Tournament: GSU | Round: 1 | Opponent:  | Judge:
1AC – Small Modular Reactors

Contention 1: The Nuclear Renaissance
Licensing is the biggest hurdle for small reactors now
Wheeler 11 (Brian Wheeler - Associate Editor of Power Engineering)
(February 11, “Small Modular Reactors Are "Hot"” proquest. Power Engineering. Volume 115.  No. 2)
The distant timeframe is for numerous reasons. The plan is to build a SMR, start generating power and bring more online to form a larger nuclear plant, as needed. The SMRs are expected to be ready, as the DOE calls it, to "plug and play" when the reactor arrives on-site. Sounds simple? There are still obstacles that need to be defeated before the arrival of a commercial SMR. Licensing is the number one challenge at this point. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission established the Advanced Reactor Program in 2009 to focus on new licensing technologies. NRC is studying several pre-application reviews to identify possible technical issues, such as safety, security and emergency planning. The light water small reactors may be very similar to large designs, but they still must go through a separate licensing process. Vendors that engage the NRC early can resolve these technical issues. To address safety and security concerns, the small reactors will be built with post-9/11 safety concepts into the designs. NRC expects the first application submission by 2012. The funds for the research and development of the SMR could pose a problem as well. But the Obama administration has requested $38.9 million for the 2011 fiscal year budget for the development of SMRs. The DOE supports public and private partnerships to advance mature SMR designs and supports "research and development activities to advance the understanding and demonstration of innovative reactor technologies and concepts." Among other goals, in FY2011 the DOE plans to “solicit, select and award project(s) with industry partners for cost-sharing the U.S. NRC review of design certification document for up to two of the most promising light water SMR concept(s) for near-term licensing and deployment” and “develop recommendations, in collaboration with NRC and industry, for changes in NRC policy, regulations or guidance to license and enable SMRs for deployment in the U.S. And as the general public’s interest in energy continues to grow, so does the interest in SMRs, said Philip Moor, vice president of consulting and management firm High Bridge Associates. If approved, the funding towards the development of small reactors in the U.S. may play a part of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s estimate of between 49 to 97 SMRs built by 2030. Utilities may have more interest in SMRs once the NRC gains more expertise and the uncertainty of deploying these reactors in the U.S. can be addressed. And if the regulator approves any of the designs for licensing, the U.S. may see a stronger nuclear renaissance take place. As we have seen, some operators have scaled back or completely pulled out on plans to build new large reactors due to the cost. The ability to construct these reactors in factories could lead to lower costs and shorter construction times. Of course, the upfront capital to develop and engineer the facility is going to be needed. But after that, the reactors can be built in the controlled environment in repetition to lower cost, which could in return lead to more clean energy on the grid.

US nuclear policy is modeled – other countries will turn to SMRs
Jessica Lovering, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger are policy analyst, chairman, and president of the Breakthrough Institute, a public policy think tank and research organization, 9/7/2012 (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/07/out_of_the_nuclear_closet?page=full)
Nuclear has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress for more than 60 years, but the enthusiasm is running out. The Obama administration deserves credit for authorizing funding for two small modular reactors, which will be built at the Savannah River site in South Carolina. But a much more sweeping reform of U.S. nuclear energy policy is required. At present, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has little institutional knowledge of anything other than light-water reactors and virtually no capability to review or regulate alternative designs. This affects nuclear innovation in other countries as well, since the NRC remains, despite its many critics, the global gold standard for thorough regulation of nuclear energy. Most other countries follow the NRC's lead when it comes to establishing new technical and operational standards for the design, construction, and operation of nuclear plants.
What's needed now is a new national commitment to the development, testing, demonstration, and early stage commercialization of a broad range of new nuclear technologies  -- from much smaller light-water reactors to next generation ones  -- in search of a few designs that can be mass produced and deployed at a significantly lower cost than current designs. This will require both greater public support for nuclear innovation and an entirely different regulatory framework to review and approve new commercial designs.
In the meantime, developing countries will continue to build traditional, large nuclear power plants. But time is of the essence. With the lion's share of future carbon emissions coming from those emerging economic powerhouses, the need to develop smaller and cheaper designs that can scale faster is all the more important.

Streamlining bureaucratic licensing transforms the nuclear industry – the market is strong enough to support SMRs.
Spencer 11 (Jack Spencer is Research Fellow in Nuclear Energy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies)
(2/15/11 “Is the President’s Small Reactor Push the Right Approach?” http://blog.heritage.org/2011/02/15/is-the-presidents-small-reactor-push-the-right-approach/)
Establishing a Regulatory Framework
The Obama budget essentially acknowledged the regulatory problem in his budget, which requests $67 million for DOE to work on licensing technical support for small light water reactors. While the intent is correct, the approach is wrong. The Administration is relying on the same bureaucratic, taxpayer-funded process that is stifling large reactor certification when it should use this opportunity to establish a new, more efficient licensing pathway.
Instead of paying for DOE bureaucrats to get in the way of commercial progress, the Administration should commit to ensuring that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is fully equipped and prepared to regulate new reactor designs. This should include high-temperature gas-cooled reactors and liquid-metal-cooled fast reactors as well as small light water designs. This would provide a strong regulatory foundation for each of the expected design certification applications. The DOE should have no role in the process. If a company wants to get its reactor design certified for commercial use in the U.S., it should be able to go straight to the NRC for that service.
Such an approach would substantially decrease the risk associated with getting designs certified, which in turn would alleviate the need for public support. Then, instead of seeking taxpayer funds to offset regulatory risk, reactor designers could develop investors to support the certification process.
Build the Framework and They Will Come
Nuclear energy is already clean, safe, and affordable. Introducing small reactors could make it transformational. But the federal government should not drive the process. It should be supported by the market. If the underlying technology is as strong as many of us believe it to be, the federal government needs only to provide a predictable, stable, efficient, and fair regulatory environment. The rest will happen on its own—or it won’t.

SMRs rejuvenate the nuclear industry by resolving financing challenges.
Davenport 12 [Coral, energy and environment correspondent – The National Journal, Cleaner Energy, Beyond the Horizon  April 19, 2012 The National Journal, Lexis]
However, many of the nation's nuclear power reactors will reach retirement age in the coming decades, and there are no plans to replace them. The biggest challenge in building a nuclear-power plant is financing: It can take up to $10 billion and six years to build a plant, compared with less than half that time and cost to build a natural-gas facility. Some of that cost is for construction, and some of it is for higher rates of insurance and liability in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. Either way, the nuclear-power industry says that Wall Street isn't interested in investing in new plants, and the result is a freeze on getting this major source of new zero-carbon power onto the electric grid for the foreseeable future. But what if a nuclear-power plant wasn't so expensive to build? Small modular reactors might solve that problem. Companies such as Northrup Grumman and Babcock and Wilcox have developed plans to mass-produce small, identical modular nuclear reactors that could be built for a fraction of the cost of existing plants. Two main factors drive the cost of a nuclear power plant: size and on-site construction. A typical nuclear power plant is massive and produces enough electricity to power a city (about 1 million homes). On-site construction of such a project requires billions of dollars, reams of paperwork, and years of regulatory hurdles. So engineers have designed nuclear plants that are one-third the size of a typical plant and can be cheaply mass-produced and delivered to various sitesmuch like the savings on prefabricated houses. Mass-producing small plants would cut down on the price and make low-carbon nuclear power available to rural communities that can't consider it otherwise. Electric utilities could customize the size of the plants, ordering multiple reactors and getting a discount for a two-pack, four-pack, or six-pack of identical reactors that would work together. Or a power company could just order premade plug-and-play reactors as its service population grows. The modular reactor designs include key improvements over older nuclear plants: They have advanced safety systems, allowing them to operate for up to three days in the case of power outage and thus offer better prevention against a Fukushima-style meltdowns; they also will be able to burn and reuse parts of the spent nuclear fuel, cutting down on nuclear waste. For now, however, these designs remain on the drawing board. To get a small modular plant plugged into the grid, a utility will first have to pay up to $500 million for the design to be approved and permitted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commissionabout a five-year process.

Plan
The United States federal government should remove restrictions requiring multi-agency and multi-step licensing procedures and remove the moratorium on nuclear licenses for small modular reactors.

1AC – Proliferation
The plan solves – two internal links:

First, nuclear leadership:

Revitalizing the U.S. nuclear industry sets the global standard for nuclear expansion and restores credibility to nonproliferation efforts.
Wallace and Williams 12 (Michael Wallace comes to CSIS from Constellation Energy, where he served as vice chairman and COO. During his nine years at Constellation Energy, he led many company business activities, including the formation and operation of two joint ventures with EDF related to nuclear energy. Prior to joining Constellation Energy, he was cofounder and managing director of Barrington Energy Partners, LLC, a strategic consulting firm specializing in energy industry transactions and advisory services. Sarah J. Williams is program coordinator and research associate in the U.S. Nuclear Energy Project at CSIS. Prior to joining CSIS, she was a Herbert Scoville Jr. peace fellow and program coordinator at the Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).)
(4/17/12 “Nuclear Energy in America: Preventing its Early Demise” http://csis.org/files/publication/120417_gf_wallace_williams.pdf)
Meanwhile, China, India, Russia, and other countries are looking to significantly expand their nuclear energy commitments. By 2016, China could have 50 nuclear power plants in operation, compared with only 14 in 2011. India could add 8 new plants and Russia 10 in the same time frame. These trends are expected to accelerate out to 2030, by which time China, India, and Russia could account for nearly 40 percent of global nuclear generating capacity.
Meanwhile, several smaller nations, mostly in Asia and the Middle East, are planning to get into the nuclear energy business for the first time. In all, as many as 15 new nations could have this technology within the next two decades. Meanwhile, America’s share of global nuclear generation is expected to shrink, from about 25 percent today to about 14 percent in 2030, and—if current trends continue—to less than 10 percent by mid-century.
With the center of gravity for global nuclear investment shifting to a new set of players, the United States and the international community face a difficult set of challenges: stemming the spread of nuclear weapons-usable materials and know-how; preventing further catastrophic nuclear accidents; providing for safe, long-term nuclear waste management; and protecting U.S. energy security and economic competitiveness. In this context, federal action to reverse the American nuclear industry’s impending decline is a national security imperative. The United States cannot afford to become irrelevant in a new nuclear age. Our nation’s commercial nuclear industry, its military nuclear capabilities, and its strong regulatory institutions can be seen as three legs of a stool. All three legs are needed to support America’s future prosperity and security and to shape an international environment that is conducive to our long-term interests. Three specific aspects of U.S. leadership are particularly important. First, managing the national and global security risks associated with the spread of nuclear technology to countries that don’t necessarily share the same perspective on issues of nonproliferation and nuclear security or may lack the resources to implement effective safeguards in this area. An approach that relies on influence and involvement through a viable domestic industry is likely to be more effective and less expensive than trying to contain these risks militarily. Second, setting global norms and standards for safety, security, operations, and emergency response. As the world learned with past nuclear accidents and more recently with Fukushima, a major accident anywhere can have lasting repercussions everywhere. As with nonproliferation and security, America’s ability to exert leadership and influence in this area is directly linked to the strength of our domestic industry and our active involvement in the global nuclear enterprise. A strong domestic civilian industry and regulatory structure have immediate national security significance in that they help support the nuclear capabilities of the U.S. Navy, national laboratories, weapons complex, and research institutions. Third, in the past, the U.S. government could exert influence by striking export agreements with countries whose regulatory and legal frameworks reflected and were consistent with our own nonproliferation standards and commitments. At the same time, our nation set the global standard for effective, independent safety regulation (in the form of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission), led international efforts to reduce proliferation risks (through the 1970 NPT Treaty and other initiatives), and provided a model for industry self-regulation. The results were not perfect, but America’s institutional support for global nonproliferation goals and the regulatory behaviors it modeled clearly helped shape the way nuclear technology was adopted and used elsewhere around the world. This influence seems certain to wane if the United States is no longer a major supplier or user of nuclear technology. With existing nonproliferation and safety and security regimes looking increasingly inadequate in this rapidly changing global nuclear landscape, American leadership and leverage is more important and more central to our national security interests than ever.
To maintain its leadership role in the development, design, and operation of a growing global nuclear energy infrastructure, the next administration, whether Democrat or Republican, must recognize the invaluable role played by the commercial U.S. nuclear industry and take action to prevent its early demise.

Nonprolif norms are effective – empirics prove.
Bluth ’10, Christopher Bluth, prof of IR @ the University of Leeds, 2010, “Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, http://people.reed.edu/~ahm/Courses/Reed-POL-422-2012-S1_NP/Syllabus/EReadings/09.2/09.2.BluthKroenig2010Civilian.pdf
The explanation for the lack of nuclear proliferation must lie both in the development of norms in relation to armed conflict and geopolitics. During the Cold War, both¶ superpowers sought to prevent their allies from acquiring nuclear weapons (although¶ this failed in the case of Britain, China, and France). To some extent, the NPT was an instrument of this policy, with the Federal Republic of Germany being a particular target.¶ 7¶ The end of the Cold War was the beginning of a total transformation of the international system. The military contingencies that the nuclear powers are likely to face do¶ not involve nuclear weapons either as a deterrent or as a useful military tool. For example, in the Balkans conºicts in the 1990s, four nuclear powers were engaged with armed¶ forces, but this had no relevance for their conduct or the course of the conºict. Few¶ states face an external threat that would compel them to acquire nuclear weapons.¶ Countries that might have previously contemplated the acquisition of nuclear weapons¶ are no longer doing so, because there is simply no need for them. Thus the non-Russian¶ former Soviet republics where strategic nuclear weapons were based permitted all of¶ these weapons to be dismantled, and South Africa renounced its nuclear status.
Another significant factor is the development of norms. In particular, international¶ norms in relation to the use of force have changed fundamentally. It is no longer considered legitimate to use force to support national interests (including the resolution of territorial disputes). Rather, the use of force is permissible only under specific conditions,¶ such as self-defense or the enforcement of international law and security as mandated¶ by the United Nations Security Council (which may include humanitarian intervention). Moreover, the use of force is subject to stringent conditions, among which proportionality and the avoidance of civilian casualties are paramount. Although the¶ possession of nuclear weapons is not against international law, their use would be illegal in almost all conceivable circumstances. Although one may question how strictly¶ these norms are being adhered to, they demonstrably restrain the use of force by states.¶ Many former practices in the conduct of warfare are no longer acceptable, such as the¶ kind of strategic bombing practiced during World War II, the annexation of foreign territories, or the execution of prisoners of war. Even the kind of planning for the use of¶ tactical nuclear weapons in Europe during the Cold War now looks bizarre and beyond¶ all moral bounds.8
This analysis indicates that the effectiveness of the nuclear nonproliferation regime¶ depends critically on whether states are committed to the adherence to international¶ law and the norms of the international community more generally. A good case in point¶ is China, where the adoption of the NPT and other global arms control regimes matches¶ the emergence of a policy line according to which China seeks to be perceived as a¶ responsible power that is integrated into the international community.¶ 9¶ Obvious counterexamples are Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, which have (or had) little respect for international law more generally. The political price and economic cost of a nuclear¶ weapons program is extraordinarily high, especially for members of the NPT, where¶ the UN Security Council has an established record of imposing severe economic sanctions. For this reason, states such as Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea will¶ likely continue to rely on the United States to deter any nuclear threats from the likes of¶ Iran and North Korea. It still remains to be seen whether Iran will take the final step¶ and break out from the NPT, given the international reaction such a step is likely to provoke. Therefore, it does not seem plausible that peaceful nuclear cooperation alone is a¶ sufficient cause for initiating a nuclear weapons program. If new nuclear states do¶ arise, it will be in response to severe challenges to their national security.

Second, spread of SMRs:

SMRs eliminate the incentive for countries to develop nuclear enrichment knowledge and capacity.
Ioannis Kessides, Chief Economist for the Development Research Group @  World Bank, and Vladimir Kuznetsov, Consultant for the World Bank, July 2012 (“Small Modular Reactors for Enhancing Energy Security in Developing Countries.” http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/4/8/1806/htm)
One of the key concerns regarding nuclear deployment in developing countries is that those countries generally have a less mature regulatory regime in place compared to the advanced industrial countries. These considerations place very stringent requirements on power station reliability and safety performance. The need for enhanced levels of safety can be more easily met by SMRs with design options that maximize the use of inherent and passive safety features and incorporate additional layers of “defense in depth” [13]. These safety features can be more easily and effectively implemented in SMRs because of these reactors’ larger surface-to-volume ratio, reduced core power density, lower source term, and less frequent (multi-year) refueling. For example, large surface-to-volume ratios facilitate the passive (with no external source of electrical power or stored energy) removal of decay heat. The extent to which nuclear power will prove an acceptable and enduring option for meeting the future energy requirements worldwide will depend in part upon the ability of the international community to minimize the associated proliferation risks. A major nuclear expansion program, unless is accompanied by adequate technical and institutional safeguards, could increase the risk that weapons-usable fissile materials, facilities, technology, or expertise might be diverted or stolen. The common fear is that such an expansion will make it easier for countries to acquire technology as a precursor to developing nuclear weapons capability or for terrorist groups to obtain nuclear materials. This risk could be further compounded by the likelihood that plutonium-fueled breeder reactors will be widely used to stretch uranium resources under expanded nuclear power deployment. Enhanced capacity and institutional arrangements to prevent proliferation and diversion of nuclear technology to non-peaceful purposes are challenges that will need to be overcome if nuclear energy is to be expanded in developing countries One potential way of mitigating the proliferation risks of expanded nuclear deployment in developing countries might be through the adoption of hub-and-spoke configurations that restrict all sensitive activities (such as isotope separation of uranium or reprocessing of spent fuel) to large, international/regional energy parks that would export fuel, hydrogen, and even small (40–50 megawatts) sealed reactors to client states [30,31]. These reactors would be assembled and fueled at the central nuclear park, sealed (so that individual fuel assemblies could not be removed) and delivered as a unit to the power plant cites of client countries. At the end of their core life (say 15–20 years) the reactors would be returned to the central park unopened. Thus, during the 15–20 years of operation there would be no refueling and consequently the client countries would need no fuel fabrication facilities and management capabilities. To the extent that such modular reactors would operate almost autonomously, the hub-and-spoke architecture could reduce substantially the rationale and opportunities for countries to develop nuclear research laboratories and train technical specialists and scientists whose know-how could later be diverted to weapons activities [32]. It should be noted that providing attractive alternatives to the buildup of indigenous facilities is a good idea. However, trying to restrict knowledge diffusion is arguable futile and non-sustainable.

SMRs make covert efforts at prolif incredibly obvious – ensures international response.
Harold Feiveson, Senior Research Policy Analyst @ Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton, et al. Alexander Glaser, Asst Prof. at Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs @ Princeton, Marvin Miller, Senior Scientist Emeritus @ MIT Center for International Studies, and Lawrence Scheinman, International Policy @ Monterey Institute of International Studies, 2008 (http://www.cissm.umd.edu/papers/files/future_nuclear_power.pdf)
With respect to country proliferation:
1AC – Small Modular Reactors

Contention 1: The Nuclear Renaissance
Licensing is the biggest hurdle for small reactors now
Wheeler 11 (Brian Wheeler - Associate Editor of Power Engineering)
(February 11, “Small Modular Reactors Are "Hot"” proquest. Power Engineering. Volume 115.  No. 2)
The distant timeframe is for numerous reasons. The plan is to build a SMR, start generating power and bring more online to form a larger nuclear plant, as needed. The SMRs are expected to be ready, as the DOE calls it, to "plug and play" when the reactor arrives on-site. Sounds simple? There are still obstacles that need to be defeated before the arrival of a commercial SMR. Licensing is the number one challenge at this point. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission established the Advanced Reactor Program in 2009 to focus on new licensing technologies. NRC is studying several pre-application reviews to identify possible technical issues, such as safety, security and emergency planning. The light water small reactors may be very similar to large designs, but they still must go through a separate licensing process. Vendors that engage the NRC early can resolve these technical issues. To address safety and security concerns, the small reactors will be built with post-9/11 safety concepts into the designs. NRC expects the first application submission by 2012. The funds for the research and development of the SMR could pose a problem as well. But the Obama administration has requested $38.9 million for the 2011 fiscal year budget for the development of SMRs. The DOE supports public and private partnerships to advance mature SMR designs and supports "research and development activities to advance the understanding and demonstration of innovative reactor technologies and concepts." Among other goals, in FY2011 the DOE plans to “solicit, select and award project(s) with industry partners for cost-sharing the U.S. NRC review of design certification document for up to two of the most promising light water SMR concept(s) for near-term licensing and deployment” and “develop recommendations, in collaboration with NRC and industry, for changes in NRC policy, regulations or guidance to license and enable SMRs for deployment in the U.S. And as the general public’s interest in energy continues to grow, so does the interest in SMRs, said Philip Moor, vice president of consulting and management firm High Bridge Associates. If approved, the funding towards the development of small reactors in the U.S. may play a part of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s estimate of between 49 to 97 SMRs built by 2030. Utilities may have more interest in SMRs once the NRC gains more expertise and the uncertainty of deploying these reactors in the U.S. can be addressed. And if the regulator approves any of the designs for licensing, the U.S. may see a stronger nuclear renaissance take place. As we have seen, some operators have scaled back or completely pulled out on plans to build new large reactors due to the cost. The ability to construct these reactors in factories could lead to lower costs and shorter construction times. Of course, the upfront capital to develop and engineer the facility is going to be needed. But after that, the reactors can be built in the controlled environment in repetition to lower cost, which could in return lead to more clean energy on the grid.

