A Tennessee senator who is pushing for the construction of 100 new nuclear plants across the nation said Tuesday in Chattanooga that residents of his home state consume far more power than they should.
Speaking to an enthusiastic crowd of supporters at a special meeting of the Pachyderm Club, Senator Lamar Alexander said energy efficiency is one of the three most important issues confronting the nation.
The other two are jobs – “we don’t have enough,” he told the crowd – and debt: “we have too much.”
Senator Alexander, who chairs the U.S. Senate Republican caucus, has been outspoken on Tennessee’s and the nation’s need to develop an energy strategy that stresses efficiency and weaning Americans off Middle East oil.
In June, he penned an article for the Wall Street Journal titled “An Energy Strategy For Grown-ups.”
“The 100 commercial nuclear plants we already have produce 70 percent of our pollution-free, carbon-free electricity,” he wrote. “Yet the U.S. has just broken ground on our first new reactor in 30 years, while China starts one every three months and France is 80 percent nuclear. We wouldn't mothball our nuclear Navy if we were going to war. We shouldn't mothball our nuclear plants if we want low-cost, reliable green energy.”
He renewed that argument Tuesday to Pachyderm members, saying that TVA – which is committed to nuclear power generation – is an important asset to Tennesseans.
Now the state must get serious about cutting back on its dependency on electricity, he noted.
“We use more power per capita than any other state,” the speaker told Pachyderms. “If we reduced that amount to the national average, we would eliminate the need for two nuclear power plants.”