I have it on good intelligence that the Obama administration is preparing to aggressively promote a major expansion of America’s nuclear energy capacity as the quickest way to fast track the huge amounts of fresh grid energy needed to supply the rapidly advancing conversion to the electric car. We certainly need the energy. The one technology that can handle a crash building program is nuclear. No other technology can provide pure grid energy as ideally suited to the automobile demand profile.
Recall that a plant cranks out the same energy whatever the time of day. This provides a massive surplus during the off hours. These are the same hours that a car needs to recharge. In other words we have a match almost made in heaven. Far more importantly, it can be delivered now. All other energy options will also participate but as occasional displacement options.
In the event, Obama, a president most sensitive to optics than any for a very long time accepted campaign funds from industry players for the past five years. He certainly made up his mind on this issue a long time ago.
There may be another option that I would also pursue actively but that is not what matters today. Nuclear power can deliver today provided the regulatory process is fast tracked. We are after all merely building out multiple clones of long established designs.
Because of the urgency of pending energy demand, we can announcements on this sooner than later.
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.
