Obama’s Nuclear Lobby
You might not know this but Barack Obama is for expanding our nuclear power plant program (given that some safety issues are addressed). However, this information isn’t found on his “Energy and Environment” page on his website. In fact, you won’t be able to find the word “nuclear” at all on this page. To find this out, you have to go to .pdf file titled “Read the Energy Plan” at the bottom of Energy page. There, Obama has a section where he discusses why we need nuclear power and what safety measures need to be made.
When you take that he is a supporter of nuclear energy, it really shouldn’t come as a surprise then that Exelon, an energy company that uses nuclear reactors, is one of Obama’s biggest contributors.
Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon, which is based in Illinois, have contributed at least $227,000 to Mr. Obama’s campaigns for the United States Senate and for president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, are among his largest fund-raisers.
Another Obama donor,John W. Rowe, chairman of Exelon, is also chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear power industry’s lobbying group, based in Washington. Exelon’s support for Mr. Obama far exceeds its support for any other presidential candidate.
In addition, Mr. Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, has worked as a consultant to Exelon. A spokeswoman for Exelon said Mr. Axelrod’s company had helped an Exelon subsidiary, Commonwealth Edison, with communications strategy periodically since 2002, but had no involvement in the leak controversy or other nuclear issues.
This article also brings up the question on whether Obama is really for stronger safety legislation like he claims he is. Read the article, its pretty interesting.
BEWARE ***The WEAPONS of MASS DECEPTION***
WMD’s =
NBC, MSNBC – owned by GE
CBS – owned by Westinghouse
CNN – owned by AOL Time Warner
Most of “the Mainstream Media”
THIS ELECTION IS ABOUT – 29 NEW NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS (Big MONEY)
Aka: Dick Cheney’s NEXT Big ENERGY MONOPOLY RIPOFF … ( Plan)….
Whether Cheney’s PLAN succeeds ….OR NOT…. is UP to ALL of YOU.
We all know CORPORATE POWER is in control of our government and ROBBING us every way they can. The “NEWS” media is NOW nearly totally under the control of Corporate interests.
The Corporate-Controlled “news” media have interlocking Boards of Directors (same member serves on multiple boards) and all of them serve to enrich their CONGLOMERATED Corporate Masters. (*see F.A.I.R. website link at the end of this post.)
(YOU can HELP Get the Word Out: Please post this NEWS thruout the Blogsphere; in any NEWS media you can find; and send it to every one on your Email List.)
*******************REAL News you won’t see on TV***********************************
Obama is the pre-packaged “New & Improved Chocolate Flavor” Presidential candidate being Marketed like a PRODUCT – hyped & PUSHED by GE and its WHOLLY-Owned subsidiaries NBC & MSNBC…along with Westinghouse & its subsidiary CBS…while slamming the Clintons all day every day. (Assisted by…CNN/FOX/ and a lot of newspaper & radio media dependent on advertising $$$.) GE is the 2nd largest corporation on the planet.
Obama is IN with the Nuclear Industry: Excelon Corp of Illinois has been one of his largest contributors from his entry into politics to the present. Excelon is the largest nuke operator on the planet;owns Con-Ed of NY; more nukes in Illinois than any other state.
GE, Westinghouse, Excelon & 3 consortiums of other companies are planning to build 29 new nuclear power plants. Their Wholly-Owned & Wholly Influenced “News” media are selling the Obama Product because Obama is in favor of Nukes.
In 2005 Obama Voted FOR the Cheney Energy Bill (H.R.6) which ENABLED the nuke industry to make its Plans to build 29 new nukes-by Guaranteeing Taxpayer Payback of any nuke loans that default. (No nukes were built for the past 30 years because the banks wouldn’t loan the money – too risky)
Obama Voted FOR the Cheney Energy Bill-despite the fact the Congressional Budget Office rated the risk of default on the nuke loans at 50% or greater. (Does that sound like…GOOD…JUDGMENT to You?)
