stimulating the demand for construction workers. They can create additional wealth by financing the reconstruction of their homes through debt. the goal of optimum growth based on time preference, but this is not the case.

By borrowing funds, they draw idle resources into use and stimulate financial activity. Of course, they would both initially lose wealth in one way. But if their thinking is sound, they will gain it

The truth is that their beliefs are fallacious. Bastiat demonstrated the absurdity of destructive creation in his original explanation of the opportunity costs from repairing broken windows. Kudlow is quite clear about his back many times over as they rebuild.

intentions. He wants to grow the economy to finance the war. As Kudlow told some students, "The trick here is to grow the economy and let the economic growth raise the revenue for the war effort"[ii]. Kudlow also praises the Reagan Administration for growing the economy to fund national defense. Here Kudlow's attempts to give economic advice cease completely. His argument here is not that capitalism needs a shot in the arm. It is that resources should be redirected towards ends that he sees fit. Kudlow is a war hawk who, obviously, cannot fund this or any war personally. He instead favors using the state to tax others to fund what he wants, but cannot afford. He seems to think that his values matter more than any other's. Why should anyone else agree with this? Kudlow tarnishes the image of laissez faire economics by parading his faulty reasoning and his claims that his wants should reign supreme as a pro-market stance. Unfortunately, it is

Capitalism neither requires nor promotes imperialist expansion. Capitalism did not create imperialism or warfare. Warlike societies predate societies with secure private property. The idea that inequity or underspending give rise to militarism lacks any rational basis. Imperialistic tendencies exist due to ethnic and nationalistic bigotries, and the want for power. Prosperity depends upon our ability to prevent destructive acts. The dogma sometimes necessary to defend capitalism from alleged advocates of liberty, who employ false dogmas in pursuit of their own militaristic desires.

of destructive creation fails as a silver lining to the cloud of warfare. Destructive acts entail real costs that diminish available opportunities. The idea that we need to find work for idle hands in capitalism at best leads to a kind of Sisyphus economy where unproductive industries garner subsidies from productive people. At worst, it serves as a supporting argument for war. The more recent versions of the false charges against capitalism do nothing to invalidate two simple facts. Capitalism generates prosperity by creating new products.

destroying existing wealth. There is no sound reason to think otherwise.

War inflicts poverty by

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Transitions from Capitalism leads to wars – empirically proven – violence is inevitable Total rejection of capitalism fragments resistance – the alternative never solves J.K. Gibson-Graham, feminist economist, 1996, End of Capitalism One of our goals as Marxists has been to produce a knowledge of capitalism. Yet as “that which is known,” Capitalism has become the intimate enemy. We have uncloaked the ideologically-clothed, obscure monster, but we have installed a naked and visible monster in its place. In return for our labors of creation, the monster has robbed us of all force. We hear – and find it easy to believe – that the left is in disarray. Part of what produces the disarray of the left is the vision of what the left is arrayed against. When capitalism is represented as a unified system coextensive with the nation or even the world, when it is portrayed as crowding out all other economic forms, when it is allowed to define entire societies, it becomes something that can only be defeated and replaced by a mass collective movement (or by a process of systemic dissolution that such a movement might assist). The revolutionary task of replacing capitalism now seems outmoded and unrealistic, yet we do not seem to have an alternative conception of class transformation to take its place. The old political economic “systems” and “structures” that call forth a vision of revolution as systemic replacement still seem to be dominant in the Marxist political imagination. The New World Order is often represented as political fragmentation founded upon economic unification. In this vision the economy appears as the last stronghold of unity and singularity in a world of diversity and plurality. But why can’t the economy be fragmented too? If we theorized it as fragmented in the United States, we could being to see a huge state sector (incorporating a variety of forms of appropriation of surplus labor), a very large sector of self-employed and family-based producers (most noncapitalist), a huge household sector (again, quite various in terms of forms of exploitation, with some households moving towards communal or collective appropriation and others operating in a traditional mode in which one adult appropriates surplus labor from another). None of these things is easy to see. If capitalism takes up the available social space, there’s no room for anything else. If capitalism cannot coexist, there’s no possibility of anything else. If capitalism functions as a unity, it cannot be partially or locally replaced. My intent is to help create the discursive conception under which socialist or other noncapitalist construction becomes “realistic” present activity rather than a ludicrous or utopian goal. To achieve this I must smash Capitalism and see it in a thousand pieces. I must make its unity a fantasy, visible as a denial of diversity and change. It’s stupid to assume that the unknown alternative would be better than capitalism. Capitalism has shown to be better than any current alternative. Withdraw from the state is an acceptance of the ideology of capitalism Zizek 2007 Slavoj, Resistance is Surrender, London Review of Books, 11/15 http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n22/zize01_.html The response of some critics on the postmodern Left to this predicament is to call for a new politics of resistance. Those who still insist on fighting state power, let alone seizing it, are accused of remaining stuck within the ‘old paradigm’: the task today, their critics say, is to resist state power by withdrawing from its terrain and creating new spaces outside its control. This is, of course, the obverse of accepting the triumph of capitalism. The politics of resistance is nothing but the moralising supplement to a Third Way Left. What is the alternative? Socialism would be the only alternative option. However, there is absolutely no chance of any socialist revolution in the United States. The best chance of finding any socialist crack heads is at the corner of some shady alleyway along Grand River Plaza.

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AT K Capitalism – Version

Perm – do the plan and all non-mutually exclusive aspects of the alternative. This solves best because you get the 1AC advantages and reject capitalism The permutation proves there is no link because there is no reason why any type of society (even an unknown one) can’t have nuclear power repositories By rejecting all capitalism except that needed to do the plan, we gain 99.9% of the K impact. Thus, we o/w and remaining impact that they can claim Perm Double Bind: A)Either capitalism is so strong to solve the SQUO and the plan, thus the perm solves OR B)The alt doesn’t solve Perm: Do the plan, keep nuclear power, and reject all other instances of capitalism. The net benefit to this permutation is poverty. It makes no sense to have an ethical obligation to keep people in poverty. Rejecting nuclear power is the same as saying people in developing countries should remain mired in poverty. Myron Ebell 11/23/04 “Cooler Heads” o.z. http://cei.org/gencon/014,04391.cfm Poverty and Global Warming Graham Sarjeant, financial editor of London’s Times adroitly summarized the current policy dilemma in a piece for his paper entitled, “Do you want global warming, nuclear power, or poverty” (Oct. 29). In it he wrote, “On present policies, the rise of China and India from poverty is incompatible with any attempt to slow, let alone halt, global warming. A choice has to be made to keep poor people poor or to take our chances on the environment. “Europe’s drive for wind power and other forms of renewable energy, sensible though they seem, will make no contribution to resolving this dilemma in the foreseeable future. On IEA’s well-founded projections, the share of renewables in EU energy demand will double to 12 per cent from 2002 to 2030. At the same time, nuclear power will shrink from 15 per cent to 7 per cent, so the EU will rely more on fossil fuels.” Sarjeant finished his piece by saying, “Other hard decisions would have to be made if we are to make much difference before 2030. One accepted in Europe but not where it counts—in America—is that petrol should sell at not less than the equivalent of $1 per litre to accelerate the drive for fuel economy. The other is that the West should make a wholesale switch to nuclear power stations, which do not emit carbon dioxide. New generations may be able to use new technologies. For us the choice is between global warming, nuclear power, and trying to keep poor people poor, a choice our leaders lack the courage to make.” Since there are millions of instances of incentives, Double bind: either there is no residual link to the plan OR the alternative doesn’t solve – 1 rejection. This also answers their aff choice arbitrary argument: without a specific link to our nuclear affirmative, we win our interpretation of framework. No link – the incentives we give is given to businesses. The companies can decide whether or not they want to accept this aid or not, we aren’t deciding anything for them, couldn’t increase capitalism.

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Capitalism and free trade are good – it’s responsible for most of the good in the world. The root cause of structural violence is a lack of free markets. Areas that have started to develop must transition to the next level of capitalism or they will be locked in misery for a very long time. The plan is a swipe at institutions but instead you need to align yourself with these institutions it is responsible for remarkable progress. Goklany ’07 (Indur, Author of The Improving State of the World: Why We're Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet, Mar. 23, http://www.reason.com/news/show/119252.html, twm, Indur Golanky is an independent scholar who has more than 25 years of experience working and writing on global and national environmental issues. He has published several peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on an array of issues including air pollution, climate change, biodiversity, the role of technology and economic growth in creating, as well as solving, environmental problems, and the impact of international environmental regimes on people living in less-developed countries.)

