In 2005, environmental groups mounted a fierce campaign against nuclear provisions included in the climate bill sponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

Then came an energy crisis, skyrocketing gas prices, a hard-fought presidential campaign, a recession and ballooning unemployment. Four years later, in an example of how quickly politics and minds can change in Washington, it seems the Senate now is ready to go nuclear when a climate bill hits Congress.

"Everyone who can count noses knows that nuclear is going to be in the bill somewhere," said Frank O'Donnell, head of the environmental advocacy group Clean Air Watch. 

Republicans have long pushed nuclear power as a significant part of their energy platform; the party's energy plan released in July advocates bringing 100 new nuclear reactors on line by 2030. McCain made nuclear power central to his 2008 presidential campaign, basing his energy plan around a proposal to build 45 new nuclear reactors over the next two decades.

But in recent months, Democrats and the Obama administration have reversed their party's traditional direction by embracing the construction of new reactors. Nuclear provisions, many Democrats believe, could lure a handful of Republicans on board a climate bill - votes that could be crucial to its passage.

In October, Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) included nuclear provisions in a New York Times op-ed that broadly described their priorities for climate legislation. Last week, Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.) introduced legislation that would double nuclear power over the next two decades.

And even Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who's long raised questions about the environmental risks of nuclear power, included a handful of nuclear provisions in legislation that passed the Environment and Public Works Committee earlier this month.

The White House has also emerged as a cautious but active proponent of nuclear power.

"There's no reason why, technologically, we can't employ nuclear energy in a safe and effective way," Obama said during an October town hall meeting in New Orleans. "Japan does it and France does it, and it doesn't have greenhouse gas emissions, so it would be stupid for us not to do that in a much more effective way."

Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said that the U.S. should consider expanding an $18.5 billion loan guarantee program for new nuclear plants. The Energy Department is working to finalize the already authorized guarantees, which could build as many as four new plants.

"I would say that in order to really restart in a serious way, you might want more than just three or four [new nuclear plants] in order to get it going," Chu told Bloomberg News in October.

Those types of comments have led proponents to herald the start of a "nuclear renaissance" - one that won't be marked by the vocal protests that were a hallmark of the environmental movement during the 1970s and 1980s.

"I believe that you are seeing a wholesale reconsideration of the politics of nuclear, particularly by Democrats, and a willingness to engage constructively on nuclear and climate legislation," said Alex Flint, a lobbyist for the Nuclear Energy Institute.

But no one is singing "Kumbaya" quite yet.

Nuclear provisions alone won't be enough to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a likely Republican-led filibuster of the climate bill in the Senate. Most Republicans oppose an economywide cap-and-trade system to curb greenhouse gases, the heart of the Democratic climate proposals. And conservatives seem unwilling to support legislation that includes those pollution controls, even if it also means greater support for nuclear power.

Alexander suggested that lawmakers might add his proposal to double nuclear power as an amendment to a Senate cap-and-trade bill. But that wouldn't be enough to win his vote.

"I'm not for an economywide cap and trade," he said last week.

Many environmental advocates continue to have serious concerns about a host of nuclear issues - such as how to deal with toxic waste produced by the plants and the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation if the technology were to land in the wrong hands.

"There are several issues that we care a lot about, like waste and security and proliferation, that we think still need to be addressed," said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

A recent report by Environment America, a coalition of 28 environmental groups, warned that the emissions cuts produced by nuclear power would pale in comparison with those made by renewable energy and efficiency programs. Building 100 new reactors would require an upfront investment of $600 billion and reduce emissions by only 12 percent, according to the report. It stated that the same amount of money would cut at least twice as much carbon pollution by 2030 if invested in clean energy.

"New nuclear power investments would actually worsen climate change because the money spent on nuclear reactors would not be available for solutions that fight it faster and at lower cost," said Peter Bradford, who sat on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

And then there are significant financial obstacles.

A nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 and the explosion in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986 essentially stopped any development of nuclear power plants in the United States. No U.S. power company has ordered a nuclear plant since 1978, and all orders for nuclear facilities after 1973 were eventually canceled, according to a recent report by the Environment California Research & Policy Center.

As a result, expanding nuclear power faces some high hurdles, including a lack of trained workers, a small parts supply chain and difficulty getting investors who will commit to funding expensive plants through a long regulatory approval process.

Those kinds of economic barriers caused Moody's Investors Service to consider taking "a more negative view" for issuers actively pursuing new nuclear plants.

"From a credit perspective, companies that pursue new nuclear generation will take on a higher business and operating risk profile," the agency said in a June report.

To overcome the financial impediments, nuclear advocates would like to expand loan guarantees and other types of support for the industry.

But some environmentalists fear those incentives will help an already heavily subsidized industry at the expense of renewable fuels like solar, wind and geothermal.

"If we don't provide those other technologies a level playing field, we provide an unfair advantage to the nuclear power industry at the expense of the American economy at large," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

 

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