Nevertheless, provided below are John Edwards’s response to a question on
The first international issue of the night, Wolf Blitzer asked John Edwards to weigh in on the topic of
MR. EDWARDS: Well, I think first of all, we have some basic goals that we need to be focused on with respect to
Now, this leads to a bigger question. I think Pakistan is the living, breathing example that America's ad hoc policy of dealing with the spread of nuclear weapons, while it's absolutely required in today's world given what's happening with Iran, given what we see today in Pakistan and the incredible fragility of the administration in Pakistan and the presence of extraordinary extremist elements within Pakistan, that this is the living, breathing example … of a policy that will not work over the long term. … What we have to do, what America needs to do and what I will do as president of the United States is to lead a long-term international effort to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
It is the only way we're going to keep the world secure and keep
Later, on the nuclear waste front…
MR. ROBERTS: Want to explore the energy issue for a moment here because it's been of particular importance to the state. Senator Obama, the price of oil is flirting with the $100-a-barrel mark right now, making all the more urgent the need for alternate fuel forces. You support nuclear energy as a part of the plan for the future, but there is an issue of what to do with the waste. You are opposed to the
Yet you are opposed to bringing nuclear waste from other states and keeping it in
The question is, if not in your backyard, whose?
SEN. OBAMA: Well, as I've said, I don't think it's fair to send [nuclear waste] to
So what we have to do is, we've got to develop the storage capacity based on sound science. Now, laboratories like
We have a genuine crisis that has to be addressed and as president, I intend to address it, and here's what we have to do. We have to, first of all, cap greenhouse gases, because climate change is real. And it's going to impact
That means that we're going to have to tell polluters, we are going to charge you money when you send pollution into the air, that's creating climate change. That money we can then reinvest in solar, in wind, in biodiesel, in clean coal technology and in superior nuclear technology.
MR. BLITZER: All right. Senator, until there's some new technological breakthrough, as you would hope and all of us would hope, where do you send the waste?
SEN. OBAMA: Well, right now it is on site in many situations, and that is not the optimal situation, Wolf. But don't keep on assuming that we can't do something. I mean, this is about the third time where you said, "assuming we can't do it, what's our option?"
MR. BLITZER: Well, until we -- until we do it.
SEN. OBAMA: Well, but I'm running for president because I think we can do it.
[snip]
MR. BLITZER: … Governor Richardson's a former Energy secretary. What do you do with the nuclear waste in the interim?
GOV. RICHARDSON: Well, you mentioned all the labs, Argonne,
First, the future is renewable. It's not oil, it's not coal, it's not nuclear. What you do with the waste is you don't put it in
I don't think the answer, also, is in regional sites.
There's a technological solution, a scientific solution. What I would do, I would turn
But while we do that, we shouldn't be giving the nuclear power industry all of these advantages in the Senate bills that are coming forth, or subsidies. Oil, coal and nuclear are getting most of the subsidies.
1 comment:
Is Obama's mention of Argonne National Lab and their nuclear waste research a subtle endorsement of the research they are doing into reprocessing (plutonium removal from spent fuel)? This research is a cornerstone of Bush's mad Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which aims to proliferate plutonium (which can be used in weaponsn), exacerbate the nuclear waste problem (to extract plutonium the fuel is dissolved in acid, creating a stew of waste) and cost billions of dollars. Barack, say it ain't so!
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