Environmentalists and globalization foes are united in their fear that greater population and consumption of energy, materials, and chemicals accompanying economic growth, technological change and free trade—the mainstays of globalization—degrade human and environmental well-being. Indeed, the 20th century saw the United States’ population multiply by four, income by seven, carbon dioxide emissions by nine, use of materials by 27, and use of chemicals by more than 100. Yet life expectancy increased from 47 years to 77 years. Onset of major disease such as cancer, heart, and respiratory disease has been postponed between eight and eleven years in the past century. Heart disease and cancer rates have been in rapid decline over the last two decades, and total cancer deaths have actually declined the last two years, despite increases in population. Among the very young, infant mortality has declined from 100 deaths per 1,000 births in 1913 to just seven per 1,000 today. These improvements haven’t been restricted to the United States. It’s a global phenomenon. Worldwide, life expectancy has more than doubled, from 31 years in 1900 to 67 years today. India’s and China’s infant mortalities exceeded 190 per 1,000 births in the early 1950s; today they are 62 and 26, respectively. In the developing world, the proportion of the population suffering from chronic hunger declined from 37 percent to 17 percent between 1970 and 2001 despite a 83 percent increase in population. Globally average annual incomes in real dollars have tripled since 1950. Consequently, the proportion of the planet's developing-world population living in absolute poverty has halved since 1981, from 40 percent to 20 percent. Child labor in low income countries declined from 30 percent to 18 percent between 1960 and 2003. Equally important, the world is more literate and better educated than ever. People are freer politically, economically, and socially to pursue their well-being as they see fit. More people choose their own rulers, and have freedom of expression. They are more likely to live under rule of law, and less likely to be arbitrarily deprived of life, limb, and property. Social and professional mobility have also never been greater. It’s easier than ever for people across the world to transcend the bonds of caste, place, gender, and other accidents of birth. People today work fewer hours and have more money and better health to enjoy their leisure time than their ancestors. Man’s environmental record is more complex. The early stages of development can indeed cause some environmental deterioration as societies pursue first-order problems affecting human well-being. These include hunger, malnutrition, illiteracy, and lack of education, basic public health services, safe water, sanitation, mobility, and ready sources of energy. Because greater wealth alleviates these problems while providing basic creature comforts, individuals and societies initially focus on economic development, often neglecting other aspects of environmental quality. In time, however, they recognize that environmental deterioration reduces their quality of life. Accordingly, they put more of their recently acquired wealth and human capital into developing and implementing cleaner technologies. This brings about an environmental transition via the twin forces of economic development and technological progress, which begin to provide solutions to environmental problems instead of creating those problems.All of which is why we today find that the richest countries are also the cleanest. And while many developing countries have yet to get past the “green ceiling,” they are nevertheless ahead of where today’s developed countries used to be when they were equally wealthy. The point of transition from "industrial period" to "environmental conscious" continues to fall. For example, the US introduced unleaded gasoline only after its GDP per capita exceeded $16,000. India and China did the same before they reached $3,000 per capita. This progress is a testament to the power of globalization and the transfer of ideas and knowledge (that lead is harmful, for example). It's also testament to the importance of trade in transferring technology from developed to developing countries—in this case, the technology needed to remove lead from gasoline. This hints at the answer to the question of why some parts of the world have been left behind while the rest of the world has thrived. Why have improvements in well-being stalled in areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab world? The proximate cause of improvements in well-being is a “cycle of progress” composed of the mutually reinforcing forces of economic development and technological progress. But that cycle itself is propelled by a web of essential institutions, particularly property rights, free markets, and rule of law. Other important institutions would include science- and technology-based problem-solving founded on skepticism and experimentation; receptiveness to new technologies and ideas; and freer trade in goods, services—most importantly in knowledge and ideas. In short, free and open societies prosper. Isolation, intolerance, and hostility to the free exchange of knowledge, technology, people, and goods breed stagnation or regression. Despite all of this progress and good news, then, there is still much unfinished business. Millions of people die from hunger, malnutrition, and preventable disease such as malaria, tuberculosis, and diarrhea. Over a billion people still live in absolute poverty, defined as less than a dollar per day. A third of the world’s eligible population is still not enrolled in secondary school. Barriers to globalization, economic development, and technological change—such as the use of DDT to eradicate malaria, genetic engineering, and biotechnology—are a big source of the problem. Moreover, the global population will grow 50 percent to 100 percent this century, and per capita consumption of energy and materials will likely increase with wealth. Merely preserving the status quo is not enough. We need to protect the important sustaining institutions responsible for all of this progress in the developed world, and we need to foster and nurture them in countries that are still developing. Man’s remarkable progress over the last 100 years is unprecedented in human history. It’s also one of the more neglected big-picture stories. Ensuring that our incredible progress continues will require not only recognizing and appreciating the progress itself, but also recognizing and preserving the important ideas and institutions that caused it, and ensuring that they endure.

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AT K Capitalism – Short Version

Perm – do the plan and all non-mutually exclusive aspects of the alternative. This solves best because you get the 1AC advantages and reject capitalism The permutation proves there is no link because there is no reason why any type of society (even an unknown one) can’t have nuclear power repositories By rejecting all capitalism except that needed to do the plan, we gain 99.9% of the K impact. Thus, we o/w and remaining impact that they can claim Perm Double Bind: A)Either capitalism is so strong to solve the SQUO and the plan, thus the perm solves OR B)The alt doesn’t solve Perm: Do the plan, keep nuclear power, and reject all other instances of capitalism. The net benefit to this permutation is poverty. It makes no sense to have an ethical obligation to keep people in poverty. Rejecting nuclear power is the same as saying people in developing countries should remain mired in poverty. Myron Ebell 11/23/04 “Cooler Heads” o.z. http://cei.org/gencon/014,04391.cfm Poverty and Global Warming Graham Sarjeant, financial editor of London’s Times adroitly summarized the current policy dilemma in a piece for his paper entitled, “Do you want global warming, nuclear power, or poverty” (Oct. 29). In it he wrote, “On present policies, the rise of China and India from poverty is incompatible with any attempt to slow, let alone halt, global warming. A choice has to be made to keep poor people poor or to take our chances on the environment. “Europe’s drive for wind power and other forms of renewable energy, sensible though they seem, will make no contribution to resolving this dilemma in the foreseeable future. On IEA’s well-founded projections, the share of renewables in EU energy demand will double to 12 per cent from 2002 to 2030. At the same time, nuclear power will shrink from 15 per cent to 7 per cent, so the EU will rely more on fossil fuels.” Sarjeant finished his piece by saying, “Other hard decisions would have to be made if we are to make much difference before 2030. One accepted in Europe but not where it counts—in America—is that petrol should sell at not less than the equivalent of $1 per litre to accelerate the drive for fuel economy. The other is that the West should make a wholesale switch to nuclear power stations, which do not emit carbon dioxide. New generations may be able to use new technologies. For us the choice is between global warming, nuclear power, and trying to keep poor people poor, a choice our leaders lack the courage to make.” Since there are millions of instances of incentives, Double bind: either there is no residual link to the plan OR the alternative doesn’t solve – 1 rejection. This also answers their aff choice arbitrary argument: without a specific link to our nuclear affirmative, we win our interpretation of framework. No link – the incentives we give is given to businesses. The companies can decide whether or not they want to accept this aid or not, we aren’t deciding anything for them, couldn’t increase capitalism.

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Capitalism and free trade are good – it’s responsible for most of the good in the world. The root cause of structural violence is a lack of free markets. Areas that have started to develop must transition to the next level of capitalism or they will be locked in misery for a very long time. The plan is a swipe at institutions but instead you need to align yourself with these institutions it is responsible for remarkable progress. Goklany ’07 (Indur, Author of The Improving State of the World: Why We're Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet, Mar. 23, http://www.reason.com/news/show/119252.html, twm, Indur Golanky is an independent scholar who has more than 25 years of experience working and writing on global and national environmental issues. He has published several peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on an array of issues including air pollution, climate change, biodiversity, the role of technology and economic growth in creating, as well as solving, environmental problems, and the impact of international environmental regimes on people living in less-developed countries.)

Environmentalists and globalization foes are united in their fear that greater population and consumption of energy, materials, and chemicals accompanying economic growth, technological change and free trade—the mainstays of globalization—degrade human and environmental well-being. Indeed, the 20th century saw the United States’ population multiply by four, income by seven, carbon dioxide emissions by nine, use of materials by 27, and use of chemicals by more than 100. Yet life expectancy increased from 47 years to 77 years. Onset of major disease such as cancer, heart, and respiratory disease has been postponed between eight and eleven years in the past century. Heart disease and cancer rates have been in rapid decline over the last two decades, and total cancer deaths have actually declined the last two years, despite increases in population. Among the very young, infant mortality has declined from 100 deaths per 1,000 births in 1913 to just seven per 1,000 today. These improvements haven’t been restricted to the United States. It’s a global phenomenon. Worldwide, life expectancy has more than doubled, from 31 years in 1900 to 67 years today. India’s and China’s infant mortalities exceeded 190 per 1,000 births in the early 1950s; today they are 62 and 26, respectively. In the developing world, the proportion of the population suffering from chronic hunger declined from 37 percent to 17 percent between 1970 and 2001 despite a 83 percent increase in population. Globally average annual incomes in real dollars have tripled since 1950. Consequently, the proportion of the planet's developing-world population living in absolute poverty has halved since 1981, from 40 percent to 20 percent. Child labor in low income countries declined from 30 percent to 18 percent between 1960 and 2003. Equally important, the world is more literate and better educated than ever. People are freer politically, economically, and socially to pursue their well-being as they see fit. More people choose their own rulers, and have freedom of expression. They are more likely to live under rule of law, and less likely to be arbitrarily deprived of life, limb, and property. Social and professional mobility have also never been greater. It’s easier than ever for people across the world to transcend the bonds of caste, place, gender, and other accidents of birth. People today work fewer hours and have more money and better health to enjoy their leisure time than their ancestors. Man’s environmental record is more complex. The early stages of development can indeed cause some environmental deterioration as societies pursue first-order problems affecting human well-being. These include hunger, malnutrition, illiteracy, and lack of education, basic public health services, safe water, sanitation, mobility, and ready sources of energy. Because greater wealth alleviates these problems while providing basic creature comforts, individuals and societies initially focus on economic development, often neglecting other aspects of environmental quality. In time, however, they recognize that environmental deterioration reduces their quality of life. Accordingly, they put more of their recently acquired wealth and human capital into developing and implementing cleaner technologies. This brings about an environmental transition via the twin forces of economic development and technological progress, which begin to provide solutions to environmental problems instead of creating those problems.All of which is why we today find that the richest countries are also the cleanest. And while many developing countries have yet to get past the “green ceiling,” they are nevertheless ahead of where today’s developed countries used to be when they were equally wealthy. The point of transition from "industrial period" to "environmental conscious" continues to fall. For example, the US introduced unleaded gasoline only after its GDP per capita exceeded $16,000. India and China did the same before they reached $3,000 per capita. This progress is a testament to the power of globalization and the transfer of ideas and knowledge (that lead is harmful, for example). It's also testament to the importance of trade in transferring technology from developed to developing countries—in this case, the technology needed to remove lead from gasoline. This hints at the answer to the question of why some parts of the world have been left behind while the rest of the world has thrived. Why have improvements in well-being stalled in areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab world? The proximate cause of improvements in well-being is a “cycle of progress” composed of the mutually reinforcing forces of economic development and technological progress. But that cycle itself is propelled by a web of essential institutions, particularly property rights, free markets, and rule of law. Other important institutions would include science- and technology-based problem-solving founded on skepticism and experimentation; receptiveness to new technologies and ideas; and freer trade in goods, services—most importantly in knowledge and ideas. In short, free and open societies prosper. Isolation, intolerance, and hostility to the free exchange of knowledge, technology, people, and goods breed stagnation or regression. Despite all of this progress and good news, then, there is still much unfinished business. Millions of people die from hunger, malnutrition, and preventable disease such as malaria, tuberculosis, and diarrhea. Over a billion people still live in absolute poverty, defined as less than a dollar per day. A third of the world’s eligible population is still not enrolled in secondary school. Barriers to globalization, economic development, and technological change—such as the use of DDT to eradicate malaria, genetic engineering, and biotechnology—are a big source of the problem. Moreover, the global population will grow 50 percent to 100 percent this century, and per capita consumption of energy and materials will likely increase with wealth. Merely preserving the status quo is not enough. We need to protect the important sustaining institutions responsible for all of this progress in the developed world, and we need to foster and nurture them in countries that are still developing. Man’s remarkable progress over the last 100 years is unprecedented in human history. It’s also one of the more neglected big-picture stories. Ensuring that our incredible progress continues will require not only recognizing and appreciating the progress itself, but also recognizing and preserving the important ideas and institutions that caused it, and ensuring that they endure.