US nuclear policy is modeled – other countries will turn to SMRs
Jessica Lovering, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger are policy analyst, chairman, and president of the Breakthrough Institute, a public policy think tank and research organization, 9/7/2012 (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/07/out_of_the_nuclear_closet?page=full)
Nuclear has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress for more than 60 years, but the enthusiasm is running out. The Obama administration deserves credit for authorizing funding for two small modular reactors, which will be built at the Savannah River site in South Carolina. But a much more sweeping reform of U.S. nuclear energy policy is required. At present, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has little institutional knowledge of anything other than light-water reactors and virtually no capability to review or regulate alternative designs. This affects nuclear innovation in other countries as well, since the NRC remains, despite its many critics, the global gold standard for thorough regulation of nuclear energy. Most other countries follow the NRC's lead when it comes to establishing new technical and operational standards for the design, construction, and operation of nuclear plants.
What's needed now is a new national commitment to the development, testing, demonstration, and early stage commercialization of a broad range of new nuclear technologies  -- from much smaller light-water reactors to next generation ones  -- in search of a few designs that can be mass produced and deployed at a significantly lower cost than current designs. This will require both greater public support for nuclear innovation and an entirely different regulatory framework to review and approve new commercial designs.
In the meantime, developing countries will continue to build traditional, large nuclear power plants. But time is of the essence. With the lion's share of future carbon emissions coming from those emerging economic powerhouses, the need to develop smaller and cheaper designs that can scale faster is all the more important.

Streamlining bureaucratic licensing transforms the nuclear industry – the market is strong enough to support SMRs.
Spencer 11 (Jack Spencer is Research Fellow in Nuclear Energy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies)
(2/15/11 “Is the President’s Small Reactor Push the Right Approach?” http://blog.heritage.org/2011/02/15/is-the-presidents-small-reactor-push-the-right-approach/)
Establishing a Regulatory Framework
The Obama budget essentially acknowledged the regulatory problem in his budget, which requests $67 million for DOE to work on licensing technical support for small light water reactors. While the intent is correct, the approach is wrong. The Administration is relying on the same bureaucratic, taxpayer-funded process that is stifling large reactor certification when it should use this opportunity to establish a new, more efficient licensing pathway.
Instead of paying for DOE bureaucrats to get in the way of commercial progress, the Administration should commit to ensuring that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is fully equipped and prepared to regulate new reactor designs. This should include high-temperature gas-cooled reactors and liquid-metal-cooled fast reactors as well as small light water designs. This would provide a strong regulatory foundation for each of the expected design certification applications. The DOE should have no role in the process. If a company wants to get its reactor design certified for commercial use in the U.S., it should be able to go straight to the NRC for that service.
Such an approach would substantially decrease the risk associated with getting designs certified, which in turn would alleviate the need for public support. Then, instead of seeking taxpayer funds to offset regulatory risk, reactor designers could develop investors to support the certification process.
Build the Framework and They Will Come
Nuclear energy is already clean, safe, and affordable. Introducing small reactors could make it transformational. But the federal government should not drive the process. It should be supported by the market. If the underlying technology is as strong as many of us believe it to be, the federal government needs only to provide a predictable, stable, efficient, and fair regulatory environment. The rest will happen on its own—or it won’t.

SMRs rejuvenate the nuclear industry by resolving financing challenges.
Davenport 12 [Coral, energy and environment correspondent – The National Journal, Cleaner Energy, Beyond the Horizon  April 19, 2012 The National Journal, Lexis]
However, many of the nation's nuclear power reactors will reach retirement age in the coming decades, and there are no plans to replace them. The biggest challenge in building a nuclear-power plant is financing: It can take up to $10 billion and six years to build a plant, compared with less than half that time and cost to build a natural-gas facility. Some of that cost is for construction, and some of it is for higher rates of insurance and liability in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. Either way, the nuclear-power industry says that Wall Street isn't interested in investing in new plants, and the result is a freeze on getting this major source of new zero-carbon power onto the electric grid for the foreseeable future. But what if a nuclear-power plant wasn't so expensive to build? Small modular reactors might solve that problem. Companies such as Northrup Grumman and Babcock and Wilcox have developed plans to mass-produce small, identical modular nuclear reactors that could be built for a fraction of the cost of existing plants. Two main factors drive the cost of a nuclear power plant: size and on-site construction. A typical nuclear power plant is massive and produces enough electricity to power a city (about 1 million homes). On-site construction of such a project requires billions of dollars, reams of paperwork, and years of regulatory hurdles. So engineers have designed nuclear plants that are one-third the size of a typical plant and can be cheaply mass-produced and delivered to various sitesmuch like the savings on prefabricated houses. Mass-producing small plants would cut down on the price and make low-carbon nuclear power available to rural communities that can't consider it otherwise. Electric utilities could customize the size of the plants, ordering multiple reactors and getting a discount for a two-pack, four-pack, or six-pack of identical reactors that would work together. Or a power company could just order premade plug-and-play reactors as its service population grows. The modular reactor designs include key improvements over older nuclear plants: They have advanced safety systems, allowing them to operate for up to three days in the case of power outage and thus offer better prevention against a Fukushima-style meltdowns; they also will be able to burn and reuse parts of the spent nuclear fuel, cutting down on nuclear waste. For now, however, these designs remain on the drawing board. To get a small modular plant plugged into the grid, a utility will first have to pay up to $500 million for the design to be approved and permitted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commissionabout a five-year process.

Plan
The United States federal government should remove restrictions requiring multi-agency and multi-step licensing procedures and remove the moratorium on nuclear licenses for small modular reactors.

1AC – Proliferation
The plan solves – two internal links:

First, nuclear leadership:

Revitalizing the U.S. nuclear industry sets the global standard for nuclear expansion and restores credibility to nonproliferation efforts.
Wallace and Williams 12 (Michael Wallace comes to CSIS from Constellation Energy, where he served as vice chairman and COO. During his nine years at Constellation Energy, he led many company business activities, including the formation and operation of two joint ventures with EDF related to nuclear energy. Prior to joining Constellation Energy, he was cofounder and managing director of Barrington Energy Partners, LLC, a strategic consulting firm specializing in energy industry transactions and advisory services. Sarah J. Williams is program coordinator and research associate in the U.S. Nuclear Energy Project at CSIS. Prior to joining CSIS, she was a Herbert Scoville Jr. peace fellow and program coordinator at the Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).)
(4/17/12 “Nuclear Energy in America: Preventing its Early Demise” http://csis.org/files/publication/120417_gf_wallace_williams.pdf)
Meanwhile, China, India, Russia, and other countries are looking to significantly expand their nuclear energy commitments. By 2016, China could have 50 nuclear power plants in operation, compared with only 14 in 2011. India could add 8 new plants and Russia 10 in the same time frame. These trends are expected to accelerate out to 2030, by which time China, India, and Russia could account for nearly 40 percent of global nuclear generating capacity.
Meanwhile, several smaller nations, mostly in Asia and the Middle East, are planning to get into the nuclear energy business for the first time. In all, as many as 15 new nations could have this technology within the next two decades. Meanwhile, America’s share of global nuclear generation is expected to shrink, from about 25 percent today to about 14 percent in 2030, and—if current trends continue—to less than 10 percent by mid-century.
With the center of gravity for global nuclear investment shifting to a new set of players, the United States and the international community face a difficult set of challenges: stemming the spread of nuclear weapons-usable materials and know-how; preventing further catastrophic nuclear accidents; providing for safe, long-term nuclear waste management; and protecting U.S. energy security and economic competitiveness. In this context, federal action to reverse the American nuclear industry’s impending decline is a national security imperative. The United States cannot afford to become irrelevant in a new nuclear age. Our nation’s commercial nuclear industry, its military nuclear capabilities, and its strong regulatory institutions can be seen as three legs of a stool. All three legs are needed to support America’s future prosperity and security and to shape an international environment that is conducive to our long-term interests. Three specific aspects of U.S. leadership are particularly important. First, managing the national and global security risks associated with the spread of nuclear technology to countries that don’t necessarily share the same perspective on issues of nonproliferation and nuclear security or may lack the resources to implement effective safeguards in this area. An approach that relies on influence and involvement through a viable domestic industry is likely to be more effective and less expensive than trying to contain these risks militarily. Second, setting global norms and standards for safety, security, operations, and emergency response. As the world learned with past nuclear accidents and more recently with Fukushima, a major accident anywhere can have lasting repercussions everywhere. As with nonproliferation and security, America’s ability to exert leadership and influence in this area is directly linked to the strength of our domestic industry and our active involvement in the global nuclear enterprise. A strong domestic civilian industry and regulatory structure have immediate national security significance in that they help support the nuclear capabilities of the U.S. Navy, national laboratories, weapons complex, and research institutions. Third, in the past, the U.S. government could exert influence by striking export agreements with countries whose regulatory and legal frameworks reflected and were consistent with our own nonproliferation standards and commitments. At the same time, our nation set the global standard for effective, independent safety regulation (in the form of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission), led international efforts to reduce proliferation risks (through the 1970 NPT Treaty and other initiatives), and provided a model for industry self-regulation. The results were not perfect, but America’s institutional support for global nonproliferation goals and the regulatory behaviors it modeled clearly helped shape the way nuclear technology was adopted and used elsewhere around the world. This influence seems certain to wane if the United States is no longer a major supplier or user of nuclear technology. With existing nonproliferation and safety and security regimes looking increasingly inadequate in this rapidly changing global nuclear landscape, American leadership and leverage is more important and more central to our national security interests than ever.
To maintain its leadership role in the development, design, and operation of a growing global nuclear energy infrastructure, the next administration, whether Democrat or Republican, must recognize the invaluable role played by the commercial U.S. nuclear industry and take action to prevent its early demise.

Nonprolif norms are effective – empirics prove.
Bluth ’10, Christopher Bluth, prof of IR @ the University of Leeds, 2010, “Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, http://people.reed.edu/~ahm/Courses/Reed-POL-422-2012-S1_NP/Syllabus/EReadings/09.2/09.2.BluthKroenig2010Civilian.pdf
The explanation for the lack of nuclear proliferation must lie both in the development of norms in relation to armed conflict and geopolitics. During the Cold War, both¶ superpowers sought to prevent their allies from acquiring nuclear weapons (although¶ this failed in the case of Britain, China, and France). To some extent, the NPT was an instrument of this policy, with the Federal Republic of Germany being a particular target.¶ 7¶ The end of the Cold War was the beginning of a total transformation of the international system. The military contingencies that the nuclear powers are likely to face do¶ not involve nuclear weapons either as a deterrent or as a useful military tool. For example, in the Balkans conºicts in the 1990s, four nuclear powers were engaged with armed¶ forces, but this had no relevance for their conduct or the course of the conºict. Few¶ states face an external threat that would compel them to acquire nuclear weapons.¶ Countries that might have previously contemplated the acquisition of nuclear weapons¶ are no longer doing so, because there is simply no need for them. Thus the non-Russian¶ former Soviet republics where strategic nuclear weapons were based permitted all of¶ these weapons to be dismantled, and South Africa renounced its nuclear status.
Another significant factor is the development of norms. In particular, international¶ norms in relation to the use of force have changed fundamentally. It is no longer considered legitimate to use force to support national interests (including the resolution of territorial disputes). Rather, the use of force is permissible only under specific conditions,¶ such as self-defense or the enforcement of international law and security as mandated¶ by the United Nations Security Council (which may include humanitarian intervention). Moreover, the use of force is subject to stringent conditions, among which proportionality and the avoidance of civilian casualties are paramount. Although the¶ possession of nuclear weapons is not against international law, their use would be illegal in almost all conceivable circumstances. Although one may question how strictly¶ these norms are being adhered to, they demonstrably restrain the use of force by states.¶ Many former practices in the conduct of warfare are no longer acceptable, such as the¶ kind of strategic bombing practiced during World War II, the annexation of foreign territories, or the execution of prisoners of war. Even the kind of planning for the use of¶ tactical nuclear weapons in Europe during the Cold War now looks bizarre and beyond¶ all moral bounds.8
This analysis indicates that the effectiveness of the nuclear nonproliferation regime¶ depends critically on whether states are committed to the adherence to international¶ law and the norms of the international community more generally. A good case in point¶ is China, where the adoption of the NPT and other global arms control regimes matches¶ the emergence of a policy line according to which China seeks to be perceived as a¶ responsible power that is integrated into the international community.¶ 9¶ Obvious counterexamples are Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, which have (or had) little respect for international law more generally. The political price and economic cost of a nuclear¶ weapons program is extraordinarily high, especially for members of the NPT, where¶ the UN Security Council has an established record of imposing severe economic sanctions. For this reason, states such as Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea will¶ likely continue to rely on the United States to deter any nuclear threats from the likes of¶ Iran and North Korea. It still remains to be seen whether Iran will take the final step¶ and break out from the NPT, given the international reaction such a step is likely to provoke. Therefore, it does not seem plausible that peaceful nuclear cooperation alone is a¶ sufficient cause for initiating a nuclear weapons program. If new nuclear states do¶ arise, it will be in response to severe challenges to their national security.

Second, spread of SMRs:

SMRs eliminate the incentive for countries to develop nuclear enrichment knowledge and capacity.
Ioannis Kessides, Chief Economist for the Development Research Group @  World Bank, and Vladimir Kuznetsov, Consultant for the World Bank, July 2012 (“Small Modular Reactors for Enhancing Energy Security in Developing Countries.” http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/4/8/1806/htm)
One of the key concerns regarding nuclear deployment in developing countries is that those countries generally have a less mature regulatory regime in place compared to the advanced industrial countries. These considerations place very stringent requirements on power station reliability and safety performance. The need for enhanced levels of safety can be more easily met by SMRs with design options that maximize the use of inherent and passive safety features and incorporate additional layers of “defense in depth” [13]. These safety features can be more easily and effectively implemented in SMRs because of these reactors’ larger surface-to-volume ratio, reduced core power density, lower source term, and less frequent (multi-year) refueling. For example, large surface-to-volume ratios facilitate the passive (with no external source of electrical power or stored energy) removal of decay heat. The extent to which nuclear power will prove an acceptable and enduring option for meeting the future energy requirements worldwide will depend in part upon the ability of the international community to minimize the associated proliferation risks. A major nuclear expansion program, unless is accompanied by adequate technical and institutional safeguards, could increase the risk that weapons-usable fissile materials, facilities, technology, or expertise might be diverted or stolen. The common fear is that such an expansion will make it easier for countries to acquire technology as a precursor to developing nuclear weapons capability or for terrorist groups to obtain nuclear materials. This risk could be further compounded by the likelihood that plutonium-fueled breeder reactors will be widely used to stretch uranium resources under expanded nuclear power deployment. Enhanced capacity and institutional arrangements to prevent proliferation and diversion of nuclear technology to non-peaceful purposes are challenges that will need to be overcome if nuclear energy is to be expanded in developing countries One potential way of mitigating the proliferation risks of expanded nuclear deployment in developing countries might be through the adoption of hub-and-spoke configurations that restrict all sensitive activities (such as isotope separation of uranium or reprocessing of spent fuel) to large, international/regional energy parks that would export fuel, hydrogen, and even small (40–50 megawatts) sealed reactors to client states [30,31]. These reactors would be assembled and fueled at the central nuclear park, sealed (so that individual fuel assemblies could not be removed) and delivered as a unit to the power plant cites of client countries. At the end of their core life (say 15–20 years) the reactors would be returned to the central park unopened. Thus, during the 15–20 years of operation there would be no refueling and consequently the client countries would need no fuel fabrication facilities and management capabilities. To the extent that such modular reactors would operate almost autonomously, the hub-and-spoke architecture could reduce substantially the rationale and opportunities for countries to develop nuclear research laboratories and train technical specialists and scientists whose know-how could later be diverted to weapons activities [32]. It should be noted that providing attractive alternatives to the buildup of indigenous facilities is a good idea. However, trying to restrict knowledge diffusion is arguable futile and non-sustainable.

SMRs make covert efforts at prolif incredibly obvious – ensures international response.
Harold Feiveson, Senior Research Policy Analyst @ Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton, et al. Alexander Glaser, Asst Prof. at Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs @ Princeton, Marvin Miller, Senior Scientist Emeritus @ MIT Center for International Studies, and Lawrence Scheinman, International Policy @ Monterey Institute of International Studies, 2008 (http://www.cissm.umd.edu/papers/files/future_nuclear_power.pdf)
With respect to country proliferation:
• Any country with nuclear power and a nuclear power infrastructure could get fissile material if it wished – within months or a year – barring international action to prevent this. If it had a commercial reactor, it could build a reprocessing plant to separate out plutonium; or it could build a dedicated reactor and reprocessing plant in a somewhat longer period. It could also enrich uranium over time, but as long as the country did not have any enrichment facilities to begin with, such a route would take longer than would a plutonium path. • However, in the scenarios considered, it should be possible to have a safeguards regime such that any diversion of facilities and materials would be quickly detected, giving time for an international response (see the following bullet). In this respect, the once-through fuel cycle, the hub-spoke arrangements with sealed reactors, and possibly certain thorium cycles appear particularly attractive in making immediately visible an attempted diversion and lengthening the time for a diversion to be consummated. • Since technically most countries will be able to get nuclear weapons, enforcement and compliance provisions of any international control regime are crucial. • Compliance will be stronger and more accepted if nuclear power is nondiscriminatory. That is, for example, if countries such as the United States wish to have breeder reactors, it will be hard to argue that other countries should not be allowed these. • Secondly, compliance will be surer and more effective if ventures to produce fissile material for weapons can quickly be seen and monitored by multinational or international authorities and if the acquisition of significant quantities of fissile material by a country, clandestinely or overtly, will take months or longer. For this reason, we believe that all “sensitive” or “dangerous” nuclear facilities should ideally be put under multinational or international control. This includes reprocessing and enrichment plants. It might include also all uranium mining and milling and spent fuel. In time, the fuel could be “owned” by an international authority.

