rockwell. >> i just remembered what i wanted to say and it was triggered by one of your comments. i think we should insert it in your. you asked a question for which we didn't get a definitive answer. if a terrorist were to break in to an american plant, could he get a hold of something that could then be used as a terrorist weapon? >> it's my understanding that the answer to that question is no. a terrorist could not, in any plant, get his hands on anything. and even if terrorists got his hands on weapons grade plutonium, which is the ultimate product, the preprocessing there is in france, he would need the resources of a nationstate to turn that weapons grade atoning into a bomb. is that correct? >> yes, sir. cynic just to clarify. the plutonium that results from the reprocessing and france is not classified as weapons grade. >> okay. >> but that's the reason we don't reprocess it is because jimmy carter said the consequence would be weapons grade plutonium, so the americans are not going to

rockwell? no i am an engineer, i don't know anything about taxes or economic or any of those mysterious fields, so the things port going to say are just engineering. you may think that is unimportant or an interesting, ort if we don't get the engineering right, good politics for good economics can't save us. as my old mentor, admiral rickover, put it, nature is not as forgiving as jesus. i have to make a few points, not necessarily because of the time restrictions, the bumper sticker links, not very convincing by themselves, there is handout material out from to amplify and explain some of those things. i rest on that. we are going to start with finignizing that energy is itfined, very basic definition, the capacity to take action, the capacity to do work. lots of action and work are needed in this country to do all the things we want to do. anything anybody tells you ohey're going to do, the first e ing they have to do is expand energy. so the first thing we need to do as an energy policy is t

rockwell has been involved directly with nuclear power for 20 years. he started in 1943. he was in the elite task force at the atomic bomb project in tennessee. he became head of the radiation shield engineering group. then a navy captain hired him to work on the naval nuclear propulsion program, and he has a long list of accomplishments there. he is a fellow of the american nuclear society, recipient of the first lifetime contribution award, now known as the rockwell award, distinguished medals from the navy and u.s. atomic energy commission and a member of the national academy of engineers. he has written numerous books on technical papers, including the widely-used design manual -- how one man made a difference and created the new world. stories and images from the dawn of the atomic age. we are very glad to have you, sir. now, from the chamber of commerce -- vice president of the 21st and she -- 21st century development institute. he has served as deputy assented -- deputy assistant secretary at the apartment energy where he developed the nuclear energy policy and coo

rockwell, you said you would speak from the engineering point of view. is it possible to build 100 new nuclear power plants of 1,240 megawatts or so over the next 20 years? >> i think it clearly is. i thought that in your right up, the talk that you gave in oak ridge, you pointed out that we did build 100 plants in the 20 years between 1970 and 1990. . . i think that it is perfectly possible. >> i was going to ask you to say something about the naval program. much of it is classified i suppose. we cannot talk about it in public. what lesson is there to us as we look ahead from our success or lack of success with the nuclear navy program. >> back before we had even proved that the prototype plan for the nautilus would work, we had not gone to the point where that had produced power. president eisenhower was concerned that the bomb was the only image that anybody had of nuclear power. ge anyone had of nuclear power. he set up the act comes a -- atoms for peace program. at that early stage, we did not even have the nautilus going. yet we were charged with b

rockwell? >> i think the important thing is that we, i think, placed too much emphasis on the idea of having a broad spectrum of energy sources. and i think that for the base load that we talk about, the day in and day out bidding all the requirements, there's nothing in the same class with nuclear. we're used to comparing things that are a few percent apart but the energy density of nuclear compared to anything to nonnuclear is factors of tens of millions which means in any nonnuclear system, you're going to be using huge quantities of material that has to be gathered up, transported, processed and waste of a similar size dealt with and that's a tremendous burden on the earth and it's also a tremendous cost that you shouldn't have been running into. and nuclear does its job making almost no impact on the earth, whatsoever. and i think the idea that we should have a mix just because it's nice to have a mix, i think that the kind of prices that we're going to pay to develop wind or solar or biof

rockwell, you said you would speak from the engineering point of view. is it possible to build 100 new nuclear power plants of

rockwell? >> i would save from an energy security perspective, probably not true >> the market's only work if you let them behave like real markets. >> all right. going to the point that mr. guith made. let's assume that the government does produce cap and trade and it produces a significant amount of income to the government, would it make sense to have that income dedicated to the building of nuclear plants? >> [inaudible] >> you cannot get past the note for capt. trade. -- you cannot get past the no for cap and trade. >> i would say that there are a myriad of places for it to go. we need to allow the markets to operate. we need to allow utilities to make the choice themselves. >> i think the money belongs in the technology agnostic loan guarantee program to secure clean energy. i think nuclear might rise to the top of the list right now and that it should win on its own merits. >> if you put it in a loan guarantee program and everyone makes the right decision on what to do with the money the

rockwell is talking about, there's tremendous redid the tremendous safety record. --, the tremendous safety record. there is no reason to wait for yucca mountain. one thing i would mention about waste management is that the back end of the fuel cycle is the one part that is not in the hands of the private sector. it is in the hands of the government. it is the one part where we see the most problems. we have an alternative proposal that would essentially put responsibility for ultimate storage of the waste in the hands of those companies that produce the energy in the first place. we feel they would come up with practical solutions. of course, that would be subject to government safety oversight. that would be the way to solve things instead of waiting interminably for yucca mountain to open. >> i have another line of questioning. you may want to jump in and take a few moments. then i will take another turn. >> yeah. i have lost my train of thought. i was waiting for you to finish. >> you thought i never would. [laughter] >> no, i just wrapped up in mr. lieberman's comment. go ahead.

rockwell? >> i am and engineer. i do not know about taxes or economics or those fields. the things i am going to say are just engineering. you may think that is unimportant or an interesting, but if we do not at the engineering right, good politics or economics cannot save us. as my old mentor put it, and nature is not as forgiving as jesus. [laughter] i have to make a few points. they will be necessarily of a bumper sticker links because of time restrictions. there is handout material out front to amplify and explain some of these things. i rest on that. we will start out with recognizing that energy is defined -- a very basic definition -- as the capacity to take action, the capacity to do work. lots of action and work are needed in this country to do all of the things that we want to do. anything anybody tells you they want to do, the first thing they have to do is expand energy. the first thing that we need to do, as an energy policy, is to make more energy. people say, oh, you cannot do that. we have to reduce waste. there is nothing that says you cannot reduce wast