News & Events

Introduction
Thank you, Red. I’m pleased to be here, less than a week after the first major energy legislation in more than a decade passed the House and Senate.

Today’s situation reminds me of Winston Churchill’s words in a radio address to the English people during World War II. His words were directed at U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. “Give us the tools,” he said, “and we’ll finish the job.”

That’s what the energy legislation does. It gives us many of the tools we need, at least in the nuclear energy sector. Now it’s up to us to finish the job.

Today I’m going to do four things:

• Discuss the obvious relationship between U.S. manufacturing and the electricity industry, and then a little bit about the U.S. electricity business.
• Discuss why nuclear energy simply must be part of our future energy mix.
• Suggest that now is the time for American industry to evaluate getting into the nuclear business.
• Ask for your help in spreading the first three messages.

The United States is using more and more of its energy in the form of electricity, and this trend will continue. Since 1973, U.S. GDP has grown by 138 percent. Electricity consumption increased by 45 percent. Overall energy use has gone up, too, but only by about one-third. It doesn’t take a math whiz to conclude that American manufacturing and the electric power industry must grow in harmony.

Electric power sales represent 3 percent to 4 percent of our gross domestic product. But the other 96 percent to 97 percent of our $11-trillion-a-year economy depends on that 3 percent to 4 percent.

We cannot afford to gamble with something as fundamental as electricity supply, and the biggest problem we face with nuclear energy is not having enough of it.