More nukes, please

South Carolina's Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. James Clyburn delivered a bi-partisan message of support for nuclear power at a conference Friday in Charleston, and said they are confident that federal legislation helpful to the industry will be forthcoming.

"We will have a national energy policy," said Clyburn, a top-ranking Democrat. "It will be wind, it will be solar, it will be biofuel, and, by golly, it will be nuclear."

Clyburn and Graham, South Carolina's senior Republican senator, said the state doesn't have the potential for wind power and solar energy that other states enjoy, but South Carolina is a leader in nuclear power and nuclear know-how.

"Every nuclear power plant that comes safely online makes us more energy independent," said Graham.

Both members of Congress said they believe South Carolina could also take a leading role in the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, if a decades-old ban on the process were lifted.

"The French understand the (nuclear) waste problem, and they recycle nuclear fuel," Graham said. "We can do it at the Savannah River plant."

Graham and Clyburn spoke at the "Securing Our Future: The Nuclear Alternative" conference, sponsored by the Medical University of South Carolina, SC State University, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Washington Division of URS Corp., which managed Department of Energy programs including nuclear waste management and disposal.

Opponents of nuclear power have announced they will meet tomorrow at the same hotel, the Charleston Marriott on Lockwood Boulevard, to present opposing views.

Read more in tomorrow's editions of The Post and Courier.