Middle East prolif coming now– early detection key to head it off
Jones ’12, Gregory S. Jones, a senior researcher at the Nonproliferation  Policy Education Center, and an adjunct staff member at the RAND  Corporation. Mr. Jones has been a defense policy analyst for the last 38 years, June 2012, “Facing the Reality of Iran as a De Facto Nuclear State”, http://www.npolicy.org/userfiles/file/oving%20Beyond%20Pretense%20web%20version.pdf#page=182
Nonproliferation after Iran
If Iran is already a de facto nuclear weapons state, where should the U.S. go from here with regards to its nonproliferation policy? The key will be to learn from our failure with Iran and prevent additional countries from acquiring nuclear weapons. This will require a two  prong approach.
First, as President Obama has indicated, Iran’s de facto nuclear status will motivate a number of other countries to try to emulate Iran’s success. The U.S. needs to take decisive action to head off these efforts on a county by country basis as soon as the first steps towards acquiring the fissile material for nuclear weapons are detected. Taking early action runs counter to normal government instinct, which  is to try to “kick the can down the road” and avoid taking any unpleasant actions unless it has to. The lack of early action has been a hallmark of U.S. nonproliferation policy since the Reagan Administration, and has allowed Pakistan, India, North Korea and now Iran to acquire the fissile material required for nuclear weapons.
Yet as we saw with Libya, early action can be quite effective. Many believe that Gaddafi made a mistake by giving up a nuclear weapons program but the fact of the matter is that he had no choice. His effort was discovered early, before Libya had even begun to enrich uranium, and Gaddafi had no other option.
Second, there needs to be a change to the IAEA’s safeguards regime to prevent countries from acquiring the fissile material needed for nuclear weapons with the IAEA’s approval. Some in the U.S. Congress have called for military action against Iran if it starts to enrich uranium to levels greater than 20, but under current IAEA rules such Iranian actions would be perfectly acceptable as long as Iran declared the activity to the IAEA. Similarly, the IAEA permits nonnuclear weapons states to produce pure compounds of plutonium by reprocessing spent fuel. Informally, the IAEA does require that the country carrying out these activities provide some rationale as to how these activities are related to some peaceful nuclear activity but the rationale does not have to be very plausible. For example, a country can say that it is stockpiling the plutonium for use in a breeder reactor even if it is now more than 40 years since such reactors were first supposed to come into operation and that such reactors are still decades away.
Much of providing the proper rationale involves learning to play the game properly. As was discussed above, Iran got itself into trouble by conducting clandestine nuclear activities prior to 2004. More recently Iran did a better job and explained that its production of 20enriched uranium was required to produce research reactor fuel. This activity, which is generally agreed to be carrying Iran close to the possession of the fissile material for a nuclear weapon, has not caused the IAEA to say that Iran is violating safeguards even though Iran is currently producing more 20 enriched uranium in one month than the research reactor uses in one year.¶ The U.S. Government has recognized this problem and in its Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with the United Arab Emirates, it requires the UAE not possess facilities that can be used for uranium ¶ enrichment or the reprocessing of spent fuel, which could produce ¶ plutonium, HEU or U-233 (another material that can be used to produce nuclear weapons). However, the U.S. administration has discovered the drawback of attempting to handle this problem though ¶ bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements. In the face of competition from Russia and France, the U.S. has proposed nuclear cooperation agreements with Vietnam and Jordan that lack these provisions on enriching and reprocessing. Only if the issue is approached by the IAEA will there be uniform standards without commercial pressures undercutting nonproliferation.
Furthermore, even the standards for the UAE are not enough. Nonnuclear weapons states need to be prohibited from possessing any materials or facilities that can quickly provide fissile material for nuclear weapons. This includes prohibiting not only enrichment and reprocessing facilities, but also HEU, plutonium, or U-233 that has either been separated from spent fuel or and HEU, plutonium or U-233 contained in unirradiated reactor fuel (such as HEU fuel for research reactors or mixed oxide fuel for power reactors).The IAEA does not have the legal authority to prohibit countries from possessing such materials or facilities, but it does have the responsibility to safeguard these materials and facilities. As I have discussed elsewhere,¶ 19
IAEA safeguards are supposed to be more than just an accounting system; they should provide “timely warning” of diversions of nuclear materials. However, the IAEA cannot safeguard these facilities and materials in a timely warning sense. The IAEA needs to admit this fact and make clear that any such facilities and materials in nonnuclear weapons states are not being ¶ effectively safeguarded. This issue is significantly larger than just Iran and, at a minimum, includes Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, ¶ and Brazil. It will be up to these countries to explain why they need to continue to possess these materials and facilities since they cannot be effectively safeguarded. Given the state of nuclear power in a post-Fukushima world, this could be difficult.
The U.S. needs to urge the IAEA to be clear about what materials and facilities it can effectively safeguard and which it cannot. At the same time, the U.S. needs to take early action to ensure that any countries that attempt to follow Iran’s successful path are prevented from gaining access to the fissile material required for nuclear weapons. Otherwise, the number of nuclear-armed countries will continue to grow until the catastrophe of nuclear use occurs. Just one nuclear weapon detonated in a city could kill hundreds of thousands of people—roughly 100 times as many as were killed on 9/11.

Proliferation causes nuclear war.
Heisbourg ’12, [Francois Heisbourg, Chairman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, prof at the Geneva Center for Security Policy, July 2012, “How Bad Would the Further Spread of Nuclear Weapons Be?”, http://www.npolicy.org/userfiles/file/oving%20Beyond%20Pretense%20web%20version.pdf#page=182]
Human societies tend to lack the imagination to think through, and to act upon, what have become known as “black swan” events 26 : That which has never occurred (or which has happened very rarely and in a wholly different context) is deemed not to be in the field of reality, and to which must be added eventualities that are denied because their consequences are too awful to contemplate. The extremes of human misconduct (the incredulity in the face of evidence of the Holocaust, the failure to imagine 9/11) bear testimony to this hardwired trait of our species. This would not normally warrant mention as a factor of growing salience if not for the recession into time of the original and only use of nuclear weapons in August 1945. Nonuse of nuclear weapons may soon be taken for granted rather than being an absolute taboo. Recent writing on the reputedly limited effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs 27 may contribute to such a trend, in the name of reducing the legitimacy of nuclear weapons. Recent, and often compelling, historical accounts of the surrender of the Japanese Empire that downplay the role of the atomic bombings in comparison to early research can produce a similar effect, even if that may not have been the intention. 28 However desirable it has been, the end of atmospheric nuclear testing 29 has removed for more than three decades the periodic reminders that such monstrous detonations made as to the uniquely destructive nature of nuclear weapons. There is a real and growing risk that we forget what was obvious to those who first described in 1941 the unique nature of yet-to-be produced nuclear weapons. 30 The risk is no doubt higher in those states for which the history of World War II has little relevance and that have not had the will or the opportunity to wrestle at the time or ex post facto with the moral and strategic implications of the nuclear bombing of Japan in 1945.
Unsustainable strains are possibly the single most compelling feature of contemporary proliferation. Examples include tight geographical constraints–with, for instance, New Delhi and Islamabad, located within 300 miles of each other; nuclear multi-polarity against the backdrop of multiple, crisscrossing sources of tension in the Middle East, as opposed to the relative simplicity of the U.S.-Soviet confrontation; the existence of doctrines, such as India’s “cold start,” and force postures, such as Pakistan’s broadening array of battle- field nukes, that rest on the expectation of early use; and the role of non-state actors as aggravating or triggering factors when they are perceived as operating with the connivance of an antagonist state (in the past, the assassination of the Austrian Archduke in Sarajevo in 1914; and in the future, Hezbollah operatives launching rockets with effect against Israel or Lashkar-e-Taiba commandos doing a “Bombay” redux in India?). Individually or in combination, these factors test crisis management capabilities more severely than anything seen during the Cold War with the partial exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Even the overabundant battlefield nuclear arsenals in Cold War Central Europe, with their iffy weapons’ safety and security arrangements, were less of a challenge: The U.S. and Soviet short-range nuclear weapons so deployed were not putting U.S. and Soviet territory and capitals at risk.
 It may be argued that these risk factors are known to potential protagonists and that they therefore will be led to avoid the sort of nuclear brinksmanship that characterized U.S. and Soviet behavior during the Cold War in crises such as the Korean War, Berlin, Cuba or the Yom Kippur War. Unfortunately, the multiple nuclear crises between India and Pakistan demonstrate no such prudence, rather the contrary. And were such restraint to feed into nuclear policy and crisis planning, along the lines of apparently greater U.S. and Soviet nuclear caution from the mid-seventies onwards, the fact would remain that initial intent rarely resists the strains of a complex, multiactor confrontation between inherently distrustful antagonists. It is also worth reflecting on the fact that during the 1980s there was real and acute fear in Soviet ruling circles that the West was preparing an out-of-the-blue nuclear strike, a fear which in turn fed into Soviet policies and dispositions. 31
The Cold War was a set of crises and misunderstandings that came within a whisker of a nuclear holocaust. India and Pakistan’s nuclear standoff is deeply unstable, not least as a result of the interaction with non-state actors. A multipolar nuclear Middle East would make the Cuban Missile Crisis look easy in comparison.

New nuclear powers lack safeguards and deterrence capabilities – that’s uniquely destabilizing.
Edelman et al. ’11, Eric S. Edelman, former Under Secretary of Defense, former U.S. Ambassador, and former Principal Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, Andrew F. Krepinevich, defense policy analyst, West point grad, director of the non-profit Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, and Evan Braden Montgomery, research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, January 2011, "The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran: The Limits of Containment" 

More important, emerging nuclear powers in the Middle East might not take the costly steps necessary to preserve regional stability and avoid a nuclear exchange. For nuclear-armed states, the bedrock of deterrence is the knowledge that each side has a secure second-strike capability, so that no state can launch an attack with the expectation that it can wipe out its opponents’ forces and avoid a devastating retaliation. However, emerging nuclear powers might not invest in expensive but survivable capabilities such as hardened missile silos or submarine based nuclear forces. Given this likely vulnerability, the close proximity of states in the Middle East, and the very short flight times of ballistic missiles in the region, any new nuclear powers might be compelled to “launch on warning” of an attack or even, during a crisis, to use their nuclear forces preemptively. Their governments might also delegate launch authority to lower-level commanders, heightening the possibility of miscalculation and escalation. Moreover, if early warning systems were not integrated into robust command-and-control systems, the risk of an unauthorized or accidental launch would increase further still. And without sophisticated early warning systems, a nuclear attack might be unattributable or attributed incorrectly. That is, assuming that the leadership of a targeted state survived a first strike, it might not be able to accurately determine which nation was responsible. And this uncertainty, when combined with the pressure to respond quickly, would create a significant risk that it would retaliate against the wrong party, potentially triggering a regional nuclear war.

Nuclear deterrence fails. Impossible to replicate Cold War stability.
Shultz et al. ’11, George P. Shultz, former secretary of state, William J. Perry, former secretary of defense, Henry A. Kissinger, former secretary of state, and Sam Nunn, former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, 04-07-2011“Deterrence in an Age of Nuclear Deterrence”, http://www.nonukes.nl/media/files/2011-03-07-gang-of-four-tnw.pdf
As long as there has been war, there have been efforts to deter actions a nation considers¶ threatening. Until fairly recently, this meant building a military establishment capable of¶ intimidating the adversary, defeating him or making his victory more costly than the projected¶ gains. This, with conventional weapons, took time. Deterrence and war strategy were identical.¶ The advent of the nuclear weapon introduced entirely new factors. It was possible, for the first¶ time, to inflict at the beginning of a war the maximum casualties. The doctrine of mutual¶ assured destruction represented this reality. Deterrence based on nuclear weapons, therefore,¶ has three elements:
 It is importantly psychological, depending on calculations for which there is no historical¶ experience. It is therefore precarious.
 It is devastating. An unrestrained nuclear exchange between superpowers could destroy¶ civilized life as we know it in days.
 Mutual assured destruction raises enormous inhibitions against employing the weapons.¶ Since the first use of nuclear weapons against Japan, neither of the superpowers, nor any other¶ country, has used nuclear weapons in a war. A gap opened between the psychological element¶ of deterrence and the risks most leaders were willing to incur. U.S. defense leaders made¶ serious efforts to give the president more flexible options for nuclear use short of global¶ annihilation. They never solved the problem, and it was always recognized that Washington¶ and Moscow both held the keys to unpredictable and potentially catastrophic escalations.
As a result, nuclear deterrence was useful in preventing only the most catastrophic scenarios¶ that would have threatened our survival. But even with the deployment of thousands of nuclear¶ weapons on both sides of the Iron Curtain, the Soviet moves into Hungary in 1956 and¶ Czechoslovakia in 1968 were not deterred. Nor were the numerous crises involving Berlin,¶ including the building of the Wall in 1961, or major wars in Korea and Vietnam, or the Soviet¶ invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In the case of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons did not¶ prevent collapse or regime change.
Today, the Cold War is almost 20 years behind us, but many leaders and publics cannot¶ conceive of deterrence without a strategy of mutual assured destruction. We have written¶ previously that reliance on this strategy is becoming increasingly hazardous. With the spread of¶ nuclear weapons, technology, materials and know‐how, there is an increasing risk that nuclear¶ weapons will be used.
It is not possible to replicate the high‐risk stability that prevailed between the two nuclear¶ superpowers during the Cold War in such an environment. The growing number of nations¶ with nuclear arms and differing motives, aims and ambitions poses very high and¶ unpredictable risks and increased instability.
From 1945 to 1991, America and the Soviet Union were diligent, professional, but also lucky¶ that nuclear weapons were never used. Does the world want to continue to bet its survival on¶ continued good fortune with a growing number of nuclear nations and adversaries globally?¶ Can we devise and successfully implement with other nations, including other nuclear powers,¶ careful, cooperative concepts to safely dismount the nuclear tiger while strengthening the¶ capacity to assure our security and that of allies and other countries considered essential to our¶ national security?

1AC – Economy

Two internal links – first is manufacturing

Slow manufacturing is driving us towards a recession
Reuters 12
(6/15/12  Dip in Manufacturing Suggests a Stalled U.S. Economy http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/16/business/economy/dip-in-manufacturing-could-suggest-stalled-economy.html#h[TiaIau,2])

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Factory output contracted in May for the second time in three months, the Federal Reserve said on Friday, and families took a dimmer view of their economic prospects in early June, signs that the economy’s recovery is on shaky ground. The new data was the latest in a series of reports portraying a weak economy that have led analysts to cut growth forecasts while raising expectations that the Federal Reserve will offer new stimulus measures. Until recently, manufacturing had been a buttress for the nation’s economy, helping it resist headwinds from Europe’s snowballing debt crisis. But in May, factory output shrank 0.4 percent, with plants producing fewer cars and less machinery, Federal Reserve data showed. “It’s more convincing evidence that the economy is stuck in low gear,” said Joe Manimbo, a market analyst at Travelex Global Business Payments. Other reports pointed to cooling factory activity in New York State this month, along with a drop in household confidence in the economy. The fall in confidence poses a serious threat to President Obama’s chances of winning re-election in November. It could also lead consumers to cut back on spending, which would reduce economic growth. “Consumers are scared,” said Sharon Stark, managing director at Sterne Agee in Birmingham, Ala. Consumer sentiment fell in early June to a six-month low. A gauge of household confidence in the economy’s future also dropped to its lowest since December. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s index on consumer sentiment slipped to 74.1, falling short of even the most pessimistic forecast in a Reuters poll. Economists at Capital Economics reckon the decline in consumer sentiment is consistent with growth in consumer spending slowing to a mere 1 percent annual rate in the second quarter, down from 2.7 percent in the first three months of the year. The weakening recovery in the United States and a worsening debt crisis in Europe have bolstered expectations of a further easing of monetary policy by the Fed, although economists are divided on whether the central bank will act when it meets on Tuesday and Wednesday. Hiring by the nation’s employers has slowed for four consecutive months, while retail sales contracted in May and new applications for jobless benefits have risen in five of the last six weeks. Within the Fed’s report on U.S. industry in May, the softness in the factory sector was widespread. Output for durable goods dropped 0.5 percent as auto production slid 1.5 percent. Production of nondurables fell 0.2 percent. Total industrial output, covering factories, mines and utilities, declined 0.1 percent. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected industrial production to rise 0.1 percent. In a sign the factory sector’s weakness could continue into June, the New York Federal Reserve Bank’s Empire State index fell to 2.3, a 15-point drop from the previous month and the lowest level since November 2011. That was far below economists’ expectations of 13, although the level still points to some growth. “That is another indication that the U.S. economy is slowing,” said Justin Hoogendoorn, a fixed-income strategist at BMO Capital Markets in Chicago. “It’s an ugly situation.”

Specifically, strong manufacturing key to prevent a double dip
NYT 12 (Floyd Norris - Floyd Norris is the chief financial correspondent of The New York Times and writes a weekly column for the financial section.Before joining The Times, Mr. Norris had been with Barron's National Business and Financial Weekly since December 1982,)
(1/5/12 “Manufacturing Is Surprising Bright Spot in U.S. Economy” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/business/us-manufacturing-is-a-bright-spot-for-the-economy.html#h[IaeBih,1])

Since employment in the United States hit its recent low, in February 2010, the economy has added 2.4 million jobs through November, of which 302,000 were in manufacturing. With government payrolls shrinking, and financial services jobs also fewer, manufacturing employment has played an important role in keeping the economy growing. It also is helping that construction employment appears to have hit bottom. In the first 11 months of 2011, it is up a small amount.
To be sure, the gains in manufacturing employment and exports have come after sharp declines during the recession and credit crisis. There are still 6 percent fewer manufacturing jobs than there were when President Obama took office at the beginning of 2009, and it seems very unlikely that he will be the first president since Bill Clinton, in his first term, to preside over growing manufacturing employment during a four-year term.
During George W. Bush’s two terms, the number of manufacturing jobs fell by 17 percent in the first four years and by 12 percent in the following four years. The number declined by 1 percent in Mr. Clinton’s second term.
The Institute for Supply Management survey of manufacturers has shown more companies planning to hire than to fire in every month since October 2009. That string of 27 months is the longest such string since 1972, but remains well behind the longest one, 36 months, which ended in December 1966.
Over all, that survey has indicated that a plurality of companies has believed business is getting better for 29 consecutive months, and December’s reading of 53.9 was the strongest since June.
This summer, one widely watched part of the Institute for Supply Management survey showed that a small plurality of companies reported new orders were falling, a fact that helped to stimulate talk of a double-dip recession. But the latest reading, of 57.6, indicates widespread strength in new orders.
In an economy where there is widespread concern over consumer spending, and in which government spending and payrolls are under heavy pressure, manufacturing has become a bright spot. It is not enough to produce a strong rebound, and it remains vulnerable to weakness overseas. But it has helped to keep a weak economic recovery from turning into a new recession.