[NY Times has several articles about the nuke plans & a map showing all 29 locations; Wikipedia covers the subject]
Clinton Voted AGAINST the Cheney Energy Bill and said her Energy Plan does not include nuclear.
? “Its about the FUTURE …… Turn The PAGE” ?
Nope. Its about Turning the PAGE BACK to the PAST: Obsloete 50 yr old nuke power plants-the dirtiest most expensive kind/centrally-controlled MONOPOLY POWER-instead of deploying New, Clean, Green De-Centralized Inexpensive Energy.
An ad campaign has already begun on the TV media to re-package & re-name nuclear power plants as: GREEN & CLEAN -for- everybody too young to remember the 1970′s anti-nuke movement and all the Bad News about nuclear energy.
Don’t be taken in by the ad campaigns – Google:’nuclear waste dumps’ & read about the hundreds of BILLIONS of gallons of nuke waste at the Hanford Washington dump; 14 tons of plutonium stored at Rocky Flats, Colorado; Barnwell, South Carolina; leaking into groundwater and rivers; plutonium released into the air around Denver from 500 instances of fires at Rocky Flats; nuke waste stored ON-SITE at every nuke reactor in America…presenting hundreds of potential “dirty bomb” targets for terrorists.
Is it true that Obama takes No Contributions/ NO MONEY from Registered Federal Lobbyists?
Yes. It’s a LawyerSpeak/Trick of: Speaking a Small truth covering up a Big Lie.
Nope, doesn’t take money from REGISTERED FEDERAL Lobbyists.
DOES take money from STATE Lobbyists, Not Registered Lobbyists, AND the wives, husbands, law partners,
…of REGISTERED FEDERAL Lobbyists. Gets money from the same big corporate donors as any other candidate.
Obama’s campaign finances are involved in the prosecution (by Patrick Fitzgerald) and trial of his friend of 20 years Antoin Rezko. Some of the funds… allegedly…extorted by Rezko went into Obama’s campaign coffers.
Curiously, Iraqi Power Plants and fraud are also involved in Rezko’s trial. (Google: Obama -Rezko- Alsammarae-Auichi- IRAQ POWER PLANTS). With the Rezko trial looming over his head Obama, in all good conscience, should not have run for the Presidency – given all the unanswered questions about his involvement with Rezko; including Obama’s meeting with Rezko and Rezko’s friend Iraqi Billionaire Auichi. Obama’s LACK of good conscience in running for President – given the very high risk that the Rezko trial will result in the election of a Republican – reveals Obama’s lack of good conscience and his lack of any regard for his party, his country, or its people. Obama should withdraw from the race.
At the beginning of this campaign season a large majority of voters were looking forward to electing Clinton. Then Obama stepped in and started the dirty campaigning that has created the DIVISION he so hypocritically decries. Obama played “the race card” so he could win in South Carolina. He was caught red-handed playing that race card-but the media blamed it on Clinton -even though they all knew they were pushing THE BIG LIE..
With nearly ALL “the mainstream media” pimping for Obama & slamming, smearing, and lying about the Clintons-it is truly amazing enough voters have seen thru the Media-Created Obama “movement”-for Clinton to STILL be in the race.
The only way a very small minority can CONTROL a very large Majority is: DIVIDE & CONQUER -Exactly the same Republican Strategy/Deception they have successfully pulled for most of the last century And ALL of this century, so far. . .
GE, the nuke industry/wealthy have hedged their bets & they will get 29 new nukes IF either Obama or McCain is elected.
Ladies & Gentlemen, Dads & Moms buy nothing GE & Westinghouse are selling – not Obama, not a washing machine, a dishwasher, 29 nuke power plants, or a garbage disposer …. because there is no garbage disposer for Radioactive Nuke Waste. Do not allow them to poison the earth and your children anymore.
