Obama’s Support For Nuclear Power Making Some Greens See Red.

If recent presidential fundraising reports are any indication, Barack Obama is a man on the move. But according to some in the environmental community, he’s moving in the wrong direction.

The blog Dissident Voice takes Obama to task for being in the pocket of the nuclear power industry. The authors of the post also claim that the Clinton Administration was similarly on the take and, while they don’t address the Bush Administration, you can only imagine how they feel about W and Dick Cheney!

Dissident Voice notes that Obama has taken almost $160,000 from nuclear heavyweight Excelon in his previous campaigns and that he committed the unpardonable sin of stating for the record that nuclear power should remain an option under consideration, given its comparably benign CO2 emissions. But Dissident Voice disagrees:

“Sadly for the credibility of the atom lobby, some of their more eye-grabbing numbers don’t check out. For example, as noted in a report by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuke industry claims that the world’s 447 nuclear plants reduce CO2 emissions by 30 percent. But the true villain behind global warming is carbon. Existing nuclear plants save only about 5 percent of total CO2 emissions, hardly a bargain given the costs and risks associated with nuclear power.”

But there’s no denying that Obama has achieved national credibility and influence (and the campaign bank account that comes with such credibility and influence), so maybe Obama is just the man to move the ball forward on nuclear power.

Barack Obama’s Nuclear Ambitions [Dissident Voice]