Strong manufacturing is Key to growth and a stable economy – jobs, innovation, trade deficits, resiliency
Ettlinger and Gordon 11 (Michael Ettlinger is the Vice President for Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress.  Kate Gordon is the Vice President for Energy Policy at the Center for American Progress. )
(April 2011. Center for American Progress “The Importance and Promise of American Manufacturing” http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/04/pdf/manufacturing.pdf)

The health and future of manufacturing in the United States matters. For starters, it constitutes 12 percent of the U.S. economy. To put that in perspective, when the United States recently lost less than 4 percent of its gross domestic product, or national income, the result was labeled the “Great Recession.” Twelve percent of the economy matters a lot.
But the manufacturing sector also boasts an outsized importance that is understated by even that 12 percent. One key reason manufacturing is so important is its position as the cornerstone of the success of many other economically important activities. This role has been the subject of a longstanding debate as to whether the United States should hold onto its manufacturing sector or instead become a “postindustrial” society.
This debate started in the 1980s when Japanese goods started flooding the U.S. market. Some economists argued then that America should move beyond competition for manufacturing jobs and settle instead into a new economic growth pattern based on service jobs in knowledge-based industries. These economists argued that just as the United States shifted away from agriculture and into industry, so should it shift from industry into services as the primary source of economic activity for the future.
But this “manufacturing versus services” argument set up a false dichotomy. A strong manufacturing sector does not come at the cost of a strong service sector— to the contrary, each manufacturing job actually supports multiple jobs in other sectors. As economists Stephen Cohen and John Zysman wrote in the late 1980s, the manufacturing sector does not just include the group of employees who work on the factory floor. Instead, the manufacturing sector has “direct linkages” to high-level service jobs throughout the economy: product and process engineering, design, operations and maintenance, transportation, testing, and lab work, as well as sector-specific payroll, accounting, and legal work.
Furthermore, “the more advanced or modern the production process, the longer and more complicated the chains or linkages,” note Cohen and Zysman in their 1988 book Manufacturing Matters: The Myth of the Post-Industrial Economy.1 If anything, the phenomenon Cohen and Zysman observed is even more evident today as manufacturing industries create many indirect jobs for each direct job created. Motor vehicle manufacturing, for example, now creates 8.6 indirect jobs for each direct job. Computer manufacturing creates 5.6 indirect jobs and steel product manufacturing creates 10.3 indirect jobs for each direct job.2
So manufacturing creates jobs, not just in the manufacturing sector but in a host of other occupations and industries. But that doesn’t settle the issue of the importance of having actual, physical manufacturing take place in the United States. The question remains, can manufacturing happen in, say, China, but still create associated high-quality service jobs here at home? The answer is that it is, indeed, important that the actual, physical manufacturing occur here. Made in America matters.
When shop floor manufacturing jobs depart, other jobs go with them—and with those jobs goes the ability to create and innovate. Declines in the U.S. manufacturing sector mean declines in our nation’s overall “industrial commons”—a set of related industries and activities including those in the highly prized knowledgebased economy. According to Harvard economist Gary Pisano, when manufacturing moves overseas so does this industrial commons, meaning that we lose not only production prowess but also the process innovation that comes from colocating research and development, design, engineering, and manufacturing.
“In addition to undermining the ability of the United States to manufacture hightech products, the erosion of the industrial commons has seriously damaged the country’s ability to invent new ones,” writes Pisano in a recent Harvard Business Journal online debate.3 With the loss of the commons and the jobs comes a decline in U.S. workforce skills and the ability to invent and innovate that can only come from the hands-on experience of working in an industry.4
The upshot: If we lose our ability to make things, we may well lose our ability to invent them.
There is strong anecdotal evidence that if we cede production on a process invented in the United States then we may lose future iterations of innovation of that process. Solar panels are one example. Invented in New Jersey at Bell Laboratories in 1954, the production of solar photovoltaic panels has largely moved overseas (China is currently the world’s largest producer), and most new innovations in panel production, such as process improvements that make the panels far more powerful by altering their electrical properties, are happening outside of our nation.5
Interestingly, this is less true for nonpanel solar power innovations, such as the holographic solar applications pioneered by small startups in Arizona and New York, possibly because these new innovations are still cutting-edge and not yet in commercial production at any real scale.6 Once these technologies do scale up, however, they too may be produced and improved overseas.
One industry where the spatial relationship between manufacturing and innovation is most clearly shown by empirical data is the optoelectronics industry, which includes products such as lasers and fiber-optic telecommunications. In a recent set of studies, Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor Erica Fuchs examined the impact of offshoring production on technological innovation. Her key finding: When optoelectronics companies offshored production of their original designs to, for instance, Asia, they tended to produce those initial designs cheaply and efficiently. When these firms then began work on new and improved designs, however, they tended to lose valuable time and knowledge if their operations were off shore.7
Thus, moving manufacturing overseas impeded the companies’ ability to compete and keep at the forefront of design and production and to efficiently push forward new technologies.8 Inexorably, then, these companies will follow other manufacturers who have shifted design and innovation closer to their physical operations— witness the photovoltaic manufacturing industry.
Fuchs’s findings are critical not only to the question of why basing manufacturing in the United States matters but also to the analysis of what kinds of policies might best support the types of manufacturing that will ultimately put our nation in the best economic position. In the most simplistic terms, Fuchs’s research shows that when you’re talking about the United States, manufacturing does matter, but advanced and cutting-edge manufacturing matters even more. When such manufacturing leaves, it takes much more than the factory floor jobs—as important as those may be—it takes technology, innovation, and the next generation of products with it. The United States will clearly never again compete in the most low-wage, laborintensive areas of industrial production. But when it comes to advanced manufac turing that dominates the 21st century, we must compete if we want to hold onto our role as global innovators and entrepreneurs.
Beyond innovation and competitiveness, basing manufacturing in the United States also is important to our overall national and economic security. The most clear-cut example of this, of course, is the importance of being able to produce for the needs of our armed forces. The importance of domestic capabilities in defense manufacturing is obvious—one doesn’t want to be dependent on foreign suppliers in a time of conflict. Equally obvious is the importance of keeping innovations in military technology close to home.
This is underscored by a list kept by the State Department known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR, which designates the manufactured goods and services deemed to be “defense articles” and tightly controls their export and import.9 The list includes a range of items from firearms and nuclear weapons systems to less obvious items like energy conversion devices that are specifically designed for military application.10
Beyond defense, however, manufacturing offers a greater degree of economic security. The simple existence of the sector helps balance out other sectors to create a more stable economy overall.11 Had, for example, manufacturing been a larger share of the economy at the time of the recent housing and financial crises, the fragility of those two sectors would not have been quite as devastating to the overall economy.12
Indeed, when multilateral development banks such as the World Bank Group fund international projects in the developing world, they often point to the importance of a “diverse economy”—that is, an economy based on a wide range of profitable sectors, not just a few—as essential to sustained, broad-based economic growth. The same holds true for industrialized nations.
This kind of analysis, however, is seldom done in the United States at the national level because we have had a diverse economy overall. Individual regions and states, however, can be significantly less diversified.13 For this reason, states often develop economic plans aimed at making their economies more diverse. For instance, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm specifically set out to diversify her state’s economy away from traditional auto manufacturing and into other sectors such as solar technology, wave power, and electric drive trains.
This kind of economic development strategy is rarely tried at the national level, however, perhaps due to concerns about excess involvement of government in the operation of the economy. Still, research abroad and at the regional level in the United States makes clear that putting too many of our eggs in one sectoral basket is a bad bet for long-term stability.14 Manufacturing, like any sector, is affected by economywide events, but manufacturing’s internal diversity—supplying consumer goods as well as industrial goods, serving both domestic and external markets—gives it great potential resiliency in addition to simply adding one more leg for the broader economy to stand on.
Domestic manufacturing is also the key to more balanced trading relationships— a fact recognized by President Obama when he challenged the country to double its level of exports. Of course, that growth in exports doesn’t have to all be manufactured goods—but in truth it will need to mostly be notwithstanding the recent growth in services exports.
That growth in services exports receives a lot of the attention but it is to some degree misplaced. A good deal of that increase is actually a byproduct of the outsourcing of manufacturing overseas. For instance, when a U.S. company sets up a foreign subsidiary to manufacture in another country, its U.S. parent may charge the foreign subsidiary for royalties, licensing fees, accounting, and engineering services. These transactions can be counted as U.S. exports of services and, in fact, appear to explain a large portion of the increase in U.S. exports of services.
Yet these of course do not represent an increase in overall U.S. production—the activities are servicing the same manufacturing they always did—it’s just that the manufacturing itself has moved overseas. Hardly a plus for the country, especially given the increasing trend for these associated services to eventually follow on the heels of the manufacturing activities they support.
There also are inherent limitations in the export of services. Certainly bankers in New York can lend to firms in Tokyo, engineering consultants can advise clients in Frankfurt, and U.S. architects can design buildings in São Paulo. But that will always be the exception, not the rule. A Japanese borrower will generally first look to a Japanese lender, a European industrialist to a local engineering firm, and a South American real estate developer to a South American architect.
With manufactured goods it’s about the good itself, not the language or the culture or other aspect of a service relationship. While some areas of service exports can grow—and their promotion is certainly to be encouraged—manufacturing is where our export growth is going to have to come from. The bottom line: Without a robust manufacturing sector, the U.S. balance of payments will deteriorate and the exodus of our national savings and earnings will slowly sap our economic strength.
Finally, manufacturing matters for people. One-tenth of all jobs in the United States are in manufacturing and these pay on average 20 percent more than the national average.15 They pay decent wages to production workers, many of whom lack a four-year college degree but have technical or associate’s degrees in skills related to their manufacturing work. These middle-skill workers make up more than 60 percent of today’s workforce.
And manufacturing matters not to just these workers but to all workers. Without manufacturing the downward pressure on wages throughout the economy would increase, with negative consequences for America’s overall economic well-being— to wages, to income equality, and to middle-class families.
So manufacturing matters for America.16 It matters for our technological leadership, national security, economic security, economic stability, national wealth, and the well-being of the middle class that underpins our economic strength. It’s important, but is it too far gone to save? No. The good news is that while manufacturing in the United States is under threat, and faces serious challenges, it is by no means a mere relic of the past. It is a vibrant, large sector of our economy—even if sometimes it’s hard to see that as manufacturing jobs are lost, as factories close, and as sections of the country deindustrialize. To this we now turn.

The modular, factory built, nature of SMRs allow them to create jobs and support for manufacturing
Locatelli and Mancini 10 (Giorgio Locatelli and Mauro Mancini - Politecnico di Milano, Dept. Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering)
(11/13/10 “The role of the reactor size for an investment in the nuclear sector: An evaluation of not-financial parameters” http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149197010001575)

1. 1. Impact on employment
      This aspect is important especially for a public investor because welfare of the country is an important objective of his mission. However, a private investor will be interested to the government’s support following a higher number of new jobs created. This issue is so relevant that the literature is rich of frameworks for the evaluation of new jobs created from new NPP programs ( [U.S. DOE, 2005], [Oxford Economics, 2008], [INEEL, 2004], [Klinger et al., 2009] and [Bechtel Power Corporation et al., 2004]). The following considerations summarise their contribution with respect to the construction and the operation phases.
      11.1. Construction phase
      There are three different impacts on employment:
2. Direct. People employed in the manufacturing of components and modules, on-site construction and operation of NPP.
   2. Indirect. Jobs created in the extended nuclear supply chain: suppliers of equipment manufacturers, suppliers of machineries and building materials, agencies for inspection and safety controls.
   3. Induced. Jobs created in non-nuclear industries due to the new jobs added in the previous categories. They are the sum of non-nuclear jobs that would be created because of industry growth, such as additional grocery store employees, school teachers and residential construction workers. These jobs have a significant impact especially in local economies, as reported in ( [Wendling and Bezdek, 2006], [Nuclear Energy Institute, 2004] and [Nuclear Energy Institute, 2006]).
   The differential impact on new jobs creation is evaluated considering the comparison between an LR and four SMRs in the same site.
   Oxford’s study (Oxford Economics, 2008) used Input–Output analysis to define the relationships between different kinds of impact through the use of multipliers, as in Fig. 4. We extrapolated direct on-site and off-site man years required for the construction of a 1340 MWe reactor from ( [U.S. DOE, 2005] and [Oxford Economics, 2008]). For what concern SMRs, the values of the two direct impacts were obtained from LRs’ values through the application of labour and equipment coefficients in Garrone et al. (2009). Indirect and induced impacts were obtained from the applications of multipliers.
   Impact on construction employment is strongly differential and promotes the SMR choice:
3. The SMRs in co-siting configuration create 11% more man years content than LRs. Major part of new jobs opportunities created by SMRs are related to the major percentage of work content transferred off-site, through modularization and pre-fabrication approaches. Multipliers indicate that off-site direct employment drives greater indirect and induced effects than on-site direct employment. So, SMRs create a more beneficial impact thanks to the higher work content of facilities and the following induced effects. Moreover, this welfare benefit does not undermine attractiveness of the investment.
   2. The amount of on-site employment is in Fig. 5. The phased demand for LR is from Oxford Economics (2008). We re-arranged the approach to three-years-construction SMRs to obtain a plausible schedule.
   The literature (Thomas et al., 2009) shows that one of the biggest challenges is finding qualified people, including craft labourers and technicians (qualified boilermakers, pipefitters, electricians, ironworkers), to support construction. SMRs’ demand is more time-levelled, therefore it will be easier to face the shortage of qualified construction workers, even if the total number of man years is higher than LR.
   11.2. Operation phase
   Positions in this phase include permanent plant operators and engineers, managers, accountants and general staffs. Extrapolation from existing plants’ experience (IAEA, 2001) shows average staffing levels of approximately one person per MW(e) for a single unit LR. For SMRs, the specific staffing level tends to increase to about 1.5 person/MWe.
   But existing SMRs are only scale models of LR designs. New GEN III+ SMRs incorporate features that require fewer personnel to operate and maintain the plant in a safe and reliable manner. Model presented in Garrone et al. (2009) concludes that a site with four 335 MWe SMRs has an OandM cost 24% higher than a site with one 1340 MWe LR. Labour cost is about the 70% of total OandM costs, so operational work content will experience roughly the same increase.
   Concluding:
   • SMRs create a higher number of new jobs also in the operation phase;
   • new operation positions still involve indirect and induced impacts: SMRs and LRs are characterized by equal multipliers (Oxford Economics, 2008), but they amplify the higher direct operation employment of the SMR. Impact on operation employment is differential and promotes the SMR choice.
   SMRs, unlike traditional reactors are built domestically – which uniquely helps manufacturing and infrastructure
   Rosner and Goldberg 11 (Robert Rosner, Professor, Departments of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Physics, and the College; Senior Fellow @ UChicago. Stephen M. Goldberg is Special Assistant to the Director at Argonne National Laboratory)
   (November 2011. Energy Policy Institute at Chicago The Harris School of Public Policy Studies “Small Modular Reactors – Key to Future Nuclear Power Generation in the U.S.” https://epic.sites.uchicago.edu/sites/epic.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/EPICSMRWhitePaperFinalcopy.pdf)

As stated earlier, SMRs have the potential to achieve significant greenhouse gas emission reductions. They could provide alternative baseload power generation to facilitate the retirement of older, smaller, and less efficient coal generation plants that would, otherwise, not be good candidates for retrofitting carbon capture and storage technology. They could be deployed in regions of the U.S. and the world that have less potential for other forms of carbon-free electricity, such as solar or wind energy. There may be technical or market constraints, such as projected electricity demand growth and transmission capacity, which would support SMR deployment but not GW-scale LWRs. From the on-shore manufacturing perspective, a key point is that the manufacturing base needed for SMRs can be developed domestically. Thus, while the large commercial LWR industry is seeking to transplant portions of its supply chain from current foreign sources to the U.S., the SMR industry offers the potential to establish a large domestic manufacturing base building upon already existing U.S. manufacturing infrastructure and capability, including the Naval shipbuilding and underutilized domestic nuclear component and equipment plants. The study team learned that a number of sustainable domestic jobs could be created – that is, the full panoply of design, manufacturing, supplier, and construction activities – if the U.S. can establish itself as a credible and substantial designer and manufacturer of SMRs.
While many SMR technologies are being studied around the world, a strong U.S.
commercialization program can enable U.S. industry to be first to market SMRs, thereby serving as a fulcrum for export growth as well as a lever in influencing international decisions on deploying both nuclear reactor and nuclear fuel cycle technology. A viable U.S.-centric SMR industry would enable the U.S. to recapture technological leadership in commercial nuclear technology, which has been lost to suppliers in France, Japan, Korea, Russia, and, now rapidly emerging, China.

Scenario 2 is electric price volatility
Natural gas is inherently volatile – plan decreases dependence, which solves the economy
Huber 12
Lisa Huber, Rocky Mountain Institute Intern, 8/1/12, “Managing Natural Gas Volatility: The Answer is Blowin’ in the Wind,” http://blog.rmi.org/blog_Managing_Natural_Gas_Volatility_The_Answer_is_Blowin_in_the_wind
The recent shale gas boom has gained the reputation as our energy savior: clean, domestic, cheap, and plentiful. But, the attractiveness of today’s low natural gas price can cause us to overlook a serious risk: volatility. Natural gas is one of the riskiest commodities around, historically bearing twice the volatility price risk of oil. While this is common knowledge among industry professionals and commodity traders, the long-term risk often goes ignored, despite previous attempts to put a price tag on volatility. Why This Matters According to RMI Chief Scientist Amory Lovins, “we must not set our sights too low and end up with a 20-year plan instead of a 21st century goal.” This logic on the importance of long-term strategy is the driving force behind RMI’s Reinventing Fire, a vision and roadmap for a 150 percent bigger 2050 U.S. economy requiring no oil, coal, or nuclear energy, and one-third less natural gas. Without accounting for the volatility risk of natural gas, wholesale power-producing renewables don’t appear very competitive without the support of tax credits (expiring at the end of the year for wind) and renewable portfolio standards, whose incentives are less substantial than in the recent past. Investing in gas over wind without consideration of volatility would be like chasing yield without regard to risk—something a prudent investor would never dream of. As U.S. natural gas supply grows and liquefied natural gas export terminals come online, our economy becomes more and more dependent on the success of shale; changes in natural gas prices could greatly impact the broader market. Historically speaking, natural gas tends to move opposite the market (that’s a negative beta for the finance geeks out there). As natural gas prices rise and the market falls (remember 2008?), consumers take a significant hit.

Energy price volatility hurts the economy – it affects all consumers and businesses
EIA 01
Energy Information Administration 4/10/01, http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/economy/energy_price.html
Volatility matters for all consumers and producers in the economy. Business firms, both energy and non-energy, make investment decisions based on expectations about prices. If decisions are made on the expectation of low (or high) energy prices, and the energy market varies sharply from these expectations, firms may make inappropriate investment and business decisions. Even those firms that expect volatility may be adversely affected by simply putting off a decision until the market is more stable. Consumer purchases of housing and consumer durables such as autos and appliances are also affected by instability in energy markets. The economy would most likely perform better with stable or predictable energy prices, than when the price of energy fluctuates greatly.

Nuclear is key to reduce energy price volatility – it helps every sector
EU Department of Energy and Climate Change 12
EU Department of Energy and Climate Change 5/18/12, “Davey: Climate change policies could halve negative impacts of energy price shocks,” http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_061/pn12_061.aspx
“The more we can shift to alternative fuels, and use energy efficiently, the more we can ensure that our economy does not become hostage to far-flung events and to the volatility of market forces” (Edward Davey) The negative impact that spikes in global oil, gas and coal prices have on the UK could be reduced by over 50% in 2050 as a result of climate change policies, Edward Davey said today. The analysis, produced by Oxford Economics and commissioned by Government, shows how the UK’s sensitivity to oil and gas price shocks could be reduced by using low-carbon forms of electricity generation including renewables, new nuclear and through increasing energy efficiency. Secretary of State, Edward Davey said: “Every step the UK takes towards building a low-carbon economy reduces our dependency on fossil fuels, and on volatile global energy prices. “Only last year, the impact of the Arab Spring on wholesale gas prices, pushed up UK household bills by 20%. “The more we can shift to alternative fuels, and use energy efficiently, the more we can ensure that our economy does not become hostage to far-flung events and to the volatility of market forces. “Of course, there are costs to building more low-carbon plant, but the gains are so much greater, and crucially they are lasting. “This is about building a more resilient economy and providing more stable energy prices for the generations that follow us”. Energy prices have been trending up over the past decade and are becoming increasingly volatile. Once the UK fully transitions to a low-carbon economy, the negative impacts of energy price volatility on these 4 factors are halved: Halving the impact of energy price volatility on disposable household income, and therefore reducing amount households would have to put aside to spend on energy bills. Halving the negative impact on the level of business investment. Halving the impact on inflation Halving the impact on levels of unemployment, which could rise through increased economic inactivity caused by high energy prices.

Specifically, SMRs solve market risk and fit the need to replace natural gas
Rosner and Goldberg 11 (Robert Rosner, Professor, Departments of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Physics, and the College; Senior Fellow @ UChicago. Stephen M. Goldberg is Special Assistant to the Director at Argonne National Laboratory)
(November 2011. Energy Policy Institute at Chicago The Harris School of Public Policy Studies “Small Modular Reactors – Key to Future Nuclear Power Generation in the U.S.” https://epic.sites.uchicago.edu/sites/epic.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/EPICSMRWhitePaperFinalcopy.pdf)

Furthermore, CBO discussed the market risk associated with GW-scale plants: Market risk is the component of risk that investors cannot protect themselves against by diversifying their portfolios. Investors require compensation for market risk because investments exposed to such risk are more likely to have low returns when the economy as a whole is weak and resources are more highly valued…In the case of nuclear construction guarantees provided to investor-owned utilities or merchant power providers, for example, plant construction may be more likely to be slowed or canceled when the demand for electricity is depressed by a weak economy. 23,24
SMRs could potentially mitigate such a risk in several ways. First, SMRs have lower precompletion risk due to shorter construction schedules (24-36 months as compared with 48 months). Second, because of their smaller size, SMRs have lower market risk because there is significantly less power than needs to be sold as compared with GW-level plants. Finally, the modular nature of SMRs affords the flexibility to build capacity on an as-needed basis. In the case of unsubsidized financing, particularly relevant to merchant markets, utility decision makers that have significant aversion to risk of future natural gas spikes (i.e., gas prices rising to about $7/Mcf or one standard deviation above the recent average behavior of natural gas prices) would possibly view alternatives to gas-fired generation as attractive options, particularly if the investment requirements are comparable – SMRs could potentially “fit the bill.”

