The Truth About Nuclear Power Expansion. Political greed and payoffs, a Presidential connection.

Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant, $5 billion spent and not one kilowatt of nuclear power produced. The TVA completed and published a study in 1997 that Combined Cycle Natural Gas was the most economical means of producing power at Bellefonte. A 800mega-watt plant would cost under $900 million dollars. Bringing a gas line in from Marion County Tn. would cast another $150 million dollars. The completion of the nuclear plant at Bellefonte is estimated to cost between $3 and $5 billion. New nuclear construction per reactor unit will cost between $8 and $10 billion.

As the story below relates the nuclear power industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on political payoffs and propaganda.

Nuclear Links disclosing the deception of Bellefonte: http://arklite.blogspot.com/search/label/Bellefonte%20Nuclear%20Plant

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An article from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). http://www.ucsusa.org/news/media_alerts/nuclear-industry-spent-millions-to-sell-congress-on-new-reactors-0343.html?utm_source=SP&utm_medium=head&utm_campaign=NuclearSell-02-03-09head

(The article from UCS} "Nuclear Industry Spent Hundreds of Millions of Dollars Over the Last Decade to Sell Public, Congress on New Reactors, New Investigation Finds: (The propaganda, payoffs and treachery of the nuclear industry continues. They care not for the safety and risk thrown upon the public, their concern is money for their industry's bottom line.)

The nuclear industry claims that there is increased public support for nuclear power as a solution to climate change, and some members of Congress are arguing that massive incentives for new nuclear reactors are critical to passing a climate and energy bill. Today, the Obama administration is expected to propose tripling the amount of loan guarantees to the industry to $54 billion and there are proposals in Congress to add billions more through a new "clean" energy fund and other incentives to support nuclear power expansion. (I'll add, the nuclear industry is far from clean, it is deadly to the workers who manufacture nuclear fuels.)

Where did all this support for new nuclear reactors come from? Let's follow the money.

Growing support for new nuclear power comes after an extensive decade-long campaign in which companies and unions related to the industry have spent more than $640 million on lobbying and campaign contributions from 1999 through 2009, according to a new analysis by former Los Angeles Times reporter Judy Pasternak, now with the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University. (See below investigative reports link.) In the first three quarters of 2009 alone, the nuclear energy industry spent $84 million lobbying Congress.

"In many ways, the nuclear power industry's efforts to win support are a textbook case of how the influence game is played in Washington," Pasternak reports. "Besides the money spent on lobbying and campaign contributions, the industry, led by the NEI [Nuclear Energy Institute], has created a network of allies who give speeches, quote one another approvingly and showcase one another on their Web sites. The effect is an echo chamber of support for nuclear power."

Two of the industry's celebrity spokespeople, former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and former Greenpeace activist Patrick Moore, have been stumping around the country, writing op-eds, and appearing on TV to extoll the virtues of nuclear power as the co-directors of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, but they rarely, if ever, mention that the NEI created the coalition and is its sole funder. "

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THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

An investigative report, Nuclear Energy Lobby, Deep Pockets, $645 million spent by lobbyists: http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/nuclear-energy-lobbying-push/story/nuclear-energy-working-hard-win-support/

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President Obama's connection to nuclear energy--Exelon Energy--big campaign contributions: http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/nuclear-energy-lobbying-push/multimedia/exelons-links-president-obama/ Hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaign funds, millions of dollars to nuclear lobbys in supporting deceit that radioactive nuclear power is safe, cheap, clean, reliable, it is none of the above. Money buys propaganda and politicians. The nuclear industry has Washington politicians in their back pocket in support of the nuclear deception.

More from UCS: http://www.ucsusa.org/