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AT K Economic Management – Externalization Module 1.No Link- the point of the plan is not to BLAME the nuclear industries, it is to promote them in efforts to stop Global Warming 2. Alt doesn’t solve - Taking responsibility on a national level is key, there is no way to assure each individual will assume that responsibility for themselves if given the task. 3. The U.S. is responsible for the most emissions, which justifies the need for the US as a whole to reduce their emissions. Jay Apt (is executive director of the Electricity Industry Center at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business and the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, where he is a Distinguished Service Professor) David W. Keith (is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Energy and the Environment in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering and the Department of Economics at

and M. Granger Morgan (is University and Lord Professor and department head of the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University and co-director of the Electricity Industry Center) Spring 2007 "Promoting the University of Calgary)

Low-Carbon Electricity Production”, Issues in Science and Technology, v. 23, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3622/is_200704/ai_n19198506 When past emissions are factored in, the United States is responsible for just over a quarter of all anthropogenic CO2 from fossil fuels currently in the atmosphere. Europe, China, and India are responsible for 19%, 9%, and 3% respectively. The EU has agreed to reduce emissions to 8% below 1990 levels by 2012; the United States has not. EU emissions are the same as in 1990; U.S. emissions have increased by 20%. And because CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere for over a century, the largest single share of CO2 will continue to belong to the United States for many decades, despite China's growth. Since the United States has put the largest single share of CO2 into the air, it must begin to take the lead in reducing it. In a few decades, China, India, Brazil, and other developing countries also will have to undertake serious controls. But they will not do so until we take the lead and show how it can be done in an efficient and affordable way.

4. Perm – do the plan and all non-mutually exclusive aspects of the alternative. 5. Alt not competitive – the plan does not discourage individuals from taking responsibility, it only assumes that the US should – there is no reason why the perm doesn’t get double solvency

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AT K Free Market Environmentalism Free market won’t spur nuclear energy. Robert E. Ebel the Director, Energy and National Security Center for Strategic and International Studies Washington, D. C. 6/8/2000. AP. http://www.csis.org/media/csis/congress/ts000608ebel.pdf Clearly, all will benefit if developing countries have access to adequate, clean, and secure sources of energy. At the same time, they will not place environmental policy ahead of economic growth. To assist these consumers, it is essential that clean coal technology is a viable option, given their high coal consumption. Equally important, nuclear power must be promoted as a viable option in the developing world, to supply electricity in rural areas and to promote general industrialization, while keeping nuclear power as a viable option in the developed world. Let me ask, does the United States have a forward-looking plan for nuclear power? No, it does not. Does Russian? Yes, the Minister of Atomic Energy recently stated that there are plans to quadruple the generation of nuclear electric power by the year 2030. Does China? China today has 10 nuclear reactors under construction and will build 20 nuclear power stations by the year 2020. Does Japan’s, despite a recent shift in public opinion? Yes, the government currently plans to add 20 new reactors by the year 2010. I can visualize our leadership slipping away. The nuclear option faces a difficult choice: Exercise the nuclear option, through government support (it is our judgment that the market alone won't do it).

Perm – do the plan and all non mutually exclusive components of the counterplan.

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AT K Native Americans 1. Perm: Do Plan and all non-competitive parts of the alternative And, This solves – doing the plan would allow for US to take time to solve the social implications of the plan PAUL SLOVIC, JAMES H. FLYNN, and MARK LAYMAN, Decision Research professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, AAAS Science Magazine, 13 December 1991, Perceived Risk, Trust, and the Politics of Nuclear Waste, nna The Department of Energy's program for disposing of high-level radioactive wastes has been impeded by overwhelming political opposition fueled by public perceptions of risk. Analysis of these perceptions shows them to be deeply rooted in images of fear and dread that have been present since the discovery of radioactivity. The development and use of nuclear weapons linked these images to reality and the mishandling of radioactive wastes from the nation's military weapons facilities has contributed toward creating a profound state of distrust that cannot be erased quickly or easily. Postponing the permanent repository and employing dry-cask storage of wastes on site would provide the time necessary for difficult social and political issues to be resolved. 2. Non-Unique – there is already dumping on Native Americans now – there harms are non-unique 3. Rejecting Nuclear Power cant solve – alternative cant get rid of existing waste 3. Even if there is nuclear power and waste by Native Americans – there is no impact to its radiation – it might even help humans Jack Dini and Jay Lehr, Ph.D 3/1/08 “Over Time, Nuclear Power Skeptic Becomes Advocate” Published in The Environment & Climate News by The Heartland Institute o.z. http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=22788&CFID=5911648&CFTOKEN=55847241 The annual public radiation exposure permitted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for nuclear facilities is 15 millirem. The average person in the United States is exposed to 200 millirem of radiation per year. If you spent all your time in Grand Central Station, you would get an annual radiation dose of nearly 600 millirem. At Three Mile Island, the total calculated dose Pennsylvanians received after the accident was far less than the measured dose New Mexicans receive from nature every day. Interestingly, in New Mexico the cancer rate is much lower than the national average although natural background radiation is much higher than the national average. The same is true for Denver. Residents of Finland receive an annual dose of radiation three times higher than a person would receive living in the zone surrounding Chernobyl now excluded from habitation. As of 2006, nuclear-powered submarines and ships had safely traveled a total of 134 million miles and registered 5,700 naval reactor years of safe operation with a total of 254 reactors. Hormesis What may explain these facts is the biological theory of hormesis: Organisms are made more resilient by low-level exposure to a substance that is toxic in larger doses. Cravens covers this topic, but in attempting to present both sides of the issue she does not cover the wide literature base of studies on animals and humans that confirm the beneficial effects of low-level radiation. Edward Calabrese of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst has published extensively in this field and is a good source for additional information. In spite of this science, governments continue to use the linear no-threshold model, which says any radiation dose, no matter how small, is harmful. Misuse of this model has produced spending in excess of $1 trillion in the United States alone for negligible health benefits just for government environmental cleanup programs, while truly significant measures that would protect the public health remain unfunded.

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4. Plan solves multiple ways A. Dry Caskets – they solve the waste problems the neg is K’ing Bunn et al. ‘1, researchers from the Harvard University Project on Managing the Atom and the Tokyo University Project of Sociotechnics on Nuclear Energy, “Interim Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel”, http://lyman.q.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~todoriki/BCSIA.pdf tk The diverse technologies now available for storing spent nuclear fuel—from wet pools to dry casks—offer safe, secure, and cost-effective options for storing the spent fuel generated by the world’s power reactors for decades, or for much shorter periods of time, as circumstances warrant. These interim storage possibilities will allow time for permanent options for management and disposal of spent fuel and nuclear wastes to be prepared and implemented with the care they require. Interim storage of spent fuel can also allow time for spent fuel management technology to improve, and for the economic, environmental, and security advantages of different approaches to permanent management of spent fuel and nuclear wastes to become clearer. B. Permanent Waste Depository – By creating a new waste depository – we would end up solving the waste problem – meaning no more dumping in world of the plan C. Recycling – Nuclear waste can be recycled – plan actually gets rid of current nuclear waste Gilbert J. Brown, professor of nuclear engineering and the coordinator of the Nuclear Engineering Program at UMass-Lowell, 8-2-07, The Boston Globe, Energy and the Simpsons, lexis, bc As some of the world's greatest consumers of energy, we are looking for cleaner and more efficient sources to meet the growing demand for electricity - expected to rise 40 percent in the United States by 2030. Today, more and more Americans understand that real nuclear by-products are not uncontrolled green ooze but rather used nuclear fuel that is managed safely and securely on-site. And, as nuclear technology advances, over 90 percent of used fuel could be recycled to fuel nuclear power plants again and again. D. Turn – Nuclear Power generates less hazardous waste than other power sources and they monitor it to ensure safety. James M. Taylor 7/1/06, “WWF Australia Joins Pro-Nuclear Camp” o.z. http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=19337&CFID=5925006&CFTOKEN=69480619 Others Switching Sides Bourne joins a substantial number of environmental activists who have indicated support for nuclear power as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace; James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia Earth theory; and Hugh Montefiore, former chairman and trustee for Friends of the Earth, are just a few of the high-profile environmental activists who have recently switched sides on the nuclear issue. "Nuclear power plants do not produce greenhouse gases or nitrogen oxide or sulfur dioxide," explained Adrian Heymer, senior director for new plant deployment at the Nuclear Energy Institute. "This, of course, gives nuclear a tremendous environmental advantage over other economically competitive power sources. "Compared with a lot of other industries," Heymer added, "we don't generate as much hazardous waste. Plus, we monitor it--we know where it is, and we make sure that people and the environment are adequately protected from it." 5. Their alt cant solve waste – they reject plan which is key to solve it – we get risk of our impact versus the alt

