Energy Secretary Chu says "nuclear power has to play some mix" in nation's energy future and fighting climate change

Hot on the heels of the president's prominent mention of nuclear power among clean energy alternatives in his State of the Union address, the administration has unveiled a commission that will recommend options for managing spent fuel and waste from nuclear power plants.

"Restarting our nuclear industry is a key part of our response to climate change," Secretary of Energy Steven Chu told reporters today. "It's also clearly in our economic and security interests."

Retired General Brent Scowcroft and former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton will co-chair the 15-member commission. The group has been asked to issue a preliminary report within 18 months and a final report within two years, although it may try to accelerate those deadlines.

Chu was joined in a press conference by Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy. They both emphasized that the Obama administration sees nuclear power expansion as key to both long-term energy strategy and the federal response to global warming.

Scowcroft and Hamilton each agreed that nuclear power would be crucial to curbing climate change. In turn, solving waste storage and disposal problems is critical to expanding the nation's baseload of nuclear-generated electricity.

"We plan to look at the full range of scientific, technical, commerical, and policy options that might be available" for storage, processing and disposal of nuclear waste, Scowcroft said. "And after deliberating those, I'm optimistic that we will be able to find a way forward ... [W]e want to find a practical way forward that commands consensus."

The commission will not consider financing for new nuclear power plants. "This panel is to look at what will happen in terms of the science and technology," said Chu, "and give us a plan going forward ... on ultimately figuring out how to deal with the used fuel, and also eventually the nuclear waste."

However, the administration also indicated today that it wants to triple federal loan guarantees to about $54 million to build new reactors and boost spending on maintaining the nation's nuclear weapons and related research facilities by more than $5 billion over the next five years. The former move is seen as a bid to get Congressional Republicans on board with the administration's overall energy policies.

One waste disposal option the commission will not consider is establishment of the long-delayed federal nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. "The president has said many times that we're done with Yucca," Browner said. "We need to be looking at alternatives."

Hamilton underscored that point, noting that science has progressed since the dump was first proposed in 1987. "Secretary Chu has made it quite clear that the nuclear waste storage at Yucca mountain is not an option," he said, "and that the blue ribbon comission will be looking at better alternatives for the back end of the fuel cycle."

The 13-member panel includes a bipartisan selection of politicians and policy wonks, along with scientists, representatives of union and environmental groups, and John Rowe, the chief executive officer of the Illinois-based Exelon Corporation.

Exelon operates 10 nuclear power plants with 17 reactors, which according to the company comprise about 20 percent of the nation's non-military nuclear power capacity.

Ideology will not play a role in the commission's final report, the officials insisted. It will be "fundamentally rooted on trying to base our decisions on the best possible science that we know today," Chu said.

Asked how he would reach out to environmentalists who are concerned by President Obama's embrace of nuclear power, Chu said, "I regard myself as an environmentalist, and I personally think that nuclear power has to play some mix in this, because it is carbon-free baseload power.

"I also deeply believe that we will be able to solve ... the environmental concerns that are needed in making sure this is a safe, clean form of power," Chu said. "If you consider what our options are, I think this has got to play a role going into the future."

Tom Cochran, senior scientist in the Natural Resources Defense Council's nuclear program, said the commission has important work to do in order to make sure that the country's approach to nuclear waste is "safe, cost-effective and environmentally sound."

He praised the Obama administration for recognizing that storing waste at Yucca Mountain won't work.

"To avoid the mistakes of the past," Cochran said in a statement, "the Blue Ribbon Commission will need to identify more effective, open and transparent processes for selecting ... repository sites and licensing criteria that protect the health and the environment of future generations. If they are successful in this regard, they will have performed a great public service." 

NRDC came out strongly, however, against the administration's plan for more loan guarantees to the nuclear power industry.

"A massive increase in taxpayer subsidies for nuclear power would be a mistake," said Christopher Paine, the director of NRDC's nuclear program. "Energy sources should compete for public dollars based on how well they provide the clean, efficient, and affordable power we need. ... We can get far more for our money by investing in efficiency gains, conservation, and innovative technologies that generate power from wind, solar, and other renewable sources."