Energy Department

President-elect Obama will appoint a reputable scientist and Nobel-winning physicist, Steven Chu, as the new Secretary of Energy.  Those of us hoping for more nuclear energy in the US portfolio - it supplies 80% of France's electricity, so at least some on the Left have managed to come to terms with it - may have some reason for optimism.  At least, we might if Obama listens to his scientists.

NEI Nuclear Notes (Nuclear Energy Institute blog) gives a bit of background on Steven Chu. Noting that Obama has said more nuclear energy will require safe, long-term disposal methods (granted, Obama is giving himself the very epitome of a movable goalpost), NEI says Chu has been quite rational on the topic...

So what about nuclear energy and used fuel? Has Chu addressed these topics at length? In fact, he has, for example in this 2005 interview with UC Berkeley's Bonnie Azab Powell:

Should fission-based nuclear power plants be made a bigger part of the energy-producing portfolio?

Absolutely. Right now about 20 percent of our power comes from nuclear; there have been no new nuclear plants built since the early '70s. The real rational fears against nuclear power are about the long-term waste problem and [nuclear] proliferation. [...] 

And all of a sudden the risk-benefit equation looks pretty good for nuclear.

Right now, compared to conventional coal, it looks good - what are the lesser of two evils? But if we can reduce the volume and the lifetime of the waste, that would tip it very much against conventional coal.

NEI Nuclear Notes also pointed out that "Steven Chu is a signatory on the DOE Labs' report "A Sustainable Energy Future: The Essential Role of Nuclear Energy," released this past August."  Daily Kos diarist David Walters has the relevant text of this report, which includes the following...

The Directors of the Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories strongly believe that nuclear energy must play a significant and growing role in our nation’s — and the world’s — energy portfolio.

It will be interesting to see whether President Obama will follow pursue the nuclear energy route that his Energy Secretary has said should be a bigger part of the US energy portfolio.  Or if he will go for the agri-pork heavy path recommended by his Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

In light of the evolving cost/benefit issues surrounding energy and particularly nuclear energy, it's really been remarkable that the nuclear energy industry has not invested much more heavily in developing grassroots support for the issue.  With the Right desperately in search of energizing issues, there is tremendous opportunity to drive the nuclear issue, even organize around it, particularly online.