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AT K You Hurt the Poor 1.Nuclear power helps the poor by lowering energy costs Nicolas Loris and Jack Spencer, Research Fellow in Nuclear Energy and Nick Loris is Research Assistant in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, November 14, 2007, The Heritage Foundation, Congress Should Not Overlook Benefits of Nuclear Energy, nna http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm1704.cfm Congress is considering an assortment of legislative proposals to ostensibly curb greenhouse gases and promote energy independence. Unfortunately, the result of most of these proposals would be less energy, greater dependence on foreign sources of energy, and higher prices.[1] 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. If the desired result is clean, emissions-free, domestic energy, the legislation should set the target and allow the market to determine the best way forward. If Congress passes any climate change bill, it should endorse free-market solutions and not force specific technologies on Americans. The energy crises in the 1970s prompted a significant expansion of publicly subsidized research and development for wind, solar, biofuel, and geothermal technology. Congress passed a bevy of legislation in the late 1970s and 1980s designed to spur a renewable energy movement. For instance, the Energy Tax Act of 1978 promised residential energy tax credits for wind and energy equipment expenditures and business incentives that allowed investors to receive tax credits of up to 25 percent of the cost of technology.[2] Subsequently, the Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act of 1980, the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and the Economic Security and Recovery Act of 2001 all attempted to establish sustainable investments in and consumption of renewable energy.[3] More recently, the energy bill of 2005 required more agricultural-based renewable fuels; the proposed House and Senate versions of the 2007 energy bill would do the same. Notwithstanding Congress's efforts, consumers have shown little faith in renewable energy's ability to meet energy demands. The portion of total energy consumption provided by renewable energy sources is small and has remained relatively flat over the past 20 years.[4] Despite decades of government largesse, the United States still gets only 2.4 percent of its electricity from non-hydro renewables such as solar and wind. Nuclear energy, on the other hand, provides about 20 percent of the nation's electricity. In and of itself, this statistic may be unremarkable. However, nuclear power continues to generate a significant portion of America's electricity despite over-burdensome regulation and decades of organized anti-nuclear propaganda.[5] Given the fact that it emits no carbon dioxide, it would be extremely bad policy for Congress to create mandates meant to curb CO2 emissions that do not recognize the contribution of nuclear power. Congress should not choose nuclear power over other carbon-free energy sources, but Congress should not discriminate against it either. The purpose of public policy should be to protect Americans' freedom to choose courses of action that best suit them as individuals; it is not to engineer an America that is consistent with a specific political agenda. Unfortunately, Members of Congress often have too many conflicts of interest and represent too many special constituencies to always make objective decisions. It simply has neither the expertise nor the moral authority to tell Americans how to generate power or what kinds of power they should consume. Every time they do, Americans end up footing a higher energy bill. If CO2 emissions and foreign energy dependence are obstacles to individual freedom, then they are legitimate subjects of public policy. Rather than picking winners and losers, Congress should allow the market economy to find the most efficient and cost-effective solution to the proposed energy problems. Instead of telling America how to decrease CO2 emissions and foreign energy dependence, Congress should simply set the goals, remain technology-neutral, and allow the private sector to meet those goals. Most current energy legislation does the exact opposite. It not only sets an objective but then limits America's options for how to achieve it. Washington's heavy-handedness does not respect the uniqueness of America's diversity. Every region in the nation is different and has different energy requirements. For example, according to the Energy Information Administration, the southern part of the United States, particularly the Southeast, has extremely poor wind-generating potential.[6] This means that to meet Washington's decrees, regional utilities cannot use wind power, the least expensive and most flexible of the very expensive and inflexible renewable options. So they will have to use something else, which will be even more expensive and limiting than wind. The irony is that most Southern utilities are clamoring to build nuclear power plants. They know their market and understand that meeting energy demand projections will require substantial increases in generating capacity. Yet if passed, most current legislation will force them to divert their scarce resources toward less efficient and sometimes unworkable projects. Ultimately, these will be exposed as bad energy choices, they will fade when the subsidies go away, and the people of the Southeast will face even more energy problems than they do now. Current

legislative approaches will inevitably lead to higher costs for the consumer, which, because everyone needs energy, disproportionately affects the poorest parts of the U.S. population. The political and social elite pushing green initiatives have the financial means to pay higher electricity prices while America's poor suffer the consequences. The free market creates options and allocates resources to their most efficient use. Congress's view of a market solution for reducing energy dependence and curbing greenhouse emissions is certainly a distorted one. With enough meddling, Members of Congress can engineer whatever outcome they like and call it a market solution. By imposing enough restrictions on America's citizens, limiting their choices, and taxing their activities, Congress can make wind and solar the only options left to produce electricity. But just because they can, it does not follow that they should.

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2.Rejecting nuclear power is the same as saying people in developing countries should remain mired in poverty. Myron Ebell 11/23/04 “Cooler Heads” o.z. http://cei.org/gencon/014,04391.cfm Poverty and Global Warming Graham Sarjeant, financial editor of London’s Times adroitly summarized the current policy dilemma in a piece for his paper entitled, “Do you want global warming, nuclear power, or poverty” (Oct. 29). In it he wrote, “On present policies, the rise of China and India from poverty is incompatible with any attempt to slow, let alone halt, global warming. A choice has to be made to keep poor people poor or to take our chances on the environment. “Europe’s drive for wind power and other forms of renewable energy, sensible though they seem, will make no contribution to resolving this dilemma in the foreseeable future. On IEA’s well-founded projections, the share of renewables in EU energy demand will double to 12 per cent from 2002 to 2030. At the same time, nuclear power will shrink from 15 per cent to 7 per cent, so the EU will rely more on fossil fuels.” Sarjeant finished his piece by saying, “Other hard decisions would have to be made if we are to make much difference before 2030. One accepted in Europe but not where it counts—in America—is that petrol should sell at not less than the equivalent of $1 per litre to accelerate the drive for fuel economy. The other is that the West should make a wholesale switch to nuclear power stations, which do not emit carbon dioxide. New generations may be able to use new technologies. For us the choice is between global warming, nuclear power, and trying to keep poor people poor, a choice our leaders lack the courage to make.”

3.Nuclear Power creates clean energy and boosts the economy. Bonyun ’08 (30 Jun, Sean C. Bonyun, HT Media Inc., “Rep. Upton – A Greater Commitment to Nuclear Will Power Millions of Homes, US Economy”, AB, Proquest) "The Cook and Palisades plants are such invaluable members of our community, providing stable electricity and hundreds of high paying jobs, all the while pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into our local economy," said Upton. "LMC is a prime example of the nuclear energy industry partnering with local academic institutions to fill high paying jobs at our local plants," said Upton. "I commend LMC for creating this program which has already generated tremendous interest with 50 students already enrolled for this autumn." Congress authorized the NRC to provide $15 million in grants for support of education in nuclear science, technology and engineering to develop a workforce capable of supporting the design, construction and operation, and regulation of commercial nuclear facilities, and the safe handling of nuclear materials. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, about 35 percent of the nuclear energy workforce will retire within the next five years. Locally, over 600 nuclear job openings are anticipated over the next 5 years. LMC scholarship recipients will receive funds to cover full tuition, fees and textbooks as a full-time student enrolled in the fall, winter, spring and summer sessions. Students chosen for these scholarship awards will be expected to sign a contract to work in the nuclear industry for six months for each year of scholarship funding.

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4.Reviving the nuclear industry key to the U.S. economy – it could create a million jobs. American Council on Global Nuclear Competitiveness. No Date cited. USFG program formed in 2005 http://www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org/ VF accessed July 10, 2008 Nuclear energy is a carbon-free energy resource which can provide energy security for generations to come. Thus far much of the support for new nuclear build has centered on the substantial environmental benefits offered by nuclear energy. This is important, but it’s not the whole story. What has been missing from the discussion is a recognition of potential economic and national security benefits that can accrue if the U.S. recaptures a large share of the nuclear manufacturing business. The United States greatly benefited from an initial wave of commercial nuclear power plant construction from the 1970s to the early 1990s. At that time, U.S. firms dominated the global market. The renewed interest in the global use of nuclear energy represents a perishable opportunity for U.S. industry to reclaim its nuclear energy leadership. In the ever-expanding global markets, it is essential that a reinvigorated U.S. industry be able to compete and supply nuclear energy systems at home and abroad from a dominant, preferred supplier position. A nuclear energy revival is long overdue. In order for the United States to prosper we can not become complacent and view the growth of the nuclear industry as “business-as-usual.” The Unites States invented nuclear energy, and unless the domestic outlook for nuclear energy design, manufacturing, service and supply improves, our country will have to buy the bulk of its nuclear technology from overseas and forgo multibilliondollar opportunities. Therefore, the Council is working to promote a revived domestic nuclear design, manufacturing, service and supply industry that will result in: o the creation or retention of American jobs and factories; o improved American economic competitiveness and shareholder returns; and o greater leverage for the U.S. in dealing with global proliferation concerns. Nuclear energy represents not just business opportunities but employment opportunity — more than one million jobs could be created in the United States if American firms capture a significant share of the growing global nuclear energy market. The Council also encourages policymakers to pay close attention to the ability of the U.S. educational system to meet the anticipated demand for reactor designers and operators, as well as the trained construction, manufacturing, and maintenance workers who will be needed to build, operate, and service new nuclear plants in the U.S. The Council encourages greater education on these issues along with a restoration of American leadership in nuclear energy--urging our nation’s political, industry, financial and labor leaders to adapt and support policies and programs that will help ensure America’s nuclear leadership is restored.