Economic collapse causes global nuclear war.
Merlini, Senior Fellow – Brookings, 11 [Cesare Merlini, nonresident senior fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Italian Institute for International Affairs (IAI) in Rome. He served as IAI president from 1979 to 2001. Until 2009, he also occupied the position of executive vice chairman of the Council for the United States and Italy, which he co-founded in 1983. His areas of expertise include transatlantic relations, European integration and nuclear non-proliferation, with particular focus on nuclear science and technology. A Post-Secular World?  DOI: 10.1080/00396338.2011.571015 Article Requests: Order Reprints : Request Permissions Published in: journal Survival, Volume 53, Issue 2 April 2011 , pages 117 - 130 Publication Frequency: 6 issues per year  Download PDF Download PDF (357 KB)     View Related Articles  To cite this Article: Merlini, Cesare 'A Post-Secular World?', Survival, 53:2, 117 – 130]
Two neatly opposed scenarios for the future of the world order illustrate the range of possibilities, albeit at the risk of oversimplification. The first scenario entails the premature crumbling of the post-Westphalian system. One or more of the acute tensions apparent today evolves into an open and traditional conflict between states, perhaps even involving the use of nuclear weapons. The crisis might be triggered by a collapse of the global economic and financial system, the vulnerability of which we have just experienced, and the prospect of a second Great Depression, with consequences for peace and democracy similar to those of the first. Whatever the trigger, the unlimited exercise of national sovereignty, exclusive self-interest and rejection of outside interference would likely be amplified, emptying, perhaps entirely, the half-full glass of multilateralism, including the UN and the European Union. Many of the more likely conflicts, such as between Israel and Iran or India and Pakistan, have potential religious dimensions. Short of war, tensions such as those related to immigration might become unbearable. Familiar issues of creed and identity could be exacerbated. One way or another, the secular rational approach would be sidestepped by a return to theocratic absolutes, competing or converging with secular absolutes such as unbridled nationalism.

Middle East prolif coming now– early detection key to head it off
Jones ’12, Gregory S. Jones, a senior researcher at the Nonproliferation  Policy Education Center, and an adjunct staff member at the RAND  Corporation. Mr. Jones has been a defense policy analyst for the last 38 years, June 2012, “Facing the Reality of Iran as a De Facto Nuclear State”, http://www.npolicy.org/userfiles/file/oving%20Beyond%20Pretense%20web%20version.pdf#page=182
Nonproliferation after Iran
If Iran is already a de facto nuclear weapons state, where should the U.S. go from here with regards to its nonproliferation policy? The key will be to learn from our failure with Iran and prevent additional countries from acquiring nuclear weapons. This will require a two  prong approach.
First, as President Obama has indicated, Iran’s de facto nuclear status will motivate a number of other countries to try to emulate Iran’s success. The U.S. needs to take decisive action to head off these efforts on a county by country basis as soon as the first steps towards acquiring the fissile material for nuclear weapons are detected. Taking early action runs counter to normal government instinct, which  is to try to “kick the can down the road” and avoid taking any unpleasant actions unless it has to. The lack of early action has been a hallmark of U.S. nonproliferation policy since the Reagan Administration, and has allowed Pakistan, India, North Korea and now Iran to acquire the fissile material required for nuclear weapons.
Yet as we saw with Libya, early action can be quite effective. Many believe that Gaddafi made a mistake by giving up a nuclear weapons program but the fact of the matter is that he had no choice. His effort was discovered early, before Libya had even begun to enrich uranium, and Gaddafi had no other option.
Second, there needs to be a change to the IAEA’s safeguards regime to prevent countries from acquiring the fissile material needed for nuclear weapons with the IAEA’s approval. Some in the U.S. Congress have called for military action against Iran if it starts to enrich uranium to levels greater than 20, but under current IAEA rules such Iranian actions would be perfectly acceptable as long as Iran declared the activity to the IAEA. Similarly, the IAEA permits nonnuclear weapons states to produce pure compounds of plutonium by reprocessing spent fuel. Informally, the IAEA does require that the country carrying out these activities provide some rationale as to how these activities are related to some peaceful nuclear activity but the rationale does not have to be very plausible. For example, a country can say that it is stockpiling the plutonium for use in a breeder reactor even if it is now more than 40 years since such reactors were first supposed to come into operation and that such reactors are still decades away.
Much of providing the proper rationale involves learning to play the game properly. As was discussed above, Iran got itself into trouble by conducting clandestine nuclear activities prior to 2004. More recently Iran did a better job and explained that its production of 20enriched uranium was required to produce research reactor fuel. This activity, which is generally agreed to be carrying Iran close to the possession of the fissile material for a nuclear weapon, has not caused the IAEA to say that Iran is violating safeguards even though Iran is currently producing more 20 enriched uranium in one month than the research reactor uses in one year.¶ The U.S. Government has recognized this problem and in its Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with the United Arab Emirates, it requires the UAE not possess facilities that can be used for uranium ¶ enrichment or the reprocessing of spent fuel, which could produce ¶ plutonium, HEU or U-233 (another material that can be used to produce nuclear weapons). However, the U.S. administration has discovered the drawback of attempting to handle this problem though ¶ bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements. In the face of competition from Russia and France, the U.S. has proposed nuclear cooperation agreements with Vietnam and Jordan that lack these provisions on enriching and reprocessing. Only if the issue is approached by the IAEA will there be uniform standards without commercial pressures undercutting nonproliferation.
Furthermore, even the standards for the UAE are not enough. Nonnuclear weapons states need to be prohibited from possessing any materials or facilities that can quickly provide fissile material for nuclear weapons. This includes prohibiting not only enrichment and reprocessing facilities, but also HEU, plutonium, or U-233 that has either been separated from spent fuel or and HEU, plutonium or U-233 contained in unirradiated reactor fuel (such as HEU fuel for research reactors or mixed oxide fuel for power reactors).The IAEA does not have the legal authority to prohibit countries from possessing such materials or facilities, but it does have the responsibility to safeguard these materials and facilities. As I have discussed elsewhere,¶ 19
IAEA safeguards are supposed to be more than just an accounting system; they should provide “timely warning” of diversions of nuclear materials. However, the IAEA cannot safeguard these facilities and materials in a timely warning sense. The IAEA needs to admit this fact and make clear that any such facilities and materials in nonnuclear weapons states are not being ¶ effectively safeguarded. This issue is significantly larger than just Iran and, at a minimum, includes Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, ¶ and Brazil. It will be up to these countries to explain why they need to continue to possess these materials and facilities since they cannot be effectively safeguarded. Given the state of nuclear power in a post-Fukushima world, this could be difficult.
The U.S. needs to urge the IAEA to be clear about what materials and facilities it can effectively safeguard and which it cannot. At the same time, the U.S. needs to take early action to ensure that any countries that attempt to follow Iran’s successful path are prevented from gaining access to the fissile material required for nuclear weapons. Otherwise, the number of nuclear-armed countries will continue to grow until the catastrophe of nuclear use occurs. Just one nuclear weapon detonated in a city could kill hundreds of thousands of people—roughly 100 times as many as were killed on 9/11.

Proliferation causes nuclear war.
Heisbourg ’12, [Francois Heisbourg, Chairman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, prof at the Geneva Center for Security Policy, July 2012, “How Bad Would the Further Spread of Nuclear Weapons Be?”, http://www.npolicy.org/userfiles/file/oving%20Beyond%20Pretense%20web%20version.pdf#page=182]
Human societies tend to lack the imagination to think through, and to act upon, what have become known as “black swan” events 26 : That which has never occurred (or which has happened very rarely and in a wholly different context) is deemed not to be in the field of reality, and to which must be added eventualities that are denied because their consequences are too awful to contemplate. The extremes of human misconduct (the incredulity in the face of evidence of the Holocaust, the failure to imagine 9/11) bear testimony to this hardwired trait of our species. This would not normally warrant mention as a factor of growing salience if not for the recession into time of the original and only use of nuclear weapons in August 1945. Nonuse of nuclear weapons may soon be taken for granted rather than being an absolute taboo. Recent writing on the reputedly limited effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs 27 may contribute to such a trend, in the name of reducing the legitimacy of nuclear weapons. Recent, and often compelling, historical accounts of the surrender of the Japanese Empire that downplay the role of the atomic bombings in comparison to early research can produce a similar effect, even if that may not have been the intention. 28 However desirable it has been, the end of atmospheric nuclear testing 29 has removed for more than three decades the periodic reminders that such monstrous detonations made as to the uniquely destructive nature of nuclear weapons. There is a real and growing risk that we forget what was obvious to those who first described in 1941 the unique nature of yet-to-be produced nuclear weapons. 30 The risk is no doubt higher in those states for which the history of World War II has little relevance and that have not had the will or the opportunity to wrestle at the time or ex post facto with the moral and strategic implications of the nuclear bombing of Japan in 1945.
Unsustainable strains are possibly the single most compelling feature of contemporary proliferation. Examples include tight geographical constraints–with, for instance, New Delhi and Islamabad, located within 300 miles of each other; nuclear multi-polarity against the backdrop of multiple, crisscrossing sources of tension in the Middle East, as opposed to the relative simplicity of the U.S.-Soviet confrontation; the existence of doctrines, such as India’s “cold start,” and force postures, such as Pakistan’s broadening array of battle- field nukes, that rest on the expectation of early use; and the role of non-state actors as aggravating or triggering factors when they are perceived as operating with the connivance of an antagonist state (in the past, the assassination of the Austrian Archduke in Sarajevo in 1914; and in the future, Hezbollah operatives launching rockets with effect against Israel or Lashkar-e-Taiba commandos doing a “Bombay” redux in India?). Individually or in combination, these factors test crisis management capabilities more severely than anything seen during the Cold War with the partial exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Even the overabundant battlefield nuclear arsenals in Cold War Central Europe, with their iffy weapons’ safety and security arrangements, were less of a challenge: The U.S. and Soviet short-range nuclear weapons so deployed were not putting U.S. and Soviet territory and capitals at risk.
 It may be argued that these risk factors are known to potential protagonists and that they therefore will be led to avoid the sort of nuclear brinksmanship that characterized U.S. and Soviet behavior during the Cold War in crises such as the Korean War, Berlin, Cuba or the Yom Kippur War. Unfortunately, the multiple nuclear crises between India and Pakistan demonstrate no such prudence, rather the contrary. And were such restraint to feed into nuclear policy and crisis planning, along the lines of apparently greater U.S. and Soviet nuclear caution from the mid-seventies onwards, the fact would remain that initial intent rarely resists the strains of a complex, multiactor confrontation between inherently distrustful antagonists. It is also worth reflecting on the fact that during the 1980s there was real and acute fear in Soviet ruling circles that the West was preparing an out-of-the-blue nuclear strike, a fear which in turn fed into Soviet policies and dispositions. 31
The Cold War was a set of crises and misunderstandings that came within a whisker of a nuclear holocaust. India and Pakistan’s nuclear standoff is deeply unstable, not least as a result of the interaction with non-state actors. A multipolar nuclear Middle East would make the Cuban Missile Crisis look easy in comparison.

New nuclear powers lack safeguards and deterrence capabilities – that’s uniquely destabilizing.
Edelman et al. ’11, Eric S. Edelman, former Under Secretary of Defense, former U.S. Ambassador, and former Principal Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, Andrew F. Krepinevich, defense policy analyst, West point grad, director of the non-profit Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, and Evan Braden Montgomery, research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, January 2011, "The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran: The Limits of Containment" 

More important, emerging nuclear powers in the Middle East might not take the costly steps necessary to preserve regional stability and avoid a nuclear exchange. For nuclear-armed states, the bedrock of deterrence is the knowledge that each side has a secure second-strike capability, so that no state can launch an attack with the expectation that it can wipe out its opponents’ forces and avoid a devastating retaliation. However, emerging nuclear powers might not invest in expensive but survivable capabilities such as hardened missile silos or submarine based nuclear forces. Given this likely vulnerability, the close proximity of states in the Middle East, and the very short flight times of ballistic missiles in the region, any new nuclear powers might be compelled to “launch on warning” of an attack or even, during a crisis, to use their nuclear forces preemptively. Their governments might also delegate launch authority to lower-level commanders, heightening the possibility of miscalculation and escalation. Moreover, if early warning systems were not integrated into robust command-and-control systems, the risk of an unauthorized or accidental launch would increase further still. And without sophisticated early warning systems, a nuclear attack might be unattributable or attributed incorrectly. That is, assuming that the leadership of a targeted state survived a first strike, it might not be able to accurately determine which nation was responsible. And this uncertainty, when combined with the pressure to respond quickly, would create a significant risk that it would retaliate against the wrong party, potentially triggering a regional nuclear war.

Nuclear deterrence fails. Impossible to replicate Cold War stability.
Shultz et al. ’11, George P. Shultz, former secretary of state, William J. Perry, former secretary of defense, Henry A. Kissinger, former secretary of state, and Sam Nunn, former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, 04-07-2011“Deterrence in an Age of Nuclear Deterrence”, http://www.nonukes.nl/media/files/2011-03-07-gang-of-four-tnw.pdf
As long as there has been war, there have been efforts to deter actions a nation considers¶ threatening. Until fairly recently, this meant building a military establishment capable of¶ intimidating the adversary, defeating him or making his victory more costly than the projected¶ gains. This, with conventional weapons, took time. Deterrence and war strategy were identical.¶ The advent of the nuclear weapon introduced entirely new factors. It was possible, for the first¶ time, to inflict at the beginning of a war the maximum casualties. The doctrine of mutual¶ assured destruction represented this reality. Deterrence based on nuclear weapons, therefore,¶ has three elements:
 It is importantly psychological, depending on calculations for which there is no historical¶ experience. It is therefore precarious.
 It is devastating. An unrestrained nuclear exchange between superpowers could destroy¶ civilized life as we know it in days.
 Mutual assured destruction raises enormous inhibitions against employing the weapons.¶ Since the first use of nuclear weapons against Japan, neither of the superpowers, nor any other¶ country, has used nuclear weapons in a war. A gap opened between the psychological element¶ of deterrence and the risks most leaders were willing to incur. U.S. defense leaders made¶ serious efforts to give the president more flexible options for nuclear use short of global¶ annihilation. They never solved the problem, and it was always recognized that Washington¶ and Moscow both held the keys to unpredictable and potentially catastrophic escalations.
As a result, nuclear deterrence was useful in preventing only the most catastrophic scenarios¶ that would have threatened our survival. But even with the deployment of thousands of nuclear¶ weapons on both sides of the Iron Curtain, the Soviet moves into Hungary in 1956 and¶ Czechoslovakia in 1968 were not deterred. Nor were the numerous crises involving Berlin,¶ including the building of the Wall in 1961, or major wars in Korea and Vietnam, or the Soviet¶ invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In the case of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons did not¶ prevent collapse or regime change.
Today, the Cold War is almost 20 years behind us, but many leaders and publics cannot¶ conceive of deterrence without a strategy of mutual assured destruction. We have written¶ previously that reliance on this strategy is becoming increasingly hazardous. With the spread of¶ nuclear weapons, technology, materials and know‐how, there is an increasing risk that nuclear¶ weapons will be used.
It is not possible to replicate the high‐risk stability that prevailed between the two nuclear¶ superpowers during the Cold War in such an environment. The growing number of nations¶ with nuclear arms and differing motives, aims and ambitions poses very high and¶ unpredictable risks and increased instability.
From 1945 to 1991, America and the Soviet Union were diligent, professional, but also lucky¶ that nuclear weapons were never used. Does the world want to continue to bet its survival on¶ continued good fortune with a growing number of nuclear nations and adversaries globally?¶ Can we devise and successfully implement with other nations, including other nuclear powers,¶ careful, cooperative concepts to safely dismount the nuclear tiger while strengthening the¶ capacity to assure our security and that of allies and other countries considered essential to our¶ national security?

1AC – Economy

Two internal links – first is manufacturing

Slow manufacturing is driving us towards a recession
Reuters 12
(6/15/12  Dip in Manufacturing Suggests a Stalled U.S. Economy http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/16/business/economy/dip-in-manufacturing-could-suggest-stalled-economy.html#h[TiaIau,2])

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Factory output contracted in May for the second time in three months, the Federal Reserve said on Friday, and families took a dimmer view of their economic prospects in early June, signs that the economy’s recovery is on shaky ground. The new data was the latest in a series of reports portraying a weak economy that have led analysts to cut growth forecasts while raising expectations that the Federal Reserve will offer new stimulus measures. Until recently, manufacturing had been a buttress for the nation’s economy, helping it resist headwinds from Europe’s snowballing debt crisis. But in May, factory output shrank 0.4 percent, with plants producing fewer cars and less machinery, Federal Reserve data showed. “It’s more convincing evidence that the economy is stuck in low gear,” said Joe Manimbo, a market analyst at Travelex Global Business Payments. Other reports pointed to cooling factory activity in New York State this month, along with a drop in household confidence in the economy. The fall in confidence poses a serious threat to President Obama’s chances of winning re-election in November. It could also lead consumers to cut back on spending, which would reduce economic growth. “Consumers are scared,” said Sharon Stark, managing director at Sterne Agee in Birmingham, Ala. Consumer sentiment fell in early June to a six-month low. A gauge of household confidence in the economy’s future also dropped to its lowest since December. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s index on consumer sentiment slipped to 74.1, falling short of even the most pessimistic forecast in a Reuters poll. Economists at Capital Economics reckon the decline in consumer sentiment is consistent with growth in consumer spending slowing to a mere 1 percent annual rate in the second quarter, down from 2.7 percent in the first three months of the year. The weakening recovery in the United States and a worsening debt crisis in Europe have bolstered expectations of a further easing of monetary policy by the Fed, although economists are divided on whether the central bank will act when it meets on Tuesday and Wednesday. Hiring by the nation’s employers has slowed for four consecutive months, while retail sales contracted in May and new applications for jobless benefits have risen in five of the last six weeks. Within the Fed’s report on U.S. industry in May, the softness in the factory sector was widespread. Output for durable goods dropped 0.5 percent as auto production slid 1.5 percent. Production of nondurables fell 0.2 percent. Total industrial output, covering factories, mines and utilities, declined 0.1 percent. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected industrial production to rise 0.1 percent. In a sign the factory sector’s weakness could continue into June, the New York Federal Reserve Bank’s Empire State index fell to 2.3, a 15-point drop from the previous month and the lowest level since November 2011. That was far below economists’ expectations of 13, although the level still points to some growth. “That is another indication that the U.S. economy is slowing,” said Justin Hoogendoorn, a fixed-income strategist at BMO Capital Markets in Chicago. “It’s an ugly situation.”

Specifically, strong manufacturing key to prevent a double dip
NYT 12 (Floyd Norris - Floyd Norris is the chief financial correspondent of The New York Times and writes a weekly column for the financial section.Before joining The Times, Mr. Norris had been with Barron's National Business and Financial Weekly since December 1982,)
(1/5/12 “Manufacturing Is Surprising Bright Spot in U.S. Economy” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/business/us-manufacturing-is-a-bright-spot-for-the-economy.html#h[IaeBih,1])

Since employment in the United States hit its recent low, in February 2010, the economy has added 2.4 million jobs through November, of which 302,000 were in manufacturing. With government payrolls shrinking, and financial services jobs also fewer, manufacturing employment has played an important role in keeping the economy growing. It also is helping that construction employment appears to have hit bottom. In the first 11 months of 2011, it is up a small amount.
To be sure, the gains in manufacturing employment and exports have come after sharp declines during the recession and credit crisis. There are still 6 percent fewer manufacturing jobs than there were when President Obama took office at the beginning of 2009, and it seems very unlikely that he will be the first president since Bill Clinton, in his first term, to preside over growing manufacturing employment during a four-year term.
During George W. Bush’s two terms, the number of manufacturing jobs fell by 17 percent in the first four years and by 12 percent in the following four years. The number declined by 1 percent in Mr. Clinton’s second term.
The Institute for Supply Management survey of manufacturers has shown more companies planning to hire than to fire in every month since October 2009. That string of 27 months is the longest such string since 1972, but remains well behind the longest one, 36 months, which ended in December 1966.
Over all, that survey has indicated that a plurality of companies has believed business is getting better for 29 consecutive months, and December’s reading of 53.9 was the strongest since June.
This summer, one widely watched part of the Institute for Supply Management survey showed that a small plurality of companies reported new orders were falling, a fact that helped to stimulate talk of a double-dip recession. But the latest reading, of 57.6, indicates widespread strength in new orders.
In an economy where there is widespread concern over consumer spending, and in which government spending and payrolls are under heavy pressure, manufacturing has become a bright spot. It is not enough to produce a strong rebound, and it remains vulnerable to weakness overseas. But it has helped to keep a weak economic recovery from turning into a new recession.

