Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Obama on Nuclear Power and Green Technology

Campaigning in Las Vegas, Obama said the problem with nuclear power is that we haven't found a way to store it safely. Dumping it in Yucca Mountain is not the solution.

"I'm not somebody who rules it off the table." But if there is no serious effort of storage of the materials then we need to look at things such as clean coal, he said. If the technology is not there for "clean coal," then we shouldn't be building coal plants.

a questioner asked if Obama could used "advanced coal" because many of the old technology coal companies are using the term "clean coal" even though they want to build traditional coal plants.

Obama would consider federal land in Nevada for construction of solar panels. Much of Nevada's land is owned by the federal government.

It occurs to me that Obama is specially qualified to be president at this time because the person at the helm needs to have the skills of an organizer. Obama needs to direct the nation in so many different areas and at the same time, he needs to tie all those areas together -- education, energy, and the like -- because it's all linked.

Lastly, he talked about government reforms.
Government needs to get out of the way when it's blocking progress. Government needs to be consumer friendly government at the post office, getting permits... Al Gore had some good ideas in terms of government makeover, he said.

It will be Reinventing Government 2.0 under the Obama administration, he said. He wants government to cut through the bureaucracy and the red tape as much as possible. I want to simplify our tax system.