For further Info see Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting website:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3258
Excelon Corp of Illinois? Same state in which Obama is senator. What a coincidence. This whole Obama campaign is beginning to sound like a set-up to me. Which would explain why a Senator that has only been in politics for 2 years would run for President.
Correction, WAS Senator of Illinois. Also in politics for 12 years (typo). This entire article is fascinating, and the pieces of this puzzle certainly fit. I suspect we won’t know the whole story for many years to come.
Yes I don’t suspect we will but I am sure that if he is elected president, things will begin to fall into place fairly quickly.
I sincerely wish that the public was more informed of the issues of nuclear power. It is proven technology which, if allowed to progress unhindered, would drastically reduce our energy requirements from both foreign sources and CO2 emitting domestic sources.
The problem with nuclear power since its inception has been a political one: peoples’ fear and misunderstanding of the techology and its capabilities. The reason why reactors have not been built in the past 30 years is due to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) reactor and site liscensing procedure, and small help due to anti-nuke protesting and boycotting, not due to the safety of reactor operation or risk of failure.
For the past 30 years nuclear power has been stunted by regulation which prohibits healthy growth. The system was such that a new power plant would have to be submitted for liscensing at a significant upfront cost; once accepted the site on which the plant was to be built was required to be liscensed and inspected as well. Protesting a site location, or local politics passed post facto to prohibit construction, or simply insuitability of the site meant a loss on the plant liscense and the process would have to be started over again. No lending, nor energy company, was willing to attempt this procedure after several costly failures.
Recently, this situation has been remedied as the entire plant is submitted under one liscense: plant and site. With this remedy a surge of new applications has been submitted (the first being in Texas, not Illinois. This really has nothing to do with Obama). The NRC has been swamped with applications and is now trying desperately to meet the demand of all utilities willing to build more plants. Why are they willing to build more plants? Because nuclear power is one of the cheapest-per -kilowatt energy sources around, and has always been a large revenue earner for any utility with nuclear plants in their portfolio. Uranium resources in the US alone are estimated at 100 years supply, given current useage and technology. That amount is quadrupled if reprocessing spent fuel is allowed.
Let me focus more on reprocessing since nuclear waste seems to be a go to topic for anti-nuclear-enthusiasts. The nuclear waste issue is also one of politics, not of technology or capability. We have been storing spent nuclear fuel in storage facitlities on site for the past 30 years. There have never been any contaminations of the pools to groundwater sources or the surrounding environment. The only issue is that these local pools are running out of storage space. However, this issue has been solved many years past, as the Yucca Mountain facility waits eagerly to be opened. Only political policy prohibits use of the Yucca Mountain facility at this time, although opening is immenent. Yucca mountain will hold another 50 years waste easily, with capability for expansion if required. However, if fuel reprocessing is allowed this number is tenfold: 500 years storage. Let me stress the absolute safety of the Yucca Mountain facility: Sitting inside a geologically stable mountain 100 feet below the surface, segregated from the local watertable will sit blocks of waste encased in special glass which is proven to be corrosion resistent for 100000 years and prohibits nuclear reactions from taking place.
I know nuclear power is not a panacea. Every form of energy we can produce should be investigated. Eventually easily accessible Uranium ores will become scarce, just as easily accessible oil reserves have run out years ago. However, nuclear power is a proven technology well understood by the engineers and technicians who run them. We can and are increasing our fleet of nuclear plants right now to meet future energy demands, and will continue to meet demands for many more years to come.
I sincerely hope at least one more person now understands the plight of nuclear power. Maybe someone could elaborate their reasons why nuclear should not be expanded in a world with ever increasing power demands? If the solar technology were up to snuff, I would agree that solar is the only truely renewable energy source. However even the sun uses resources to fuel its ever-burning flames.
Sounds good to me. It’s unfortunate that he’s not pushing for it as much as McCain, but I can’t wait until we start embracing nuclear power. It’s relatively safe with the proper precautions taken, and while it’s not as nice as wind/solar etc., it’s much more efficient than those and preferable to most of our current power-producing methods.
