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Washington: Alexander outlines energy proposal

By: Herman Wang
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Lamar Alexander

WASHINGTON — Sen. Lamar Alexander’s proposed “Manhattan Project” energy plan would require significant amounts of water even as the country’s supplies are dwindling, a U.S. Department of Energy official suggested Monday.

“If you’re going to have power plants ... you’re going to need water to cool their exhaust,” said Allan Hoffman, an analyst with the Department of Energy. “If you’re going to grow biomass, you’re going to need water in areas where you don’t have natural irrigation.

“You cannot separate water issues from energy issues, which we’ve done in this country for a long time.”

The comments came during a question-and-answer session at the Brookings Institution, where Sen. Alexander outlined the five-year energy plan he introduced last Friday at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He calls it the “Manhattan Project,” named after the U.S. plan to create the first atomic bomb in the 1940s.

Sen. Alexander’s plan also could lead to proliferation of nuclear stockpiles around the world, said Frank Tugwell, president of Winrock International, a nonprofit organization that aids disadvantaged people.

“If we commit and other countries commit to nuclear power because it’s green, we could have thousands of nuclear power plants around the world and a trade in plutonium and waste products that could be significant,” he said.

Sen. Alexander’s plan includes developing plug-in vehicles, improving solar energy capabilities, advancing nuclear energy, boosting biofuels, encouraging green buildings, researching nuclear fusion and increasing carbon-capture technology that grabs carbon dioxide from sources such as industrial and power plants and stores it instead of letting it flow into the atmosphere.

By October, Sen. Alexander said, he plans to draft a formal proposal with bipartisan support that Congress could have ready as a guideline for the next president.

“I’m looking for suggestions as much as questions,” he said.