Energy pluses and minuses

President Bush finally signed an energy bill Monday. But after six years of fighting over the measure, Americans might have expected something better.

The measure plays down conservation in favor of increasing energy production over the long term; in the short term, it offers nothing to lower soaring gas prices or lessen the nation's dependence on foreign oil. A call to open up a tiny section of Alaska's vast wildlife refuge to drilling - which could produce billions of barrels of domestic oil - was stricken, though it's still supposed to be alive in a filibuster-proof budget bill. We'll see.

Seeded by $14.6 billion in subsidies and loan guarantees to energy companies, the bill encourages development of cleaner energy sources that could very well beneficially affect our two-state area.

Because nuclear energy produces no air pollutants or greenhouse gases, there are incentives in the bill to revive the nuclear power industry. Area legislators, elected officials and economic developers are pushing Savannah River Site as a prime location for a commercial nuclear reactor.

They've already enjoyed some success by getting NuStart, a consortium of eight power companies, to include SRS as one of six sites on whose behalf it's considering to apply for a nuclear reactor building permit - the first in three decades. A commercial reactor at SRS would cost about $1 billion to build, and create up to 400 jobs - not counting all the satellite businesses and jobs. It also would put back to work some of the hundreds of nuclear power scientists and engineers who have lost their jobs because of SRS' downsizing in recent years.

Another part of the energy bill that could benefit our area is $3.5 billion to fund hydrogen-fuel initiatives. South Carolina is on the cutting edge of research-and-development efforts to power cars and homes with hydrogen instead of fossil fuels.

Hydrogen fuel works something like a battery; its only by-product is water - unlike fossil fuels, which produce toxic chemicals and gases.

Providing further impetus to the Palmetto State's bid to be a pioneer in hydrogen research is U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who co-chairs the Senate's Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Caucus. He played a key role in getting the $3.5 billion hydrogen fuel initiative into the energy bill.

"What Detroit was to the automotive industry, South Carolina can be to hydrogen," says Graham. He may be right, but the sad part is that the big payoff probably is 15 or 20 years down the road - a long time to wait for a significant reduction in gas prices.