WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- Environmental groups Wednesday called on the Bush administration to radically revise its energy plan, which they say leaves the country's power generation and distribution system far too vulnerable in the post-Sept. 11 world.
The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and the Friends of the Earth offered an alternative to the president's plan.
"It is stunning that the Bush administration did not review its energy plan in light of the gaping vulnerabilities revealed by the Sept. 11 attacks," said Arjun Makhijani, IEER's president, in a prepared statement. "If the United States sticks to the (plan), oil imports will double over the next 40 years. That is an invitation to major problems, given the tensions and instabilities in the Middle East."
"It is high time that our leaders begin to aggressively explore energy sources that are safe, resilient and don't have a bull's-eye painted on them for terrorists," said Brent Blackwelder, FOE's president, in a prepared statement.
The IEER plan focuses on shifting U.S. energy dependence away from fossil fuels. The Bush plan projects increasing use of oil, coal and natural gas through 2040. The IEER proposal would practically eliminate coal use and reduce oil consumption over the same period, while increasing reliance on wind-generated power and decentralized, smaller and more efficient power plants.
One key to the plan is a requirement for cars to achieve fuel economy levels of at least 100 miles per gallon by the year 2020. Blackwelder said putting the country's welfare first should also end up helping carmakers.
The IEER's most dramatic call is for the end of nuclear power use by the year 2030. In concert with that goal, the groups want the president to abandon consideration of a "pebble-bed" reactor, which is designed to be meltdown-proof but still vulnerable to spreading radioactivity after an accident, they said.
Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, called the idea of abandoning nuclear power laughable.
"This is our nation's second-largest electricity source; it's our largest emission-free source," Kerekes told United Press International. He would not address what might be necessary to shut down the nation's 103 plants, saying many reactors are in the midst of extending their operating licenses and new plant orders are expected in the next few years.
Kerekes said the groups' criticism of "pebble-bed" reactors is very premature, since the designs are still being formalized. Several proposals would put much of the reactor complex underground in any case, he said, minimizing any risk of radiation release.