Strong manufacturing is Key to growth and a stable economy – jobs, innovation, trade deficits, resiliency
Ettlinger and Gordon 11 (Michael Ettlinger is the Vice President for Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress.  Kate Gordon is the Vice President for Energy Policy at the Center for American Progress. )
(April 2011. Center for American Progress “The Importance and Promise of American Manufacturing” http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/04/pdf/manufacturing.pdf)

The health and future of manufacturing in the United States matters. For starters, it constitutes 12 percent of the U.S. economy. To put that in perspective, when the United States recently lost less than 4 percent of its gross domestic product, or national income, the result was labeled the “Great Recession.” Twelve percent of the economy matters a lot.
But the manufacturing sector also boasts an outsized importance that is understated by even that 12 percent. One key reason manufacturing is so important is its position as the cornerstone of the success of many other economically important activities. This role has been the subject of a longstanding debate as to whether the United States should hold onto its manufacturing sector or instead become a “postindustrial” society.
This debate started in the 1980s when Japanese goods started flooding the U.S. market. Some economists argued then that America should move beyond competition for manufacturing jobs and settle instead into a new economic growth pattern based on service jobs in knowledge-based industries. These economists argued that just as the United States shifted away from agriculture and into industry, so should it shift from industry into services as the primary source of economic activity for the future.
But this “manufacturing versus services” argument set up a false dichotomy. A strong manufacturing sector does not come at the cost of a strong service sector— to the contrary, each manufacturing job actually supports multiple jobs in other sectors. As economists Stephen Cohen and John Zysman wrote in the late 1980s, the manufacturing sector does not just include the group of employees who work on the factory floor. Instead, the manufacturing sector has “direct linkages” to high-level service jobs throughout the economy: product and process engineering, design, operations and maintenance, transportation, testing, and lab work, as well as sector-specific payroll, accounting, and legal work.
Furthermore, “the more advanced or modern the production process, the longer and more complicated the chains or linkages,” note Cohen and Zysman in their 1988 book Manufacturing Matters: The Myth of the Post-Industrial Economy.1 If anything, the phenomenon Cohen and Zysman observed is even more evident today as manufacturing industries create many indirect jobs for each direct job created. Motor vehicle manufacturing, for example, now creates 8.6 indirect jobs for each direct job. Computer manufacturing creates 5.6 indirect jobs and steel product manufacturing creates 10.3 indirect jobs for each direct job.2
So manufacturing creates jobs, not just in the manufacturing sector but in a host of other occupations and industries. But that doesn’t settle the issue of the importance of having actual, physical manufacturing take place in the United States. The question remains, can manufacturing happen in, say, China, but still create associated high-quality service jobs here at home? The answer is that it is, indeed, important that the actual, physical manufacturing occur here. Made in America matters.
When shop floor manufacturing jobs depart, other jobs go with them—and with those jobs goes the ability to create and innovate. Declines in the U.S. manufacturing sector mean declines in our nation’s overall “industrial commons”—a set of related industries and activities including those in the highly prized knowledgebased economy. According to Harvard economist Gary Pisano, when manufacturing moves overseas so does this industrial commons, meaning that we lose not only production prowess but also the process innovation that comes from colocating research and development, design, engineering, and manufacturing.
“In addition to undermining the ability of the United States to manufacture hightech products, the erosion of the industrial commons has seriously damaged the country’s ability to invent new ones,” writes Pisano in a recent Harvard Business Journal online debate.3 With the loss of the commons and the jobs comes a decline in U.S. workforce skills and the ability to invent and innovate that can only come from the hands-on experience of working in an industry.4
The upshot: If we lose our ability to make things, we may well lose our ability to invent them.
There is strong anecdotal evidence that if we cede production on a process invented in the United States then we may lose future iterations of innovation of that process. Solar panels are one example. Invented in New Jersey at Bell Laboratories in 1954, the production of solar photovoltaic panels has largely moved overseas (China is currently the world’s largest producer), and most new innovations in panel production, such as process improvements that make the panels far more powerful by altering their electrical properties, are happening outside of our nation.5
Interestingly, this is less true for nonpanel solar power innovations, such as the holographic solar applications pioneered by small startups in Arizona and New York, possibly because these new innovations are still cutting-edge and not yet in commercial production at any real scale.6 Once these technologies do scale up, however, they too may be produced and improved overseas.
One industry where the spatial relationship between manufacturing and innovation is most clearly shown by empirical data is the optoelectronics industry, which includes products such as lasers and fiber-optic telecommunications. In a recent set of studies, Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor Erica Fuchs examined the impact of offshoring production on technological innovation. Her key finding: When optoelectronics companies offshored production of their original designs to, for instance, Asia, they tended to produce those initial designs cheaply and efficiently. When these firms then began work on new and improved designs, however, they tended to lose valuable time and knowledge if their operations were off shore.7
Thus, moving manufacturing overseas impeded the companies’ ability to compete and keep at the forefront of design and production and to efficiently push forward new technologies.8 Inexorably, then, these companies will follow other manufacturers who have shifted design and innovation closer to their physical operations— witness the photovoltaic manufacturing industry.
Fuchs’s findings are critical not only to the question of why basing manufacturing in the United States matters but also to the analysis of what kinds of policies might best support the types of manufacturing that will ultimately put our nation in the best economic position. In the most simplistic terms, Fuchs’s research shows that when you’re talking about the United States, manufacturing does matter, but advanced and cutting-edge manufacturing matters even more. When such manufacturing leaves, it takes much more than the factory floor jobs—as important as those may be—it takes technology, innovation, and the next generation of products with it. The United States will clearly never again compete in the most low-wage, laborintensive areas of industrial production. But when it comes to advanced manufac turing that dominates the 21st century, we must compete if we want to hold onto our role as global innovators and entrepreneurs.
Beyond innovation and competitiveness, basing manufacturing in the United States also is important to our overall national and economic security. The most clear-cut example of this, of course, is the importance of being able to produce for the needs of our armed forces. The importance of domestic capabilities in defense manufacturing is obvious—one doesn’t want to be dependent on foreign suppliers in a time of conflict. Equally obvious is the importance of keeping innovations in military technology close to home.
This is underscored by a list kept by the State Department known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR, which designates the manufactured goods and services deemed to be “defense articles” and tightly controls their export and import.9 The list includes a range of items from firearms and nuclear weapons systems to less obvious items like energy conversion devices that are specifically designed for military application.10
Beyond defense, however, manufacturing offers a greater degree of economic security. The simple existence of the sector helps balance out other sectors to create a more stable economy overall.11 Had, for example, manufacturing been a larger share of the economy at the time of the recent housing and financial crises, the fragility of those two sectors would not have been quite as devastating to the overall economy.12
Indeed, when multilateral development banks such as the World Bank Group fund international projects in the developing world, they often point to the importance of a “diverse economy”—that is, an economy based on a wide range of profitable sectors, not just a few—as essential to sustained, broad-based economic growth. The same holds true for industrialized nations.
This kind of analysis, however, is seldom done in the United States at the national level because we have had a diverse economy overall. Individual regions and states, however, can be significantly less diversified.13 For this reason, states often develop economic plans aimed at making their economies more diverse. For instance, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm specifically set out to diversify her state’s economy away from traditional auto manufacturing and into other sectors such as solar technology, wave power, and electric drive trains.
This kind of economic development strategy is rarely tried at the national level, however, perhaps due to concerns about excess involvement of government in the operation of the economy. Still, research abroad and at the regional level in the United States makes clear that putting too many of our eggs in one sectoral basket is a bad bet for long-term stability.14 Manufacturing, like any sector, is affected by economywide events, but manufacturing’s internal diversity—supplying consumer goods as well as industrial goods, serving both domestic and external markets—gives it great potential resiliency in addition to simply adding one more leg for the broader economy to stand on.
Domestic manufacturing is also the key to more balanced trading relationships— a fact recognized by President Obama when he challenged the country to double its level of exports. Of course, that growth in exports doesn’t have to all be manufactured goods—but in truth it will need to mostly be notwithstanding the recent growth in services exports.
That growth in services exports receives a lot of the attention but it is to some degree misplaced. A good deal of that increase is actually a byproduct of the outsourcing of manufacturing overseas. For instance, when a U.S. company sets up a foreign subsidiary to manufacture in another country, its U.S. parent may charge the foreign subsidiary for royalties, licensing fees, accounting, and engineering services. These transactions can be counted as U.S. exports of services and, in fact, appear to explain a large portion of the increase in U.S. exports of services.
Yet these of course do not represent an increase in overall U.S. production—the activities are servicing the same manufacturing they always did—it’s just that the manufacturing itself has moved overseas. Hardly a plus for the country, especially given the increasing trend for these associated services to eventually follow on the heels of the manufacturing activities they support.
There also are inherent limitations in the export of services. Certainly bankers in New York can lend to firms in Tokyo, engineering consultants can advise clients in Frankfurt, and U.S. architects can design buildings in São Paulo. But that will always be the exception, not the rule. A Japanese borrower will generally first look to a Japanese lender, a European industrialist to a local engineering firm, and a South American real estate developer to a South American architect.
With manufactured goods it’s about the good itself, not the language or the culture or other aspect of a service relationship. While some areas of service exports can grow—and their promotion is certainly to be encouraged—manufacturing is where our export growth is going to have to come from. The bottom line: Without a robust manufacturing sector, the U.S. balance of payments will deteriorate and the exodus of our national savings and earnings will slowly sap our economic strength.
Finally, manufacturing matters for people. One-tenth of all jobs in the United States are in manufacturing and these pay on average 20 percent more than the national average.15 They pay decent wages to production workers, many of whom lack a four-year college degree but have technical or associate’s degrees in skills related to their manufacturing work. These middle-skill workers make up more than 60 percent of today’s workforce.
And manufacturing matters not to just these workers but to all workers. Without manufacturing the downward pressure on wages throughout the economy would increase, with negative consequences for America’s overall economic well-being— to wages, to income equality, and to middle-class families.
So manufacturing matters for America.16 It matters for our technological leadership, national security, economic security, economic stability, national wealth, and the well-being of the middle class that underpins our economic strength. It’s important, but is it too far gone to save? No. The good news is that while manufacturing in the United States is under threat, and faces serious challenges, it is by no means a mere relic of the past. It is a vibrant, large sector of our economy—even if sometimes it’s hard to see that as manufacturing jobs are lost, as factories close, and as sections of the country deindustrialize. To this we now turn.

The modular, factory built, nature of SMRs allow them to create jobs and support for manufacturing
Locatelli and Mancini 10 (Giorgio Locatelli and Mauro Mancini - Politecnico di Milano, Dept. Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering)
(11/13/10 “The role of the reactor size for an investment in the nuclear sector: An evaluation of not-financial parameters” http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149197010001575)

1. 1. Impact on employment
      This aspect is important especially for a public investor because welfare of the country is an important objective of his mission. However, a private investor will be interested to the government’s support following a higher number of new jobs created. This issue is so relevant that the literature is rich of frameworks for the evaluation of new jobs created from new NPP programs ( [U.S. DOE, 2005], [Oxford Economics, 2008], [INEEL, 2004], [Klinger et al., 2009] and [Bechtel Power Corporation et al., 2004]). The following considerations summarise their contribution with respect to the construction and the operation phases.
      11.1. Construction phase
      There are three different impacts on employment:
2. Direct. People employed in the manufacturing of components and modules, on-site construction and operation of NPP.
   2. Indirect. Jobs created in the extended nuclear supply chain: suppliers of equipment manufacturers, suppliers of machineries and building materials, agencies for inspection and safety controls.
   3. Induced. Jobs created in non-nuclear industries due to the new jobs added in the previous categories. They are the sum of non-nuclear jobs that would be created because of industry growth, such as additional grocery store employees, school teachers and residential construction workers. These jobs have a significant impact especially in local economies, as reported in ( [Wendling and Bezdek, 2006], [Nuclear Energy Institute, 2004] and [Nuclear Energy Institute, 2006]).
   The differential impact on new jobs creation is evaluated considering the comparison between an LR and four SMRs in the same site.
   Oxford’s study (Oxford Economics, 2008) used Input–Output analysis to define the relationships between different kinds of impact through the use of multipliers, as in Fig. 4. We extrapolated direct on-site and off-site man years required for the construction of a 1340 MWe reactor from ( [U.S. DOE, 2005] and [Oxford Economics, 2008]). For what concern SMRs, the values of the two direct impacts were obtained from LRs’ values through the application of labour and equipment coefficients in Garrone et al. (2009). Indirect and induced impacts were obtained from the applications of multipliers.
   Impact on construction employment is strongly differential and promotes the SMR choice:
3. The SMRs in co-siting configuration create 11% more man years content than LRs. Major part of new jobs opportunities created by SMRs are related to the major percentage of work content transferred off-site, through modularization and pre-fabrication approaches. Multipliers indicate that off-site direct employment drives greater indirect and induced effects than on-site direct employment. So, SMRs create a more beneficial impact thanks to the higher work content of facilities and the following induced effects. Moreover, this welfare benefit does not undermine attractiveness of the investment.
   2. The amount of on-site employment is in Fig. 5. The phased demand for LR is from Oxford Economics (2008). We re-arranged the approach to three-years-construction SMRs to obtain a plausible schedule.
   The literature (Thomas et al., 2009) shows that one of the biggest challenges is finding qualified people, including craft labourers and technicians (qualified boilermakers, pipefitters, electricians, ironworkers), to support construction. SMRs’ demand is more time-levelled, therefore it will be easier to face the shortage of qualified construction workers, even if the total number of man years is higher than LR.
   11.2. Operation phase
   Positions in this phase include permanent plant operators and engineers, managers, accountants and general staffs. Extrapolation from existing plants’ experience (IAEA, 2001) shows average staffing levels of approximately one person per MW(e) for a single unit LR. For SMRs, the specific staffing level tends to increase to about 1.5 person/MWe.
   But existing SMRs are only scale models of LR designs. New GEN III+ SMRs incorporate features that require fewer personnel to operate and maintain the plant in a safe and reliable manner. Model presented in Garrone et al. (2009) concludes that a site with four 335 MWe SMRs has an OandM cost 24% higher than a site with one 1340 MWe LR. Labour cost is about the 70% of total OandM costs, so operational work content will experience roughly the same increase.
   Concluding:
   • SMRs create a higher number of new jobs also in the operation phase;
   • new operation positions still involve indirect and induced impacts: SMRs and LRs are characterized by equal multipliers (Oxford Economics, 2008), but they amplify the higher direct operation employment of the SMR. Impact on operation employment is differential and promotes the SMR choice.
   SMRs, unlike traditional reactors are built domestically – which uniquely helps manufacturing and infrastructure
   Rosner and Goldberg 11 (Robert Rosner, Professor, Departments of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Physics, and the College; Senior Fellow @ UChicago. Stephen M. Goldberg is Special Assistant to the Director at Argonne National Laboratory)
   (November 2011. Energy Policy Institute at Chicago The Harris School of Public Policy Studies “Small Modular Reactors – Key to Future Nuclear Power Generation in the U.S.” https://epic.sites.uchicago.edu/sites/epic.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/EPICSMRWhitePaperFinalcopy.pdf)

As stated earlier, SMRs have the potential to achieve significant greenhouse gas emission reductions. They could provide alternative baseload power generation to facilitate the retirement of older, smaller, and less efficient coal generation plants that would, otherwise, not be good candidates for retrofitting carbon capture and storage technology. They could be deployed in regions of the U.S. and the world that have less potential for other forms of carbon-free electricity, such as solar or wind energy. There may be technical or market constraints, such as projected electricity demand growth and transmission capacity, which would support SMR deployment but not GW-scale LWRs. From the on-shore manufacturing perspective, a key point is that the manufacturing base needed for SMRs can be developed domestically. Thus, while the large commercial LWR industry is seeking to transplant portions of its supply chain from current foreign sources to the U.S., the SMR industry offers the potential to establish a large domestic manufacturing base building upon already existing U.S. manufacturing infrastructure and capability, including the Naval shipbuilding and underutilized domestic nuclear component and equipment plants. The study team learned that a number of sustainable domestic jobs could be created – that is, the full panoply of design, manufacturing, supplier, and construction activities – if the U.S. can establish itself as a credible and substantial designer and manufacturer of SMRs.
While many SMR technologies are being studied around the world, a strong U.S.
commercialization program can enable U.S. industry to be first to market SMRs, thereby serving as a fulcrum for export growth as well as a lever in influencing international decisions on deploying both nuclear reactor and nuclear fuel cycle technology. A viable U.S.-centric SMR industry would enable the U.S. to recapture technological leadership in commercial nuclear technology, which has been lost to suppliers in France, Japan, Korea, Russia, and, now rapidly emerging, China.

Scenario 2 is electric price volatility
Natural gas is inherently volatile – plan decreases dependence, which solves the economy
Huber 12
Lisa Huber, Rocky Mountain Institute Intern, 8/1/12, “Managing Natural Gas Volatility: The Answer is Blowin’ in the Wind,” http://blog.rmi.org/blog_Managing_Natural_Gas_Volatility_The_Answer_is_Blowin_in_the_wind
The recent shale gas boom has gained the reputation as our energy savior: clean, domestic, cheap, and plentiful. But, the attractiveness of today’s low natural gas price can cause us to overlook a serious risk: volatility. Natural gas is one of the riskiest commodities around, historically bearing twice the volatility price risk of oil. While this is common knowledge among industry professionals and commodity traders, the long-term risk often goes ignored, despite previous attempts to put a price tag on volatility. Why This Matters According to RMI Chief Scientist Amory Lovins, “we must not set our sights too low and end up with a 20-year plan instead of a 21st century goal.” This logic on the importance of long-term strategy is the driving force behind RMI’s Reinventing Fire, a vision and roadmap for a 150 percent bigger 2050 U.S. economy requiring no oil, coal, or nuclear energy, and one-third less natural gas. Without accounting for the volatility risk of natural gas, wholesale power-producing renewables don’t appear very competitive without the support of tax credits (expiring at the end of the year for wind) and renewable portfolio standards, whose incentives are less substantial than in the recent past. Investing in gas over wind without consideration of volatility would be like chasing yield without regard to risk—something a prudent investor would never dream of. As U.S. natural gas supply grows and liquefied natural gas export terminals come online, our economy becomes more and more dependent on the success of shale; changes in natural gas prices could greatly impact the broader market. Historically speaking, natural gas tends to move opposite the market (that’s a negative beta for the finance geeks out there). As natural gas prices rise and the market falls (remember 2008?), consumers take a significant hit.

Energy price volatility hurts the economy – it affects all consumers and businesses
EIA 01
Energy Information Administration 4/10/01, http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/economy/energy_price.html
Volatility matters for all consumers and producers in the economy. Business firms, both energy and non-energy, make investment decisions based on expectations about prices. If decisions are made on the expectation of low (or high) energy prices, and the energy market varies sharply from these expectations, firms may make inappropriate investment and business decisions. Even those firms that expect volatility may be adversely affected by simply putting off a decision until the market is more stable. Consumer purchases of housing and consumer durables such as autos and appliances are also affected by instability in energy markets. The economy would most likely perform better with stable or predictable energy prices, than when the price of energy fluctuates greatly.

Nuclear is key to reduce energy price volatility – it helps every sector
EU Department of Energy and Climate Change 12
EU Department of Energy and Climate Change 5/18/12, “Davey: Climate change policies could halve negative impacts of energy price shocks,” http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_061/pn12_061.aspx
“The more we can shift to alternative fuels, and use energy efficiently, the more we can ensure that our economy does not become hostage to far-flung events and to the volatility of market forces” (Edward Davey) The negative impact that spikes in global oil, gas and coal prices have on the UK could be reduced by over 50% in 2050 as a result of climate change policies, Edward Davey said today. The analysis, produced by Oxford Economics and commissioned by Government, shows how the UK’s sensitivity to oil and gas price shocks could be reduced by using low-carbon forms of electricity generation including renewables, new nuclear and through increasing energy efficiency. Secretary of State, Edward Davey said: “Every step the UK takes towards building a low-carbon economy reduces our dependency on fossil fuels, and on volatile global energy prices. “Only last year, the impact of the Arab Spring on wholesale gas prices, pushed up UK household bills by 20%. “The more we can shift to alternative fuels, and use energy efficiently, the more we can ensure that our economy does not become hostage to far-flung events and to the volatility of market forces. “Of course, there are costs to building more low-carbon plant, but the gains are so much greater, and crucially they are lasting. “This is about building a more resilient economy and providing more stable energy prices for the generations that follow us”. Energy prices have been trending up over the past decade and are becoming increasingly volatile. Once the UK fully transitions to a low-carbon economy, the negative impacts of energy price volatility on these 4 factors are halved: Halving the impact of energy price volatility on disposable household income, and therefore reducing amount households would have to put aside to spend on energy bills. Halving the negative impact on the level of business investment. Halving the impact on inflation Halving the impact on levels of unemployment, which could rise through increased economic inactivity caused by high energy prices.