5. Our advantage impacts exacerbate poverty even more if they are not solved: Global warming will only increase it because of lack of resources and not solving for proliferation will lead to wars which will also lead to a lack of resources especially for the poor.

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AT T they say “Nuclear isn’t an alternative energy” Counter-interpretation – alternative energy isn’t the same as renewable energy and it excludes fossil fuels. Hasan, no date - President of the Altenews Company (Russell, “Introduction to Alternative Energy,” http://www.altenews.com/Alternative%20Energy%20Overview.pdf An overview of the various kinds of alternative energy follows. At the outset we must differentiate between alternative energy, and renewable energy. Alternative energy refers to any form of energy which is an alternative to the traditional fossil fuels of oil, natural gas and coal. Renewable energy are the forms of alternative energy that are renewed by the natural processes of the Earth, such as sunlight from the sun or wind from the air, and so are environmentally friendly. We cover all alternative energies, but we will begin the overview with the renewable energy sources.

we meet - Nuclear Power Is the Only Viable Alternative Energy Gail Chaddock, Staff Writer, 6-5-08, Christian Science Monitor, Economic riskes imperil climate change, lexis, bc As a cofounder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore used to call nuclear energy "synonymous with nuclear holocaust." But he now believes "nuclear is the cleanest, safest and has the smallest footprint" of any major energy-alternative source. He says that nukes are cheap and reliable, unlike alternative-energy sources like wind and solar. Neither do nuclear plants spew sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, like coalpowered plants do, or create massive volumes of CO2 emissions, like gas-fired plants do. The attitude of Moore, who co-chairs the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, an industry-backed supporter of nuclear energy, is virtually indistinguishable from that of David Crane, chief executive officer of NRG: "Advanced nuclear technology is the only currently viable large-scale alternative to traditional coal-fueled generation to produce none of the traditional air emissions--and most importantly in this age of climate change--no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases." Another megatrend is working in nuclear's favor: demographics. In 2006, an estimated 41.3 percent of the population was below 30. Which is to say that the percentage and number of Americans who remember the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl decline with every passing year.

It’s not a voting issue – this topic is about solving global warming and only increasing nuclear power can do that. Our aff is at the core of the topic they should be prepared to debate it. United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, 11-28-2007, “Domenici Applauds Latest Nuclear Plant Application”, http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_Id=2232a384-f6294ad6-ad95-35b0b158b4aa, CM “It has been obvious to me for quite some time that any serious effort to address global climate change must have nuclear energy as its centerpiece. Nuclear power is clean, safe, and efficient. As we work on policies that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we must continue to support nuclear energy just as other nations have done,” he continued.

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Nuclear Energy is an emerging technology. Micheal Totty, news editor for the Wall Street Journal, 6 Jun 2008, The Wall Street Journal, “Energy (a special report); The case for—and against—Nuclear Power”, Proquest, AB Loan guarantees and other federal incentives are needed to get us over this hump. They are not permanent subsidies for uneconomical ventures. Instead, they're limited to the first half dozen of plants as a way to reassure investors that regulatory delays won't needlessly hold up construction. It's important to remember that although nuclear energy has been around a while, it's hardly a "mature" industry, as some critics say. Because of the lack of new plants in so many years, nuclear in many ways is more like an emerging technology, and so subsidies make sense to get it going.

The topic paper authors explicitly addressed nuclear power and made a distinction between renewables and alternative energy. McComas and Burgett, topic paper authors,’07 (Pam, Topeka High School, and Cindy, Washburn Rural High School, twm, Summer, http://www.nfhs.org/Core/ContentManager/uploads/PDFs/SDTA/Energy.pdf) How Can the Problem Be Solved? Despite what appears to be a fairly grim outlook where energy availability, sustainability, and security (as well as environmental issues connected to energy) are concerned, there are a number of ideas that have been proposed to move the United States away from its addiction to fossil fuels. These fall generally into two broad categories: increasing the use of renewable and alternative energy sources, and conservation measures. 5 There are a vast number of renewable and alternative energy sources that are or may be more environmentally friendly and more sustainable, and there is a great deal of research that has already been done on the viability of these proposals. Biofuels – specifically the use of ethanol from corn and other crops – are currently generating a great deal of interest, especially in states that have large agricultural interests. While these sources are sustainable and (usually) cleaner than fossil fuels, there is some debate about whether or not these sources actually take more energy to produce than they themselves provide in the end. Increasing the use of ethanol would boost the economies of agricultural states, but it could ultimately create food shortages for livestock and humans as well. Solar energy has been a popular idea for nearly four decades. The technology needed to use solar panels on homes and other buildings to generate electricity and heat has improved greatly, although the costs to build such systems are still high. Solar energy is quite reliable in some geographical regions, and less so in others. One of the drawbacks of solar energy plans is that the technology is not yet available to produce vehicles that run on solar energy, thus failing to decrease the need for crude oil and other petroleum products for the transportation sector. Wind, water, and geothermal energy systems have improved over the years and there are a number of possible affirmatives that might adopt these systems. There is excellent evidence on both the affirmative and negative for any of these options, including both positive and negative environmental impacts generated by their use. Clean coal technologies are of interest in the status quo and while these are not “renewable” sources of energy, coal is readily available and plentiful in the United States. The coal industry is pursuing new methods of burning coal that do not pollute the environment. Nuclear energy is an option that has been largely undeveloped in the United States in the last two decades. While it is “clean” in many ways, it does produce radioactive waste, the disposal of which the US has yet to fully address.

Only true alternative to fossil fuels is nuclear power. Waste News, 10-1-07, Revisiting the nuke debate, lexis, bc It's back! After some 30 years, applications have been made for two new nuclear power plants in the United States. And that likely will heat up the nuclear power debate. NRG Energy is seeking to build two new facilities in Texas, the first serious attempt at new nuclear power operations since the infamous accident at Three Mile Island in 1979. Time only has slightly cooled nuclear power as a hot button topic since then. What may be different now is that the nation is willing to take a more serious look at alternative forms of energy, as imperfect as they all are. Probably the biggest thing nuclear power has going for it right now is that, at this point in time, it is the only real large-scale alternative to fossil-fuel generated energy. But to what extent its pros outweigh its cons, if at all, continues to be heatedly debated. But the current energy portfolio needs to change, and quickly. Part of that means throwing away some of our preconceptions of the past. This is a crucial crossroad for the nuclear power industry, and we hope they are up to the challenge.

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A solid, viable alternative energy source such as nuclear would be a badly needed shot in the arm for America's energy game plan.

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AT T Nuclear isn’t an alternative energy – contextual evidence extensions Alternative Energy includes nuclear energy Wells 08 [Paul Wells, Canada West Calls For Harmonized Climate Change Policy, Daily Oil Bulletin, February 5, 2008, Jaretlk, Lexis] "Moving to alternative energy sources such as wind power and solar power are also means by which provinces are seeking to reduce GHG emissions," the report said. "Alternative energy options are pursued through general programs

offering development incentives and sector-specific programs designed to increase the installed capacity of nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and hydrogen energy, and biofuels."

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AT T Only renewables are topical We meet - Nuclear waste is a renewable resource Daniel Koffler, Staff Writer, July 8, 2008, The Guardian, The Case For Nuclear Power, nna http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/08/nuclearpower.energy The case for nuclear power is even stronger when considering the weakness of the case against it, which rests largely on a series of panics 20 to 30 years old. For example, the Chernobyl disaster was the product of horrific Soviet mismanagement over the many years prior to the meltdown, followed by equally abysmal crisis management. It simply had nothing to do with the upkeep challenges of a modern nuclear plant. Worries about the impact of radioactive waste, by contrast, are at least marginally connected to real features of current nuclear plants, but they are wildly overblown. For one thing, the vast majority of nuclear waste as much as 95% or more - can be reprocessed and reused, making it a truly renewable resource.

Counter-interpretation – alternative energy isn’t the same as renewable energy and it excludes fossil fuels. Hasan, no date - President of the Altenews Company (Russell, “Introduction to Alternative Energy,” http://www.altenews.com/Alternative%20Energy%20Overview.pdf An overview of the various kinds of alternative energy follows. At the outset we must differentiate between alternative energy, and renewable energy. Alternative energy refers to any form of energy which is an alternative to the traditional fossil fuels of oil, natural gas and coal. Renewable energy are the forms of alternative energy that are renewed by the natural processes of the Earth, such as sunlight from the sun or wind from the air, and so are environmentally friendly. We cover all alternative energies, but we will begin the overview with the renewable energy sources.

we meet - Nuclear Power Is the Only Viable Alternative Energy Gail Chaddock, Staff Writer, 6-5-08, Christian Science Monitor, Economic riskes imperil climate change, lexis, bc As a cofounder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore used to call nuclear energy "synonymous with nuclear holocaust." But he now believes "nuclear is the cleanest, safest and has the smallest footprint" of any major energy-alternative source. He says that nukes are cheap and reliable, unlike alternative-energy sources like wind and solar. Neither do nuclear plants spew sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, like coalpowered plants do, or create massive volumes of CO2 emissions, like gas-fired plants do. The attitude of Moore, who co-chairs the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, an industry-backed supporter of nuclear energy, is virtually indistinguishable from that of David Crane, chief executive officer of NRG: "Advanced nuclear technology is the only currently viable large-scale alternative to traditional coal-fueled generation to produce none of the traditional air emissions--and most importantly in this age of climate change--no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases." Another megatrend is working in nuclear's favor: demographics. In 2006, an estimated 41.3 percent of the population was below 30. Which is to say that the percentage and number of Americans who remember the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl decline with every passing year.