[...] Obama’s Nuclear Lobby by Jonathan Williams [From: Blatant Reality] [...]
[...] Obama’s Nuclear Lobby by Jonathan Williams [From: Blatant Reality] [...]
[...] not so sure. Turns out, US senate candidate Obama and presidential candidate Obama received $227,000 from Exelon (a nuclear company) employees, and David Axelrod, chief strategist for Obama, has [...]
If we expanded both nuclear power and solar/wind/geothermal programs, we could reduce our dependence on fossil fuels faster.
If you use a metric of human lives per kWhr, nuclear power costs less than oil.
Please inform the public regarding the «Climatic Change caused by Radioactivity»:
• A nuclear power plant produces each day the same amount of radioactivity than 4 nuclear bombs the size of Hiroshima!
• The 5 Swiss nuclear power plants contain radioactivity approximately the size of 10’000 Hiroshima nuclear bombs! This in the production of 2 years.
This inconceivable amount of radioactivity – this «Climatic Change caused by Radioactivity» – threatens and destroys the foundations of life for our and all future generations. The physical half-lives are completely irrelevant, as they are eternal from a human perspective. Also irrelevant is the calculated probability for accidents, as the potential for damage is far too gigantic. The nuclear physicist Garwin says: «Reactor accidents … too horrible to think about.» A trustworthy banker would advice: «We do not buy these shares» and insurances don’t cover this risk anyway.
Upon the election of Barack Obama, it was the German politician Hans Dietrich Genscher, who reminded strongly and multiple times to the global top priority: The complete abolition of all nuclear weapons!
Beside the financial crises and despite the «Climatic Change caused by CO2», we should not forget this. And we shouldn’t forget as well, that this – the abolition of all nuclear weapons – finally is only possible together with the abolition of all nuclear power plants, therefore the switch to Natural Power (electricity from renewable energies, so-called green power) is a pre-requisite. The nuclear conflict in Iran is one but not the only example of this undividable relation between nuclear weapons and nuclear power.
If you oppose nuclear you support coal. It is as simple as that. Look at Germany. They believed the windmill, solar, anti-nuke crowd. They are phasing out their nuclear plants and building 20 CO2, heavy metal emitting, acid rain producing, earth gouging coal plants. All the while, they have the highest electric rates in Europe and import 30% of their electricity from France’s nuclear power stations. Those opposed to nuclear power are responsible for tons upon tons of CO2 dumped into the atmosphere for the fear of a containable and soon to be disposable waste product that they irrationally fear. Thanks, no go apologize to the polar bears.
There is another way.
Thorium Power (THPW) is a “US” company that is in the final stages of testing Thorium as a reactor fuel in place of our current Uranium fuels. This Thorium Technology testing has been in process for over 5 years and it can be retrofitted into current light water reactors with minimum changes.
Our current Uranium fueled reactors produce plutonium as waste. This is the waste storage problem currently stored at the reactor sites and originally aimed for storage at Yucca. This waste plutonium could be used for Nuclear weapons if it gets into the wrong hands. This waste plutonium also contains much unused energy due to the inefficient burn of Uranium fuel.
Thorium Power’s technology will burn plutonium along with their Thorium fuel within the reactor. So, we can slowly burn off the stockpiled Plutonium “as we use it to make electricity”. The spent fuel from their reactor has an efficient burn, therefore the waste is minimal and not useful for weapons.
This is a “US” company, with existing patents, that could place us in the forefront of the nuclear renaissance. Unfortunately, from a US point of view, our policies are preventing it from moving forward here in the near term and we may see this implemented in other parts of the world 1st.
This Thorium technology makes way too much sense. If our government jumps on this, we could bring hundreds of billions of revenue/jobs back to the US.
http://www.thoriumpower.com/