Specifically, SMRs solve market risk and fit the need to replace natural gas
Rosner and Goldberg 11 (Robert Rosner, Professor, Departments of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Physics, and the College; Senior Fellow @ UChicago. Stephen M. Goldberg is Special Assistant to the Director at Argonne National Laboratory)
(November 2011. Energy Policy Institute at Chicago The Harris School of Public Policy Studies “Small Modular Reactors – Key to Future Nuclear Power Generation in the U.S.” https://epic.sites.uchicago.edu/sites/epic.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/EPICSMRWhitePaperFinalcopy.pdf)

Furthermore, CBO discussed the market risk associated with GW-scale plants: Market risk is the component of risk that investors cannot protect themselves against by diversifying their portfolios. Investors require compensation for market risk because investments exposed to such risk are more likely to have low returns when the economy as a whole is weak and resources are more highly valued…In the case of nuclear construction guarantees provided to investor-owned utilities or merchant power providers, for example, plant construction may be more likely to be slowed or canceled when the demand for electricity is depressed by a weak economy. 23,24
SMRs could potentially mitigate such a risk in several ways. First, SMRs have lower precompletion risk due to shorter construction schedules (24-36 months as compared with 48 months). Second, because of their smaller size, SMRs have lower market risk because there is significantly less power than needs to be sold as compared with GW-level plants. Finally, the modular nature of SMRs affords the flexibility to build capacity on an as-needed basis. In the case of unsubsidized financing, particularly relevant to merchant markets, utility decision makers that have significant aversion to risk of future natural gas spikes (i.e., gas prices rising to about $7/Mcf or one standard deviation above the recent average behavior of natural gas prices) would possibly view alternatives to gas-fired generation as attractive options, particularly if the investment requirements are comparable – SMRs could potentially “fit the bill.”

Economic collapse causes global nuclear war.
Merlini, Senior Fellow – Brookings, 11 [Cesare Merlini, nonresident senior fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Italian Institute for International Affairs (IAI) in Rome. He served as IAI president from 1979 to 2001. Until 2009, he also occupied the position of executive vice chairman of the Council for the United States and Italy, which he co-founded in 1983. His areas of expertise include transatlantic relations, European integration and nuclear non-proliferation, with particular focus on nuclear science and technology. A Post-Secular World?  DOI: 10.1080/00396338.2011.571015 Article Requests: Order Reprints : Request Permissions Published in: journal Survival, Volume 53, Issue 2 April 2011 , pages 117 - 130 Publication Frequency: 6 issues per year  Download PDF Download PDF (357 KB)     View Related Articles  To cite this Article: Merlini, Cesare 'A Post-Secular World?', Survival, 53:2, 117 – 130]
Two neatly opposed scenarios for the future of the world order illustrate the range of possibilities, albeit at the risk of oversimplification. The first scenario entails the premature crumbling of the post-Westphalian system. One or more of the acute tensions apparent today evolves into an open and traditional conflict between states, perhaps even involving the use of nuclear weapons. The crisis might be triggered by a collapse of the global economic and financial system, the vulnerability of which we have just experienced, and the prospect of a second Great Depression, with consequences for peace and democracy similar to those of the first. Whatever the trigger, the unlimited exercise of national sovereignty, exclusive self-interest and rejection of outside interference would likely be amplified, emptying, perhaps entirely, the half-full glass of multilateralism, including the UN and the European Union. Many of the more likely conflicts, such as between Israel and Iran or India and Pakistan, have potential religious dimensions. Short of war, tensions such as those related to immigration might become unbearable. Familiar issues of creed and identity could be exacerbated. One way or another, the secular rational approach would be sidestepped by a return to theocratic absolutes, competing or converging with secular absolutes such as unbridled nationalism.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
Warming is real and anthropogenic – best climate data, models, and scientific consensus prove. No other cause comes close.
The New York Times, Richard A. Mueller, July 28, 2012, “The Conversion of a Climate Change Skeptic” Richard A. Muller, a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former MacArthur Foundation fellow, is the author, most recently, of “Energy for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines.” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?_r=1andpagewanted=all
CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate
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the shape of the observed temperature rise and the known greenhouse gas increase.

Its not too late – curbing emissions halts warming.
Hansen 07 NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University James E., “How Can We Avert Dangerous Climate Change?” Delivered to the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, United States House of Representatives June 25 http://arxiv.org/pdf/0706.3720
We have solved or are solving those pollution problems, at least in developed countries
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for much of humanity as well as the other creatures on the planet.

Status quo renewables all fail – Airborne Wind Energy revolutionizes energy production and goes global
Fagiano 09
LORENZO FAGIANO, currently a Marie Curie fellow at Politecnico di Torino and a visiting researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, received the Master's degree in Automotive Engineering in 2004 and the Ph.D. degree in Information and System Engineering in 2009 from Politecnico di Torino, Italy, co-author of about 50 papers published in international journals, conference proceedings and book chapters. He is recipient of the ENI award "Debut in Research" prize 2010, of the Maffezzoni prize 2009 and of a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship, dissertation submitted for the degree of  Doctor of Philosophy, “Control of Tethered Airfoils for High–Altitude Wind Energy Generation: Advanced control methods as key technologies for a breakthrough in renewable energy generation”, DOCTORATE SCHOOL  Course in Information and System Engineering – XXI Cycle, 2009, http://www.kuleuven.be/optec/files/Fagiano2009.pdf jchen
The dependance of the global energy system on fossil sources owned by few producer  countries
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swings of oil price will remain the norm in the  next 20 years.
The issue of climate change due to excessive concentration of greenhouse gases in the  atmosphere
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can be used  to replace the use of fossil sources in every sector.
Given the actual situation, policy intervention will be necessary, through appropriate financial incentives
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38), however it has high costs and requires large land occupation.
Focusing the attention on wind energy, in Section 1.2 it has been
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in the last three years are organized  in the next Chapters as follows.
Warming causes a planetary die-off – Geological history, positive feedback and ocean acidification
Bushnell 10 – Dennis, Chief scientist at the NASA Langley Research Center Dennis Bushnell (MS in mechanical engineering. He won the Lawrence A. Sperry Award, AIAA Fluid and Plasma Dynamics Award, the AIAA Dryden Lectureship, and is the recipient of many NASA Medals for outstanding Scientific Achievement and Leadership.) “Conquering Climate Change,” The Futurist, May-June, 2010
During the Permian extinction, a number of chain reaction events, or “positive
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, and extensive water evaporation (a greenhouse gas) from temperature increases.
The additional effects of these feedbacks increase the projections from a 4°C–
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, so, as dire as the forecasts sound, they’re actually conservative.

Ocean destruction causes extinction
Craig 03 – Associate Professor at Indiana University School of Law Robin Kundis, “Taking Steps Toward Marine Wilderness Protection”, McGeorge Law Review, Winter, 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155, LN
Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they
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jelly." 864 More importantly, the Black Sea is not necessarily unique.

AND Even 1% risk justifies action ---- the consequences are too big
Strom  ‘7 (Robert, Prof. Emeritus Planetary Sciences @ U. Arizona and Former Dir. Space Imagery Center of NASA, “Hot House: Global Climate Change and the Human Condition”, Online: SpringerLink, p. 246)
Keep in mind that the current consequences of global warming discussed in previous chapters are
AND
more clearly define what awaits us. The time for action is now.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
Energy insecurity undermines forward deployment and power projection capabilities
Wald and Captain 09
 General Charles F. Wald (USAF Ret) Director and Senior Advisor, Aerospace and Defense Industry, Tom Captain Vice Chairman, Global and U.S. Aerospace and Defense Industry Leader, “ Energy Security America’s Best Defense” 2009, http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/AD/us_ad_EnergySecurity052010.pdf, Caplan
Energy security and national security are closely interrelated: threats to the former are likely
AND
world are well positioned to accelerate the development and deployment of such technologies.   

Airborne wind is key to forward military basing – eliminates fuel supply lines
Cahoon 11
Troy L. Cahoon, BSE Captain, USAF, thesis in fulfillment of Degree of Master of Science in Aeronautical Engineering, March 2011, Air Force Institute of Technology, “AIRBORNE WIND ENERGY: IMPLEMENTATION AND DESIGN FOR THE U.S. AIR FORCE”, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a539255.pdf jchen
Tapping into higher altitude winds will have many advantages and challenges.    For example,
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9 billion per year (8% of   the total USAF budget).  39   
Strong forward deployment prevents multiple scenarios for nuclear conflict – prefer it to all other alternatives
Robert Kagan, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2007, “End of Dreams, Return of History” Policy Review (http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/8552512.html#n10)
Finally, there is the United States itself. As a matter of national policy
AND
a retraction of American influence and global involvement will provide an easier path.

The US will latch on in decline – increases aggression
Ikenberry 04  professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University
(John, Foreign Affairs, March/April, Illusions of Empire: Defining the New American Order
Two implications follow from the United States' strange condition as "economically dependent and politically
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Todd, all of this points to the disintegration of the American empire.
Impending energy scarcity kills hegemony and causes resource wars.
Blankley ’09, JD from Loyola
Tony, has a Juris Doctor degree from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles; author of "American Grit: What It Will Take to Survive and Win in the 21st Century" and vice president of the Edelman public-relations firm in Washington, “America held hostage; American Grit: What It Will Take to Survive and Win in the 21st Century” Washington Times, Lexis
Our national security is being held hostage by our reliance on foreign oil. We
AND
goals that have been clear at least since the 1973 OPEC oil boycott.
While the war on Islamic terrorists receives the biggest headlines these days, countries are
AND
century will be a much bloodier one for us than it need be.
Governments that use their natural resources to expand their international power are nothing new. But the explosion in energy prices over the last decade has provided an irresistible temptation for many governments to become more directly involved in energy production. When a strongman sees an opportunity to enhance his domestic popularity with oil-funded social programs and simultaneously gain leverage over oil-importing countries, it’s rare that he’ll look the other way.
Although neo-socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has not yet followed through on his
AND
making Venezuela one of the top four U.S. oil suppliers.
And thanks to their near-limitless oil wealth, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait,
AND
“There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.”
We need to realize that the world is moving away from international free trade in energy. Instead of an energy trade based largely on supply and demand, supplies and prices are going to be dictated by the national interests of energy producing countries.
In the future, countries that cooperate with the foreign policy goals of major suppliers
AND
of the dollar and cause mischief in U.S. capital markets.
And of course, all those dollars can be used to buy tanks, missiles, combat aircraft, and other weapons that only further enhance these countries’ power. As others have noted, we are likely heading into a world of “resource wars” - a world for which America, right now, is woefully unprepared.
Resource scarcity causes global war
Klare 6 – professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College
(Michael, Mar 6 2006, “The coming resource wars” http://www.energybulletin.net/node/13605)

It's official: the era of resource wars is upon us. In a major
AND
be channeled into contests over valuable sources of water, food and energy.

Both absolute poverty and war deaths are at their lowest levels because of US hegemony – shocks to the international system have historically produced the worst violence
Barnett 11
(Thomas P.M. Barnett, Former Senior Strategic Researcher and Professor in the Warfare Analysis and Research Department, Center for Naval Warfare Studies, U.S. Naval War College American military geostrategist and Chief Analyst at Wikistrat., worked as the Assistant for Strategic Futures in the Office of Force Transformation in the Department of Defense, “The New Rules: Leadership Fatigue Puts U.S., and Globalization, at Crossroads,” March 7 http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/8099/the-new-rules-leadership-fatigue-puts-u-s-and-globalization-at-crossroads,
It is worth first examining the larger picture: We live in a time of
AND
term instability even as it builds the basis for longer-term stability. 

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
Grid centralization ensures energy disruptions through accidents, storms, energy trading, and cyber terror.
Hildyard et al 12
(Nicholas, The Corner House - U.K. research and advocacy group focusing on human rights, the environment, and development, Larry Lohmann and Sarah Sexton.12 Energy Security For Whom? For What? February 2012, http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/sites/thecornerhouse.org.uk/files/Energy%20Security%20For%20Whom%20For%20What.pdf)

By the same token, the more that an energy system is subjected to centralised
AND
of generators magnify such “cyber-security” and data protection challenges.

Airborne Wind solves distributed energy generation
Cahoon 11
Troy L. Cahoon, BSE Captain, USAF, thesis in fulfillment of Degree of Master of Science in Aeronautical Engineering, March 2011, Air Force Institute of Technology, “AIRBORNE WIND ENERGY: IMPLEMENTATION AND DESIGN FOR THE U.S. AIR FORCE”, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a539255.pdf jchen
A fourth advantage that the Airborne Wind Energy could provide is power   generation portability.  
AND
would also be well out of reach of   most ground-based threats.
Modernization of the grid deters attacks and prevents attacks effectiveness
NETL 7
(National Energy Technology Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, “MODERN GRID BENEFITS” August 2007 http://www.netl.doe.gov/smartgrid/referenceshelf/whitepapers/Modern%20Grid%20Benefits_Final_v1_0.pdf)
SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED VULNERABILITY TO TERRORIST ATTACK AND NATURAL DISASTERS A Center for Contemporary Conflict white
AND
increased resistance to attack makes it better able to cope with natural disasters. 

Independently, Susceptibility of our grid makes cyber-attacks likely in the near term
Bumiller and Shanker 10/11/12, Elisabeth Bumiller, pentagon correspondent for the NYT, and Thom Shanker, pentagon correspondent for the NYT“Panetta Warns of Dire Threat of Cyberattack on U.S.,” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/12/world/panetta-warns-of-dire-threat-of-cyberattack.html?pagewanted=alland_r=0
Defense Secretary Leon E. … and made useless more than 30,000 computers.
Cyber attack causes US lash out and deterrence failure – triggers nuclear war
Habiger, 2/1/2010 (Eugue – Retired Air Force General, Cyberwarfare and Cyberterrorism, The Cyber Security Institute, p. 11-19)
However, there are reasons to believe that what is going on now amounts to
AND
based defenses, making us significantly more at risk of a major war.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
Grid centralization ensures energy disruptions through accidents, storms, energy trading, and cyber terror.
Hildyard et al 12
(Nicholas, The Corner House - U.K. research and advocacy group focusing on human rights, the environment, and development, Larry Lohmann and Sarah Sexton.12 Energy Security For Whom? For What? February 2012, http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/sites/thecornerhouse.org.uk/files/Energy%20Security%20For%20Whom%20For%20What.pdf)

By the same token, the more that an energy system is subjected to centralised
AND
of generators magnify such “cyber-security” and data protection challenges.

Airborne Wind solves distributed energy generation
Cahoon 11
Troy L. Cahoon, BSE Captain, USAF, thesis in fulfillment of Degree of Master of Science in Aeronautical Engineering, March 2011, Air Force Institute of Technology, “AIRBORNE WIND ENERGY: IMPLEMENTATION AND DESIGN FOR THE U.S. AIR FORCE”, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a539255.pdf jchen
A fourth advantage that the Airborne Wind Energy could provide is power   generation portability.  
AND
would also be well out of reach of   most ground-based threats.
Modernization of the grid deters attacks and prevents attacks effectiveness
NETL 7
(National Energy Technology Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, “MODERN GRID BENEFITS” August 2007 http://www.netl.doe.gov/smartgrid/referenceshelf/whitepapers/Modern%20Grid%20Benefits_Final_v1_0.pdf)
SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED VULNERABILITY TO TERRORIST ATTACK AND NATURAL DISASTERS A Center for Contemporary Conflict white
AND
increased resistance to attack makes it better able to cope with natural disasters. 

Independently, Susceptibility of our grid makes cyber-attacks likely in the near term
Bumiller and Shanker 10/11/12, Elisabeth Bumiller, pentagon correspondent for the NYT, and Thom Shanker, pentagon correspondent for the NYT“Panetta Warns of Dire Threat of Cyberattack on U.S.,” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/12/world/panetta-warns-of-dire-threat-of-cyberattack.html?pagewanted=alland_r=0
Defense Secretary Leon E. … and made useless more than 30,000 computers.
Cyber attack causes US lash out and deterrence failure – triggers nuclear war
Habiger, 2/1/2010 (Eugue – Retired Air Force General, Cyberwarfare and Cyberterrorism, The Cyber Security Institute, p. 11-19)
However, there are reasons to believe that what is going on now amounts to
AND
based defenses, making us significantly more at risk of a major war.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
Plan
The United States federal government should substantially increase funding for a competitive matching fund for airborne wind energy production in the United States. The United States federal government should reduce airspace restrictions on airborne wind energy production in the United States. 

Contention 3 is Solvency
Tech is feasible now – but only federal support solves rapid scale up potential
Wind Daily 12
Wind Daily 9/13/12, “High-altitude winds have large potential as a source of clean energy”, http://www.winddaily.com/reports/High_altitude_winds_have_large_potential_as_a_source_of_clean_energy_999.html jchen
Airborne wind energy-an emerging approach to … commitment to any particular technology or approach.

Airspace restrictions destroy commercial testing and viability – removal is key
Leggett 12
Nickolaus E. Leggett, Masters degree in political science from Johns Hopkins, licensed pilot for hot-air balloons, gliders, and single-engine airplanes, certified electronics technician (ISCET and iNARTE) and an Extra Class amateur radio operator (call sign N3NL), testimony to the FAA, “To the Federal Aviation Administration: Formal Comments of Nickolaus E. Leggett” 1/29/12
Near-Term Experimental Operation of … a fairly liberal testing environment is needed.

Airborne wind solves intermittency, NIMBY and space problems of conventional wind – but government investment is key
Dave Levitan is a freelance journalist based in Philadelphia who writes about energy, the environment, and health. His articles have been published by Reuters, SolveClimate, IEEE Spectrum, and Psychology Today, 9/24/12, “High-Altitude Wind Energy: Huge Potential — And Hurdles”, http://e360.yale.edu/content/print.msp?id=2576 jchen
The wind turbines that increasingly ... be no need for the yaw mechanism that keeps standard turbines facing into the wind as wind direction changes.

Competitive Matching Fund solves valley of death and is key to commercialization
Bronstein 11
Max G. Bronstein, graduate of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. He holds a Masters of public policy and a certificate in science, technology, and public policy, Science Assistant in the Office of the Director at the National Science Foundation, held positions at with the House Committee on Science and Technology, the National Institutes of Health, and the University of Michigan Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Volume 78, Issue 4, May 2011, Pages 736–746, “Harnessing rivers of wind: A technology and policy assessment of highaltitudewind power in the U.S.”, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162510002209 jchen
Discussion and policy recommendations
This technology assessment … appropriation is diminutive and future funding for the program is uncertain.

Global scalability within years – basic tech is already here
Fagiano 09
LORENZO FAGIANO, currently a Marie Curie fellow at Politecnico di Torino and a visiting researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, received the Master's degree in Automotive Engineering in 2004 and the Ph.D. degree in Information and System Engineering in 2009 from Politecnico di Torino, Italy, co-author of about 50 papers published in international journals, conference proceedings and book chapters. He is recipient of the ENI award "Debut in Research" prize 2010, of the Maffezzoni prize 2009 and of a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship, dissertation submitted for the degree of  Doctor of Philosophy, “Control of Tethered Airfoils for High–Altitude Wind Energy Generation: Advanced control methods as key technologies for a breakthrough in renewable energy generation”, DOCTORATE SCHOOL  Course in Information and System Engineering – XXI Cycle, 2009, http://www.kuleuven.be/optec/files/Fagiano2009.pdf jchen
Thus, high–altitude wind energy could bring a significant contribution to resolve the
AND
only the fusion of the  advanced competencies already available in various engineering fields.