It’s not a voting issue – this topic is about solving global warming and only increasing nuclear power can do that. Our aff is at the core of the topic they should be prepared to debate it. United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, 11-28-2007, “Domenici Applauds Latest Nuclear Plant Application”, http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_Id=2232a384-f6294ad6-ad95-35b0b158b4aa, CM “It has been obvious to me for quite some time that any serious effort to address global climate change must have nuclear energy as its centerpiece. Nuclear power is clean, safe, and efficient. As we work on policies that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we must continue to support nuclear energy just as other nations have done,” he continued.

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Nuclear Energy is an emerging technology. Micheal Totty, news editor for the Wall Street Journal, 6 Jun 2008, The Wall Street Journal, “Energy (a special report); The case for—and against—Nuclear Power”, Proquest, AB Loan guarantees and other federal incentives are needed to get us over this hump. They are not permanent subsidies for uneconomical ventures. Instead, they're limited to the first half dozen of plants as a way to reassure investors that regulatory delays won't needlessly hold up construction. It's important to remember that although nuclear energy has been around a while, it's hardly a "mature" industry, as some critics say. Because of the lack of new plants in so many years, nuclear in many ways is more like an emerging technology, and so subsidies make sense to get it going.

The topic paper authors explicitly addressed nuclear power and made a distinction between renewables and alternative energy. McComas and Burgett, topic paper authors,’07 (Pam, Topeka High School, and Cindy, Washburn Rural High School, twm, Summer, http://www.nfhs.org/Core/ContentManager/uploads/PDFs/SDTA/Energy.pdf) How Can the Problem Be Solved? Despite what appears to be a fairly grim outlook where energy availability, sustainability, and security (as well as environmental issues connected to energy) are concerned, there are a number of ideas that have been proposed to move the United States away from its addiction to fossil fuels. These fall generally into two broad categories: increasing the use of renewable and alternative energy sources, and conservation measures. 5 There are a vast number of renewable and alternative energy sources that are or may be more environmentally friendly and more sustainable, and there is a great deal of research that has already been done on the viability of these proposals. Biofuels – specifically the use of ethanol from corn and other crops – are currently generating a great deal of interest, especially in states that have large agricultural interests. While these sources are sustainable and (usually) cleaner than fossil fuels, there is some debate about whether or not these sources actually take more energy to produce than they themselves provide in the end. Increasing the use of ethanol would boost the economies of agricultural states, but it could ultimately create food shortages for livestock and humans as well. Solar energy has been a popular idea for nearly four decades. The technology needed to use solar panels on homes and other buildings to generate electricity and heat has improved greatly, although the costs to build such systems are still high. Solar energy is quite reliable in some geographical regions, and less so in others. One of the drawbacks of solar energy plans is that the technology is not yet available to produce vehicles that run on solar energy, thus failing to decrease the need for crude oil and other petroleum products for the transportation sector. Wind, water, and geothermal energy systems have improved over the years and there are a number of possible affirmatives that might adopt these systems. There is excellent evidence on both the affirmative and negative for any of these options, including both positive and negative environmental impacts generated by their use. Clean coal technologies are of interest in the status quo and while these are not “renewable” sources of energy, coal is readily available and plentiful in the United States. The coal industry is pursuing new methods of burning coal that do not pollute the environment. Nuclear energy is an option that has been largely undeveloped in the United States in the last two decades. While it is “clean” in many ways, it does produce radioactive waste, the disposal of which the US has yet to fully address.

Only true alternative to fossil fuels is nuclear power. Waste News, 10-1-07, Revisiting the nuke debate, lexis, bc It's back! After some 30 years, applications have been made for two new nuclear power plants in the United States. And that likely will heat up the nuclear power debate. NRG Energy is seeking to build two new facilities in Texas, the first serious attempt at new nuclear power operations since the infamous accident at Three Mile Island in 1979. Time only has slightly cooled nuclear power as a hot button topic since then. What may be different now is that the nation is willing to take a more serious look at alternative forms of energy, as imperfect as they all are. Probably the biggest thing nuclear power has going for it right now is that, at this point in time, it is the only real large-scale alternative to fossil-fuel generated energy. But to what extent its pros outweigh its cons, if at all, continues to be heatedly debated. But the current energy portfolio needs to change, and quickly. Part of that means throwing away some of our preconceptions of the past. This is a crucial crossroad for the nuclear power industry, and we hope they are up to the challenge.

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A solid, viable alternative energy source such as nuclear would be a badly needed shot in the arm for America's energy game plan.

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AT T Only renewables are topical – contextual evidence extensions Alternative Energy includes nuclear energy Wells 08 [Paul Wells, Canada West Calls For Harmonized Climate Change Policy, Daily Oil Bulletin, February 5, 2008, Jaretlk, Lexis] "Moving to alternative energy sources such as wind power and solar power are also means by which provinces are seeking to reduce GHG emissions," the report said. "Alternative energy options are pursued through general programs

offering development incentives and sector-specific programs designed to increase the installed capacity of nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and hydrogen energy, and biofuels."

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AT T – Substantially 1. We Meet: Hippel and Furguson say that there already are incentives towards NP now – but they are not enough, only the plan would be substantial 2. We Meet: Contextual ev concludes aff – our incentive is substancial William J. Burns, former director of the Bureau of Investigation 2007, “A New Agenda for US-Russian Nuclear Leadership” (DS) Lexis More than fifty years of commercial nuclear energy use has left the world with a legacy of tens of thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste that will last for tens of thousands of years. If nuclear power production expands substantially in the coming decades, the amount of waste requiring safe and secure disposal will also significantly increase. Although several countries are exploring various long-term disposal options, no country has begun to store waste from commercial power plants in permanent repositories. Industry officials generally believe that further growth of nuclear energy depends on establishing these repositories. 3. C/I -- “Substantially” would be a change that is noticeable to an expert in the field

United States Patent and Trademark Office 2005 (http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/2100_2173_05_b.htm as retrieved on Jul 5, 2005 16:53:22) The term "substantially" is often used in conjunction with another term to describe a particular characteristic of the claimed invention. It is a broad term. In re Nehrenberg, 280 F.2d 161, 126 USPQ 383 (CCPA 1960). The court held that the limitation "to substantially increase the efficiency of the compound as a copper extractant" was definite in view of the general guidelines contained in the specification. In re Mattison, 509 F.2d 563, 184 USPQ 484 (CCPA 1975). The court held that the limitation "which produces substantially equal E and H plane illumination patterns" was definite because one of ordinary skill in the art would know what was meant by "substantially equal." Andrew Corp. v. Gabriel Electronics, 847 F.2d 819, 6 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1988).

4. We Meet Counter Interpretation – Burns says that industry officials say this would be a key incentive increase 5. Prefer our interp – A. Contextual – this is best because only an expert in the field can measure if its substantial – other interpretations will explode the topic because they will allow any aff that has a card with substantial and AE in same sentence. B. Limits – Drastically holds aff’s to higher standard – means we turn their ground and topic education args. C. Brightline – any other interp could say they are substantial but in reality we wont know – only allowing aff’s that prove they are a substantial increase in incentives to experts in field is most clear distinction. 6. Topicality is not a voter – Competing interpretations is a race to the bottom and Reasonability is a better method to evaluate T – they get their ground. Potential abuse is not a voter, only vote on in round abuse. 7. we meet any reasonable interpretation of substantial – our 1ac evidence says that the repository would be a financially substantial incentive and it would cause a massive expansion of nuclear power so we are substantial in multiple ways.

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GNEP Passing GNEP will strengthen ties with Russia State Department Press Release ‘8, 6/13, “Speeches: Agreement Between the United States and Russia for Cooperation in the Field of Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy”, Lexis, tk Growing energy needs and concerns about greenhouse gas emissions have increased international demand for nuclear power, which in an increasingly globalized nuclear industry places a premium on working with foreign partners. In addition, nuclear nonproliferation and the need to prevent nuclear terrorism are at the top of the U.S. national security agenda, including with Russia, generating strong interest in the development of more proliferation-resistant nuclear technologies and approaches to the fuel cycle that can be advanced through cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. Upon entry into force, this agreement would establish a legal basis for what we expect to be mutually beneficial peaceful nuclear cooperation between the United States and Russia. Some U.S.-Russia cooperation is already ongoing on nuclear safety and security, and Russian commercial nuclear fuel sales to the United States under the HEU Agreement. We believe that this existing cooperation will be enhanced by having this agreement in place. At the same time, the agreement looks to additional possibilities in the future, both commercial and government-to-government. It establishes a framework of nonproliferation conditions and controls for transfers of civil nuclear commodities between the two countries, but in itself it does not deal with specific projects. Implementation of this agreement would take place on the basis of export licenses issued in conformity with the requirements of U.S. law and policy at the time the license is applied for. For the United States, having the agreement in place will provide a framework for potential commercial sales of civil nuclear commodities like reactor fuel and major reactor components to Russia by U.S. industry. Under Russia's export system such commodities may be transferred to the United States without such an Agreement (and in fact are taking place right now). Having the Agreement in place will rectify an imbalance between the two countries in terms of the legal structure available to accommodate commercial opportunities for the United States. The Agreement would facilitate greater U.S.-Russia cooperation in developing technologies that are important to advancing our nuclear nonproliferation objectives under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), where we are seeking to cooperate with other nations to develop new technologies like advanced reactors that would consume plutonium and new forms of recycling spent fuel that would reduce the risk of proliferation by not separating plutonium that could be diverted for use by rogue states or terrorists for nuclear weapons. In areas like advanced fast burner reactors and advanced nuclear fuel and fuel cycle facilities, Russia possesses experience and facilities not widely available in the United States. For example, the Department of Energy would like to send advanced fuel for testing in Russian fast neutron reactors, but can only do so with a 123 Agreement in place. The Agreement also advances mutual nonproliferation goals by facilitating the transfer of nuclear materials for forensic purposes in potential nuclear smuggling cases.

