How did I miss this last week? Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), when at a book signing in Arlington, made comments advocating for nuclear and coal as alternative energy sources. This is sure to get the left in a twist.
First nuclear:
“We need to look at nuclear. We need to have a sensible nuclear policy. We haven’t built a nuclear power plant in this country in 30 years. Technology’s changed a lot in the last 30 years. You know when I was saying this two years ago, as some people in this room know – there were people who were Democrats whose hair would get on fire when I started talking about nuclear. But it’s sensible.
….
“It’s safe when it’s done right. France has shown us that. Japan has shown us that. It has to be done right, but it’s environmentally friendly.”
Then, coal:
“In terms of coal, we need to find technological solutions – and they’re available – that will go after carbon dioxide emissions and these sorts of things,” Webb said. “When we were doing the discussion of global warming, one of the things I started saying to my staff was … ‘Somewhere out there, in a lab at MIT, or Cal-Tech or George Mason – there is somebody out there who has figured out how to break apart a carbon dioxide molecule and put a carbon bi-product and oxygen going up in the air and that person is going to make a billion dollars and will help us solve this problem.’”
Now, if we can just get him to recognize that off-shore drilling has withstood hurricanes and the climate of the North Sea without any environmental threat, keeping the fjods and beaches as pristine as they ever were, we’d be all set.
Drill here. Drill now. Pay less!
Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. 
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Sen. Webb (as usual) is right on the money with common sense solutions. The opposition to nuclear is no longer rational, there was a time when it was less safe but the techonolgy has caught up and we should be ready to embrace it.
Also, on both clean coal and nuclear I recently read an economist who stated that the best way to reduce energy costs/ supply is to produce energy that can’t be shipped off of N. American shores. Electricity is the energy he recommended.
Not only can any oil we drill be shipped out of the U.S. depending on demand – which will necessarily limit any negative impact on price, but it also won’t be available for 7 years. Moreover, a report on NPR this morning reported that there were only 3,600,000,000 barrels of oil on the entire eastern seaboard per a number of estimates. This is the amount of oil currently used by the U.S. in 6 months.
NPR???
You gotta be kidding me?
First the left opposes drilling because there’s so much oil on the coast that it’ll ruin the shoreline.
Now the left opposes drilling because there’s not enough oil there?
Make up your mind!
BK – Does your post even make sense to you?
Also, thanks to an email from Jason Kenney, Politico is reporting Webb has reconsidered off-shore drilling…
Like Ragnar said Webb usually makes sense. Too bad it took $4.10/gallon for him to start making sense. I just hope he has some influence on his party.