Failed Energy Plans

I've been in the energy business enough years to see Federal energy plans come and go; none stay around long enough to solve any problems. It takes about 22 mills to make a kilowatt from coal and 8 mills to make a kilowatt from nuclear power. I sat in the White House and watched the nuclear industry distroyed. I also served on the Board of Directors of the Breeder Reactor Corporation. We were $1.4 billion into the program and a new President of the United States decided to kill the project. The head of the USDOE said, "the President feels we can buy that technology from the French." When Three Mile Island failed and indeed had a "melt down," the safe guards worked. A British executive from a UK nuclear utility told me they vent more radioactivity during maintence than escaped from Three Mile Island and yet the environmentalist used the incident as an example of why we shouldn't build nuclear plants.

It isn't just nuclear. I was Chairman of a coal gasification program in the late 70's. The Federal government was going to reduce our dependance on foreign oil. Somewhere along the line our ADD politicians lost sight of the problem.