Passing GNEP will increase alternate energy innovation at the university level Opar ‘8, Alisa, staff writer for Plenty magazine, Plenty magazine, 5/29, “In Depth: Can nuclear waste be recycled?”, Lexis, tk Through this Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), the Department of Energy is awarding tens of millions of dollars to industry, federal labs, and universities for developing the technology needed to get the first American recycling facilities and reactors up and running by 2025. In April, the agency announced up to $7.3 million for advanced reactor research, and publicized an agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which operates six nuclear reactors, to explore fuel recycling. "We're just getting started, but the project is going to yield technical information used to develop national implementation strategies to manage nuclear fuel," says TVA spokesman Gil Francis.

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GNEP will aid anti-proliferation efforts dealing with Iran Solomon ‘8, Jay, staff writer, Wall Street Journal, 7/1, “Nuclear Pact With Russia Faces Resistance”, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121494534459920539.html?mod=googlenews_wsj. tk The goal of the administration's nonproliferation strategy is to persuade developing nations to forgo their own development of nuclear fuel cycles. Washington's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership initiative, or GNEP, says the U.S. will assist in the development of civilian-nuclear power in return for commitments that countries will buy nuclear fuel from internationally monitored fuel banks. That could help keep nuclear fuel out of the hands of rogue states or terrorist groups. Washington's conflict with Iran largely centers on Tehran's aggressive pursuit of the nuclear fuel cycle, which can be utilized for developing nuclear weapons. U.S. officials say they want to utilize GNEP to create an international regime to counter the Iranian model. The deal would allow U.S. firms to sell certain nuclear technologies to Russian companies. They would be allowed to cooperate in developing what U.S. officials say are more proliferation-resistant reactors. And the pact would ease the sale of Russian nuclear fuels into the U.S.

GNEP is key to energy independence Cox ‘8, David, staff writer, The Paducah Sun (Kentucky), “OPINION: Nuclear: 'Green' France gets power from source U.S. shuns”, Lexis. Tk President Bush has asked for $304 billion in the 2009 budget for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, down from the $406 billion he requested in FY 2008, as part of his Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. Congress budgeted only $179 billion, enough for additional research but not enough to actually begin construction on a reprocessing facility. GNEP is effectively on hold until the next president is inaugurated. McCain also favors reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. Obama prefers a strategy of stalling by studying, a means of placating Americans who want the federal government to aggressively pursue energy independence without alienating environmentalists. The issue is particularly pertinent to Paducah, since the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion plant was on the short list of proposed sites for the reprocessing facility, in part because of the 700,000 tons of spent uranium "tails" -- worth an estimated $20 billion -- that have been stockpiled at the site in a half century of operation. Congressman Ed Whitfield has introduced legislation, separate from the president's GNEP plan, to re-enrich the tails. Setting aside the potential benefits for Paducah, the United States must increase its capacity for nuclear power production, including reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. That should be part of a broader energy plan -- to also include increasing domestic oil production, clean coal technologies, alternative energy sources and conservation -- to wean the country off foreign oil. But without more nuclear power, a likely outcome of electing the likely next resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, America can forget any hope of achieving energy independence.

GNEP will strengthen ties with Russia Rood ‘8, John C., Acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, State Department Press Release, “Speeches: Agreement Between the United States and Russia for Cooperation in the Field of Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy”, Lexis. Tk The Agreement would facilitate greater U.S.-Russia cooperation in developing technologies that are important to advancing our nuclear nonproliferation objectives under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), where we are seeking to cooperate with other nations to develop new technologies like advanced reactors that would consume plutonium and new forms of recycling spent fuel that would reduce the risk of proliferation by not separating plutonium that could be diverted for use by rogue states or terrorists for nuclear weapons. In areas like advanced fast burner reactors and advanced nuclear fuel and fuel cycle facilities, Russia possesses experience and facilities not widely available in the United States. For example, the Department of Energy would like to send advanced fuel for testing in Russian fast neutron reactors, but can only do so with a 123 Agreement in place. The Agreement also advances mutual nonproliferation goals by facilitating the transfer of nuclear materials for forensic purposes in potential nuclear smuggling cases.

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*******MORE NEGATIVE*******

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CP Russian international depository Observation 1 Counterplan Text The United States Federal Government should coordinate with Russia to create an international depository for nuclear waste in Russia. Observation 2 Net Benefits The counterplan solves the case and avoids politics, terrorism and all of our Yucca bad arguments. Observation 3 Solvency Russia has focused on reliable storage of spent nuclear fuel and has taken vital steps to ensure success including matters of an international repository that can prevent proliferation and reduce the risk of terrorism. Glenn Schweitzer and Kelly Robbins, Editors, Committee on Issues in Consolidating Spent Nuclear Fuel at International Storage Sites, Office for Central Europe and Eurasia Development, National Research Council, 2008, National Academy of Sciences, “Setting the Stage for International Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facilities: International Workshop Proceedings”, rks, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12191.html. Recognizing the serious potential consequences of radiation terrorism, Russia’s leaders and public have focused constant attention in recent years on the reliable long-term (50-100 years) storage of spent fuel as one of the most important elements of the fuel cycle. Important steps have been taken with regard to international efforts in the scientific-technical, socioeconomic, and legal sectors, including matters related to the creation of a regional international spent fuel storage facility in Russia. In our opinion, multinational agreements on the creation of a spent fuel storage facility in Russia could be implemented under the aegis of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Here we are counting on the fact that creation of such a facility will entail application of the world’s best technologies for design and implementation of the storage process to ensure the safety of the population and reliable physical protection of the materials, transportation, high-quality containers, methods for analyzing the condition of the fuel rods, licensing and guarantees, hiring and training of personnel, site selection, provision of accounting and control of operating status, and possibilities for professional exchanges with other similar facilities. We proceed based on the belief that the creation of international regional spent fuel storage facilities will undoubtedly promote nonproliferation of nuclear materials and should be categorized as an antiterrorism measure.

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DA’s to the counterplan are non-unique - International or regional nuclear waste repositories are inevitable. Glenn Schweitzer and Kelly Robbins, Editors, Committee on Issues in Consolidating Spent Nuclear Fuel at International Storage Sites, Office for Central Europe and Eurasia Development, National Research Council, 2008, National Academy of Sciences, “Setting the Stage for International Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facilities: International Workshop Proceedings”, rks, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12191.html. However, it seems inevitable that at least in some areas of the world, regional storage sites or repositories will be built. There are presently 34 countries plus Taiwan that will have to dispose of spent fuel and/or high-level waste from reprocessing. It is hard to imagine 35 separate deep geological repositories or an indefinite continuation of the present situation where almost every nuclear reactor in the world constitutes a long-term spent fuel storage facility. It is particularly hard to imagine these outcomes in regions of closely grouped states, each with spent fuel from only a few nuclear power plants. These states might conclude that their environs would be better served by one storage site and/or repository rather than several.

Transporting nuclear waste internationally is safe. It’s subject to stringent IAEA and IMO standards ensuring no terrorism or accidents. Glenn Schweitzer and Kelly Robbins, Editors, Committee on Issues in Consolidating Spent Nuclear Fuel at International Storage Sites, Office for Central Europe and Eurasia Development, National Research Council, 2008, National Academy of Sciences, “Setting the Stage for International Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facilities: International Workshop Proceedings”, rks, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12191.html. Prior to providing consent for retransfer, the United States would further have to be assured that the material would be handled safely in transit. Sea transport of radioactive materials is routinely carried out with an exceptionally high degree of safety and security, in compliance with stringent IAEA and International Maritime Organization standards. Nevertheless, such shipments are highly controversial, and some coastal and small island states are increasingly vocal in calling for greater regulation or an outright ban. Attempts to ship through international choke points, like the Panama Canal, the Straits of Malacca, or the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, could risk attempts to pose unilateral restrictions or even attempts at interception by protestors. Large-scale movement of nuclear material from a port to a repository, via road or rail, might prove to be a challenge for many nations’ infrastructures and can be another focal point for protests. However, the technology for the transport casks is well established, and any foreseeable incidents are not likely to pose a safety risk.

Transportation issues can be solve through new railroads. Glenn Schweitzer and Kelly Robbins, Editors, Committee on Issues in Consolidating Spent Nuclear Fuel at International Storage Sites, Office for Central Europe and Eurasia Development, National Research Council, 2008, National Academy of Sciences, “Setting the Stage for International Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facilities: International Workshop Proceedings”, rks, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12191.html. Western ports in Russia might be problematic as receiving stations for foreign spent fuel as they require access through politically sensitive sea lanes and choke points. If spent fuel were shipped to a Pacific port, there could be concerns about the ability of the old trans-Siberian rail lines to sustain traffic in heavy rail-mounted casks. However, a new rail line could easily be designed for such traffic.

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Russia is the ideal country for an international nuclear waste repository Glenn Schweitzer and Kelly Robbins, Editors, Committee on Issues in Consolidating Spent Nuclear Fuel at International Storage Sites, Office for Central Europe and Eurasia Development, National Research Council, 2008, National Academy of Sciences, “Setting the Stage for International Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facilities: International Workshop Proceedings”, rks, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12191.html. For the majority of countries, selecting a site for the construction of a spent fuel repository is an exceptionally complex problem. In the 1970s, IAEA and a number of countries developed rules for decision making on repository locations. These decisions are to be made taking geological, economic, legal, and socioeconomic factors into account. In the various countries that use nuclear power, each of these factors has widely varying significance. It is especially difficult to resolve the problem of selecting an underground spent fuel repository site in countries with high population density and unfavorable geological conditions. Russia is among those countries with a large land area, low population density, and an enormous diversity of geological conditions. For these reasons it is possible to select spent fuel repository and storage facility sites in Russia with practically ideal geological conditions.

