GE chief urges incentives to fuel nuclear switch

When CEO's open their mouths you have to pay close attention as if you were listening to a political hack. That's because they basically are. Its PR for them.

US government hopes that hundreds of nuclear power plants will be built to boost national energy supplies will be dashed unless the power industry is given strong financial incentives to switch away from fossil fuels, said Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive of General Electric.

Mr Immelt told the Financial Times that large-scale nuclear construction would go ahead only if a high enough cost was placed on carbon-dioxide emissions. The US administration backs large-scale investment in nuclear power to strengthen energy security and curb greenhouse gas emissions. But Mr Immelt said only five to 10 US nuclear power projects were likely to go ahead unless there was a carbon-pricing framework to create incentives for utilities to build more.

And just why would GE's CEO be putting in his 2¢ on this subject? Ah yes.

GE has provided advanced and sophisticated technology for nuclear energy for over five decades. Four main product lines support this capability: new reactors, nuclear fuel, reactor services and performance services. [emphasis mine]

The first story above goes on to say.

GE is one of the world’s biggest nuclear engineering companies, and this year launched a 60 per cent-owned joint venture with Hitachi of Japan to take part in an expected worldwide resurgence in nuclear investment. There are about 30 nuclear power plant projects being developed in the US, and applications for two have been filed.

I just wanted to give another perspective for ya.

Additionally, the first story gets pretty scary after the above paragraph.

I've touched on this recently, but can't find the post. No one knows what to do with the nuclear waste from these plants. Its not like you can just spread it out in a field where it'll decompose in a couple months. Its very dangerous for a very long time. Duh!