International repository will improve Russia’s economy. Neil Chapman and Charles McCombie, Arius Association, IBC Conference, June 2007, Arius Association for International and Regional Underground Storage, Switzerland, “Is Now the Time for Regional Repositories?”, rks, http://www.arius-world.org/pages/pdf_2006_7/01_Chapman_IBC_London_June_2007.pdf. Economic advantages for user and supplier. Any scheme must benefit both implementer and user economically. If the previous requirements are met, Russia stands to benefit substantially by charging appropriate rates for a service not currently available anywhere else. The approach to compensating host communities willing to accept an international responsibility needs to be set out clearly, so that users are convinced of the equity of the scheme. Offering a service that enhances global security and helps small countries to meet their waste management responsibilities can also bring significant political advantages. Users should be prepared to pay for avoiding the problems and unpredictable costs of running their own national disposal programmes, which can take decades and might never even reach a successful conclusion. Disposal prices will thus be significant but, owing to the huge economies of scale in repository implementation (e.g. as estimated in the SAPIERR-1 project), they may still be less than small nuclear countries would have to pay for a national repository.

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Only a Russian waste repository can gain international acceptability from nations and agencies; this will increase the trade of wastes and boost safety. Neil Chapman and Charles McCombie, Arius Association, IBC Conference, June 2007, Arius Association for International and Regional Underground Storage, Switzerland, “Is Now the Time for Regional Repositories?”, rks, http://www.arius-world.org/pages/pdf_2006_7/01_Chapman_IBC_London_June_2007.pdf. 3. International acceptability is essential, in particular to the European Union and the United States. Disposal outside the EU is not current EU policy and the USA has strict requirements for US-flagged materials. Any country (or group of countries) would have to present the scheme’s credentials to their own public and institutions with great commitment. Acceptability will depend upon the scheme being openly executed to the highest technical standards being developed internationally, using appropriate best available technology and being subject to international monitoring. At present, politicians and the public tend to prefer national options, arguing that this enables closer control of possible environmental and safety impacts. It will only be possible to gain support for export if Russia can demonstrate clearly that there will be no relaxation of standards. 4. Economic advantages for user and supplier. Any scheme must benefit both implementer and user economically. If the previous requirements are met, Russia stands to benefit substantially by charging appropriate rates for a service not currently available anywhere else. The approach to compensating host communities willing to accept an international responsibility needs to be set out clearly, so that users are convinced of the equity of the scheme. Offering a service that enhances global security and helps small countries to meet their waste management responsibilities can also bring significant political advantages. Users should be prepared to pay for avoiding the problems and unpredictable costs of running their own national disposal programmes, which can take decades and might never even reach a successful conclusion. Disposal prices will thus be significant but, owing to the huge economies of scale in repository implementation (e.g. as estimated in the SAPIERR-1 project), they may still be less than small nuclear countries would have to pay for a national repository. 5. Long-term availability of facilities should be guaranteed for user countries. The facilities offered by Russia may be unique. If so, they need to be available over the period that wastes will be generated by user countries, so that all wastes for geological disposal can be exported – otherwise their national problems are not solved. This point is very important for some Central and Eastern European countries that began a nuclear power programme under the assumption that spent fuel would be returned to the USSR – an option that was later withdrawn. 6. International support and recognition. If the scheme proves internationally acceptable (point 3, above) then the major nuclear nations and international agencies and associations (IAEA, OECD-NEA, WNA) should throw their weight behind it, acknowledging that Russia would be providing a service that will enhance global security and safety. These organisations can promote groups to help establish and guard the rights of the various parties to any waste transfer agreements.

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DA Politics links - International repositories are unpopular. International repositories are unpopular. Neil Chapman and Charles McCombie, Arius Association, IBC Conference, June 2007, Arius Association for International and Regional Underground Storage, Switzerland, “Is Now the Time for Regional Repositories?”, rks, http://www.arius-world.org/pages/pdf_2006_7/01_Chapman_IBC_London_June_2007.pdf. 3. International acceptability is essential, in particular to the European Union and the United States. Disposal outside the EU is not current EU policy and the USA has strict requirements for US-flagged materials. Any country (or group of countries) would have to present the scheme’s credentials to their own public and institutions with great commitment. Acceptability will depend upon the scheme being openly executed to the highest technical standards being developed internationally, using appropriate best available technology and being subject to international monitoring. At present, politicians and the public tend to prefer national options, arguing that this enables closer control of possible environmental and safety impacts.

International repository is unpopular – that’s why there isn’t one now. Glenn Schweitzer and Kelly Robbins, Editors, Committee on Issues in Consolidating Spent Nuclear Fuel at International Storage Sites, Office for Central Europe and Eurasia Development, National Research Council, 2008, National Academy of Sciences, “Setting the Stage for International Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facilities: International Workshop Proceedings”, rks, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12191.html. The major problem facing any international storage or acceptance of a shared repositories disposal scheme is public acceptance. If it were an easy problem, there would be a regional spent fuel repository by now, because the concept has been around for at least 25 years.

AT CP causes Iranian proliferation – turn trying to create a wedge between Russia and Iran just undermines antiproliferation efforts. Pavel Podvig, A physicist trained at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Podvig works as a research associate at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation. His expertise is in the Russian nuclear arsenal, U.S.-Russian relations, and nonproliferation. In 1995, he headed the Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces Research Project, editing the project’s eponymous book, which provides an overview of the Soviet and Russian strategic forces and the technical capabilities of Russia's strategic weapon systems, 5-22-

2008, National Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Don't block U.S.-Russian nuclear cooperation”, rks, http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/pavel-podvig/dont-block-us-russian-nuclear-cooperation. But Congress will be disappointed if it thinks this will hinder Iran's nuclear program. Russia is helping Tehran construct a nuclear reactor in Bushehr, which has nothing to do with uranium enrichment--the most serious proliferation danger. Theoretically, Russia could use Bushehr as leverage to influence Iran's position on enrichment, but there are limits to that type of pressure. And at this point, any attempt to stop the Bushehr reactor could harm nonproliferation not help it: The international community is trying to assure non-nuclear states that they will have reliable access to civilian nuclear power; to do so, it must prove that these commitments are safe from U.S. political pressure.

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Undermining the US-Russian nuclear agreement over Iran would spur nationalists in Russia. Pavel Podvig, A physicist trained at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Podvig works as a research associate at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation. His expertise is in the Russian nuclear arsenal, U.S.-Russian relations, and nonproliferation. In 1995, he headed the Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces Research Project, editing the project’s eponymous book, which provides an overview of the Soviet and Russian strategic forces and the technical capabilities of Russia's strategic weapon systems, 5-22-

2008, National Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Don't block U.S.-Russian nuclear cooperation”, rks, http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/pavel-podvig/dont-block-us-russian-nuclear-cooperation. Moreover, by blocking the U.S.-Russian agreement, Congress would undermine those in Russia who are arguing that Moscow should position itself as a responsible supplier of nuclear services and help the international community limit the scale of Iran's nuclear program. In addition, it would reinforce an already popular view in Russia that Washington is an unreliable partner who is determined to limit Moscow's access to Western markets. In other words, congressional disapproval would weaken pro-U.S. forces in Russia and empower those who engage in confrontational anti-American rhetoric. This is hardly a smart policy.

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DA Yucca bad – links A permanent repository would have to be Yucca. Natural Gas Weekly, 6-9-08, Yucca Mountain Application Hits Deadline, But Debate Still Raging lexis, bc Nonetheless, it doesn't hurt that the US Department of Energy finally has applied for the license to operate the facility at the Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada. The only site earmarked by Congress, the Yucca Mountain Repository, ensconced in the Nevada desert about 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has already cost $27 billion since the Nuclear Waste Fund was set up in 1983. And it's likely to cost billions more as vociferous debate over the project drags on. No other subject of regulatory licensing triggers the NIMBY syndrome more than nukes' spent fuel. Michael Skelly , the Democratic candidate for the gerrymandered 7th Congressional District in Houston, told Natural Gas Week "we've got to open Yucca Mountain" before any progress can be made in the next wave of nuclear generation.

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DA Terrorism – Impacts An attack on a nuclear power plant would cause extinction and if it didn’t those who lived would envy the people who died. Wasserman, author of The Last Energy War, ’01 (Harvey, Oct. 10, http://www.newhumanist.com/nuclear.html, twm) No sane nation hands to a wartime enemy atomic weapons set to go off within its own homeland, and then lights the fuse. Yet as the bombs and missiles drop on Afghanistan, the certainty of terror retaliation inside America has turned our 103 nuclear power plants into weapons of apocalyptic destruction, just waiting to be used against us. One or both planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, could have easily obliterated the two atomic reactors now operating at Indian Point, about 40 miles up the Hudson. The catastrophic devastation would have been unfathomable. But those and a hundred other American reactors are still running. Security has been heightened. But all are vulnerable to another sophisticated terror attack aimed at perpetrating the unthinkable. Indian Point Unit One was shut long ago by public outcry. But Units 2 & 3 have operated since the 1970s. Back then there was talk of requiring reactor containment domes to be strong enough to withstand a jetliner crash. But the biggest jets were far smaller than the ones that fly today. Nor did those early calculations account for the jet fuel whose hellish fire melted the critical steel supports that ultimately brought down the Trade Center. Had one or both those jets hit one or both the operating reactors at Indian Point, the ensuing cloud of radiation would have dwarfed the ones at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. 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 on site. 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. 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 have to be invented, and new dimensions of agony will beg description. Indeed, those who survived the initial wave of radiation would envy those who did not. 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 be doubtful as the molten cores rage uncontrolled for days, weeks and years, spewing ever more devastation into the eco-sphere. 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 across our northern tier, circling the globe, then coming back again. 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 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 life depends would be permanently and irrevocably destroyed, Spiritually, psychologically, financially, ecologically, our nation would never recover. 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 electricity, the cost of attempting to defend these reactors will put nuclear energy even further off the competitive scale. 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 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.