Super cost competitive
North, last cites source from 2008
“High Altitude3 Wind Power”, North, D. High Altitude Wind Power. Hampton: NASA Langley Research Center, http://awtdata.webs.com/annotatedbibliography.htm#597066883 jchen
3. Lower cost – Kites, being a simple tensile membrane structure with
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hour compared to current costs of 5 to 12 cents per kilowatt hour.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
Energy control eliminates aggressive intervention b/c it removes energy from security calculations – this reassures allies and assuages both China and Russia, that’s Colina and Padilla—but, pursuit of violent hegemony is inevitable in the status quo – only a risk of a turn.
Calleo, Director – European Studies Program and Professor @ SAIS, ‘10
(David P, “American Decline Revisited,” Survival, 52:4, 215 – 227)

The history of the past two decades suggests that adjusting to a plural world is
AND
turns the dollar into an imperial instrument that threatens the world with inflation.
Decline causes lashout, not restraint.
Snyder 07 Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Relations at Columbia University
Jack “FREE HAND ABROAD, DIVIDE AND RULE AT HOME: THE DOMESTIC POLITICS OF UNIPOLARITY” (http://www.henryfarrell.net/unipolarity.pdf)
Plausible as these arguments may be, the opposite case may be equally plausible.
AND
Simply being powerful says little about whether or how ideology will express itself. 

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
Administrative and executive actions will blunt the impact of the cliff until inevitable compromise is found
Goldfarb 11-2
Zachary A. Goldfarb, Friday, November 2 To blunt ‘fiscal cliff’ pain, administration could assert broad powers, experts say http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/to-blunt-fiscal-cliff-pain-administration-could-assert-broad-powers-experts-say/2012/11/02/66a075ee-238d-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_story.html
The Obama administration could blunt the economic harm caused by the “fiscal cliff”
AND
, they have the most flexibility to defer the effects of the cuts.”
3—Wind popular – overwhelming bipartisan support
Shahan 6/5/12, “Karl Rove and Robert Gibbs Dialogue Highlights Bipartisan Support for Wind Energy at WINDPOWER 2012,” http://cleantechnica.com/2012/06/05/karl-rove-robert-gibbs-dialogue-highlights-bipartisan-support-for-wind-energy-at-windpower-2012/
Wind power is receiving huge … threatening the industry.
4—The DA is not intrinsic: a logical policy maker can do the plan and repeal the fiscal cliff. It’s legitimate: identifying avoidable costs within an agent’s control is the best test of the DA.
5—PTC thumps the link.
Stiles 9/25/12, Andrew Stiles, “The Wind Lobby and American Domestic Policy: Obama Champions Wind Tax Credit favored by campaign donors,” http://freebeacon.com/the-wind-lobby-and-american-domestic-policy/
A wind energy tax creditchampioned … energy set to expire at the end of the year.
6—Winners win – congress and the press will have no choice but to fall in line
Green 10
David Michael Green teaches politics at Hofstra September 18th, 2010 “Do-Nothing 44th President” A Mass Magazine http://www.amassmagazine.com/?tag=david-michael-green
Moreover, there is a continuously evolving and reciprocal relationship between presidential boldness and achievement
AND
of the now retired Helen Thomas, this is precisely what they did.
7—A punted cliff followed by a compromise is inevitable – there are inherent pressures and bargaining chips
Derby 11-7
Michael S. Derby November 7, 2012 Economists Worry About Fiscal Cliff Resolution http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/11/07/economists-worry-about-fiscal-cliff-resolution/
Barclays Capital economists agree the chance of going over the cliff temporarily is “high
AND
expire is actually higher than is probably appreciated,” RBC Capital Markets said.
8— Issues are compartmentalized
Dickinson, ’09, – professor of political science at Middlebury College and taught previously at Harvard University where he worked under the supervision of presidential scholar Richard Neustadt (5/26/09, Matthew, Presidential Power: A NonPartisan Analysis of Presidential Politics, “Sotomayor, Obama and Presidential Power,” http://blogs.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/2009/05/26/sotamayor-obama-and-presidential-power/)

As for Sotomayor, from here the path toward almost certain confirmation goes as follows
AND
an important aspect of presidential power that cannot be measured through legislative boxscores.
9—At worst congress will retroactively restore the cuts
EHLEY 10-2
BRIANNA EHLEY, Posted: October 02, 2012 Why Not Head Over the Cliff and Dive into the Abyss? http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Blogs/Fiscal-Cliff-Notes/2012/10/02/Why-Not-Head-Over-the-Cliff-and-Dive-into-the-Abyss.aspx#page1
Should America put the country in 4th gear and simply drive over the fiscal cliff
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something that can be enacted as soon as possible in the next Congress.”
10—Military loves the aff.
Levitan 9/25/12, David Levitan, appearing courtesy of Yale 360, “High-Altitude Wind Energy: Huge Potential – And Hurdles,” http://blog.cleantechies.com/2012/09/25/high-altitude-wind-energy-huge-potential-%E2%80%94-and-hurdles/
“We’re working on small distributed systems … airlifting diesel fuel for generators.

11—Builds bipartisan support. and no military impact to sequestration
Greenwald 8/29/12, Robert Greenwald, “Defense Spending: There’s no better way to talk about the corrosive effect of money on politics,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-greenwald/defense-spending-theres-n_b_1841719.html
The premise of a functioning democracy is that elected officials are trusted to make decisions
AND
oversight of the very industries they came from and are seemingly indebted to.
12—Impacts to the cliff are overstated
Preble 12
Christopher Preble is the vice president for defense and foreign-policy studies at the Cato Institute, Let Sequestration Happen July 17, 2012 http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/let-sequestration-happen-7204
Sequestration likely won’t be as bad as special interests and those in favor of ever
AND
indicates that some businesses are already positioning themselves to weather reduced government spending.
13—Obama doesn’t have PC – the House GOP will still block his agenda
Shatney and Harris 11-7
Joanna Shatney and David Harris of Schroders Published November 07, 2012 Election's Over: What it Means for Your Investments www.foxbusiness.com/investing/2012/11/07/election-over-what-it-means-for-your-investments/
Obama’s victory in the election came as a landslide of major swing states fell to
AND
to see what will happen in terms of dealing with the fiscal cliff.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
3—Here’s the exact text of FAA restrictions – restrictions block turbine testing, airborn wind above 499 feet, and commercialization of aerial wind energy.
Federal Register ’11, 12/7/12, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-12-07/xml/FR-2011-12-07.xml
Given the altitudes that these structures can operate and their ¶ operating characteristics, the
… some portions may be applicable.)

4—Eviscerates tech development and commercialization –jet stream k2 effective study.
Cahoon 11
Troy L. Cahoon, BSE Captain, USAF, thesis in fulfillment of Degree of Master of Science in Aeronautical Engineering, March 2011, Air Force Institute of Technology, “AIRBORNE WIND ENERGY: IMPLEMENTATION AND DESIGN FOR THE U.S. AIR FORCE”, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a539255.pdf jchen
2.2. Planetary Boundary Layer   The wind resource at ground level is limited
AND
the wind power density is shown for a few of   the altitudes studied.  
With this wind power density information, planners can estimate how much   power production they
AND
location, and to then determine the best altitude for their   AWE system.    

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
No china edge – Military’s self-sufficient.
Parsons 12 Dan, Staff Writer – National Defense Magazine, U.S. Remains Dependent on China for Rare Earth Elements  June 2012 http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2012/June/Pages/USRemainsDependentonChinaforRareEarthElements.aspx

The Defense Department conducted its own study, published in March, and found that
AND
., where it is stockpiling oxides used in both commercial and military technologies.
China war inevitable – US lashout over cyberterror attack – status quo is unsustainable
Heg deters china war.
Friedberg ’12 Aaron L. Friedberg, Poliitcs and International Affairs at Princeton, Bucking Beijing An Alternative U.S. China Policy  September/October 2012 Foreign Affairs

Absent a strong U.S. response, Chinese planners might eventually come to
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Yorker first described as the Obama administration's penchant for "leading from behind."
WTO is irrelevant – takes too long and they’ll ignore it.
Forbes 12 Daniel McGroarty, President of American Resources Policy Network, a non-partisan education and public policy research organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., served in senior positions in the White House and at the Department of Defense. Forget the WTO: The Rare Earths Solution Is Right Here at Home, March 20, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/03/20/forget-the-wto-the-rare-earths-solution-is-right-here-at-home/

In our litigation-saturated society, the move was heralded as the U.
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of attention to a cease-and-desist order on WTO letterhead.
Trade doesn’t solve war.
McDonald and Sweeney 7 Patrick (Assistant Professor of Government at UT) and Kevin (US DoD), “The Achilles’ Heel of Liberal IR Theory?” World Politics 59.3 

While it has become fashionable to characterize the current world order as one of extensive
AND
the defining conflicts of modern history—the outbreak of World War I?

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
War is at its lowest level in history because of it---best statistical studies prove heg solves war because it makes democratic peace resilient and globalization sustainable---it’s the deeper cause of proximate checks against war
Owen 11
(John M. Owen, Professor of Politics at University of Virginia PhD from Harvard "DON’T DISCOUNT HEGEMONY" Feb 11 www.cato-unbound.org/2011/02/11/john-owen/dont-discount-hegemony/)
Andrew Mack and his colleagues at the Human Security Report Project are to be congratulated
AND
U.S. material and moral support for liberal democracy remains strong. 

Link to themselves - DA
Both absolute poverty and war deaths are at their lowest levels because of US hegemony – shocks to the international system have historically produced the worst violence
Barnett 11
(Thomas P.M. Barnett, Former Senior Strategic Researcher and Professor in the Warfare Analysis and Research Department, Center for Naval Warfare Studies, U.S. Naval War College American military geostrategist and Chief Analyst at Wikistrat., worked as the Assistant for Strategic Futures in the Office of Force Transformation in the Department of Defense, “The New Rules: Leadership Fatigue Puts U.S., and Globalization, at Crossroads,” March 7 http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/8099/the-new-rules-leadership-fatigue-puts-u-s-and-globalization-at-crossroads,
It is worth first examining the larger picture: We live in a time of
AND
term instability even as it builds the basis for longer-term stability.
Reject their impact framing and theory of social interaction.  The terminology of “neoliberalism” encourages fake radicalism, oversimplification, and greater levels of cooptation than positive and pragmatic politics like the aff – over confines the scope of legitimate action
Clive BARNETT Faculty of the Social Sciences @ Open University (UK) ‘5 “The Consolations of ‘Neoliberalism’” Geoforum 36 (1) p. Science Dirct
3. There is no such thing as neoliberalism! The blind-spot in
AND
trying to broaden the horizons of our theoretical curiosity a little more widely.

They rely on the concept of neoliberal hegemony as “consent”—but they have no actual account of how or why consent occurs.
Clive BARNETT Faculty of the Social Sciences @ Open University (UK) ‘5 “The Consolations of ‘Neoliberalism’” Geoforum 36 (1) p. Science Dirct

The political economy conceptualization of “hegemony” is related to a particular framing of
AND
present the reproduction of power-relations as a matter of social control.

Second are the impacts
Cooperation – bandwagoning and trade encourage it, not competition
Zhang 11
(Yuhan Zhang, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C, January 2011, East Asia Forum, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/01/22/americas-decline-a-harbinger-of-conflict-and-rivalry/)
Over the past two decades, no other state has had the ability to seriously
AND
forecast in a future that will inevitably be devoid of unrivalled US primacy. 

And Global economic liberalism solves great power wars
Griswold, Associated Director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the CATO Institute in Washington, 02 (Daniel, “seven Moral Arguments for Free Trade,” The Insider, 01 May, http://www.insideronline.org/feature.cfm?id=106)
In an 1845 speech in the British … peace as much as it was prosperity.

Prefer our studies—only authors use a testable empirical method
Weede, 04 – professor of sociology at the University of Bonn, Germany, In Winter 1986-87, he was Visiting Professor of International Relations at the Bologna Center of The Johns Hopkins University. (Erich, “BALANCE OF POWER, GLOBALIZATION, AND THE CAPITALIST PEACE,” http://www.fnf.org.ph/downloadables/Balance%20of%20Power,%20Globalization%20and%20Capitalist%20Peace.pdf)

If one does research or …, and unsystematically evaluated empirical evidence.

And Transition Wars
Goldstein 7 Professor of Global Politics and International Relations @ University of Pennsylvania “Power transitions, institutions, and China's rise in East Asia: Theoretical expectations and evidence,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Volume 30, Issue 4 and 5 August 2007, pages 639 – 682
Two closely related, though distinct, theoretical arguments focus explicitly on the consequences for
AND
realize the transition to a new international order whose contours it will define.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
Heg deters Russia war – that’s Kagan
Warming causes a spike in Russian nationalism and a collapse of democracy efforts
Fuerth 2007
Leon, a research professor of international affairs at The George Washington University and former national security advisor to Vice President Al Gore, “Security Implications of Climate Scenario 2” CSIS, November, p. 71, http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/071105_ageofconsequences.pdf

The beginnings of these trends are present now. But severe climate change will cause
AND
are established already. Severe climate change will intensify them under Putin’s successors.
Their impact ev is in the context of instability in 1998

Plan key to diversification
Konończuk 12 Wojciech Konończuk is an expert in the Russian Department of the Centre for Eastern Studies, April 2012, “RUSSIA'S BEST ALLY THE SITUATION OF THE RUSSIAN OIL SECTOR AND FORECASTS FOR ITS FUTURE”, http://www.osw.waw.pl/sites/default/files/PRACE_39_en.pdf
However, the growing oil-generated revenues are having a number of negative consequences
AND
in 2011 (the budget surplus reached 0.8% of GDP).

Oil dependence is the Achilles’ heel of Russia economy – leads to total collapse
Blagov 12 Sergei Blagov is a Senior Consultant at KWR International, a Moscow-based specialist in CIS political affairs, and a write for the Jamestown Foundation, “Russia Seeks Lesser Dependence on Oil Prices”, June 26, 2012, http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1andtx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=39540
Russia pledged to limit its over-reliance on crude oil prices. However,
AND
petrodollars, could potentially lead to a demise of the government’s energy strategy.

Economic diversification solves aggression and nationalism
Cohen and Ericson, 2009. Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, and Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Economics at the East Carolina University and former Director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, 9
(Ariel and Richard, November 2, 2009, The Heritage Foundation, “Russia's Economic Crisis and U.S.-Russia Relations: Troubled Times Ahead,” Backgrounder #2333, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2009/11/russias-economic-crisis-and-us-russia-relations-troubled-times-ahead)

An economic model based on natural resources would tend to perpetuate authoritarianism, nationalism,
AND
is stunted by state corruption and the lack of the rule of law.

Oil prices fluctuate now
Boston Oil prices rise after year's biggest drop 11/8/12
Oil prices rose above $85 per barrel on Thursday as postelection volatility continued.
 is at 17-year highs, he wrote.

2— Prices have been under the threshold for months – Russia has found ways to fund the deficit
Steve Levine, author of The Oil and the Glory and a longtime foreign correspondent, contributing editor at Foreign Policy, a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation, “On top of the Arab Spring, petro-tyrants now face perniciously low oil prices”, 1/11/12, http://oilandglory.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/01/11/on_top_of_the_arab_spring_petro_tyrants_now_face_perniciously_low_oil_prices
The Kremlin forecasts that oil prices
 lacking the muscle of surplus spending dollars.

3—Recession causes a permanent decline in oil prices
Al Arabiya 11
Al Arabiya 8/15/11, http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/08/15/162328.html
As a United States economic rebound stalls and threatens to spiral into recession, oil
AND
million barrels a day, even as gasoline prices cooled by 30 percent. 

4— Putin is strong – opposition is divided. No Russia collapse
Monaghan 12 Andrew, Research Advisor in the Research Division of the NATO Defense College (NDC) in Rome July 2012 The end of  The PuTin era? http://carnegieendowment.org/files/end_of_putin.pdf

Yet, all forms of opposition are fractured and far from presenting a real  challenge
AND
is far from clear that the end of the Putin era is nigh.

5—Russia’s already headed towards economic collapse – structural factors and stagnant growth
Reuters 9-21“Russia on the brink of stagnation-Kudrin”, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/21/us-russia-summit-kudrin-idUSBRE88K0KM20120921
(Reuters) - Russia is on the brink of
 these measures it won't get them in the coming years."

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
1—Perm: do the CP. CPs don’t compete. The CP adds an external element of uncertainty to the plan.
“Resolved” doesn’t imply immediacy or certainty.
Black’s Law Dictionary 1990 pg. 1310
The chief distinction between a “resolution” and a “law”
or things in general.

“Should” implies suggestion, not certainty – prefer common meaning.
Words and Phrases 2003 Vol. 39 Supp. Pamphlet pg. 276
C.A.2 (N.Y.) 1999 – Common meaning of
AND
, 186 F.3d 65 –Sent and Pun 661, 665.

4—Uncertainty kills solvency – guts investment.
Bakken Today 8/15/12, “Tax Credit essential for wind,” http://www.bakkentoday.com/event/article/id/371047/publisher_ID/1/
Business and industry cannot
least five years.

5—Delay and say no – empirics.
Conrad and Sarwal 6 (Memebers of the chamber of commerce. Full Date: December 2006. Accessed: 7/12/12. http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/06-466Chamber.pdf)
NEPA’s requirements are essentially procedural: An agency must take a “hard look”
AND
become a tool of those interested in scuttling a project for any reason. 

Not modeled –
7—No extinction
Easterbrook 95 Gregg, Distinguished Fellow, Fullbright Foundation, A Moment on Earth pg 25
IN THE AFTERMATH OF EVENTS SUCH AS LOVE CANAL OR THE Exxon Valdez oil spill
AND
are pinpricks compared to forces of the magnitude nature is accustomed to resisting. 

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge: 

1. Most recent studies prove SO2 is a major cause of warming.
   MSNBC, “Primary Cause of Global Warming Discovered, According to Dr. Peter L. Ward of Teton Tectonics,” 2/8/2009, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29086842/
   Sulfur dioxide emitted from
   carbon dioxide emissions."

2. Anthropogenic aerosols create the opposite effect of natural aerosols – Turns cooling.
Allen and Sherwood 11 (Robert J. Allen, Department of Earth System Science, University of California Irvine, Steven C. Sherwood, Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, “The impact of natural versus anthropogenic aerosols on atmospheric circulation in the Community Atmosphere Model,” Clim Dyn (2011) 36:1959–1978, AM)
Due to the predominance of northern-hemisphere sources for both aerosol types considered,
of forcing uncertainty in model experiments.

Tournament: NDT | Round: Round 2 | Opponent: UMKC AG | Judge: Symonds, Walters, Jacobs 

2AC

Indictment of pure capitalism is irrelevant – the issue should be regulated capitalism, which gets the benefits of capitalism without the problems

Newman ’12,     Rick Newman, author of Rebounders: How Winners Pivot From Setback To Success.   December 6, 2012
USNEWS.com    HEADLINE: Why the Tension Between Socialism and Capitalism Will Intensify lexis
This year’s presidential election included many bastardized references to both economic systems, which have
AND
the free market, but it’s layered with rules meant to prevent abuses.

Both absolute poverty and war deaths are at their lowest levels because of democratic liberalism – shocks to the international system have historically produced the worst violence

Barnett 11
(Thomas P.M. Barnett, Former Senior Strategic Researcher and Professor in the Warfare Analysis %26 Research Department, Center for Naval Warfare Studies, U.S. Naval War College American military geostrategist and Chief Analyst at Wikistrat., worked as the Assistant for Strategic Futures in the Office of Force Transformation in the Department of Defense, "The New Rules: Leadership Fatigue Puts U.S., and Globalization, at Crossroads," March 7 http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/8099/the-new-rules-leadership-fatigue-puts-u-s-and-globalization-at-crossroads-http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/8099/the-new-rules-leadership-fatigue-puts-u-s-and-globalization-at-crossroads,
It is worth first examining the larger picture: We live in a time of
AND
term instability even as it builds the basis for longer-term stability. 

Second are the impacts

Cooperation – bandwagoning and trade encourage it, not competition

Zhang 11
(Yuhan Zhang, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C, January 2011, East Asia Forum, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/01/22/americas-decline-a-harbinger-of-conflict-and-rivalry/)
Over the past two decades, no other state has had the ability to seriously
AND
forecast in a future that will inevitably be devoid of unrivalled US primacy. 

And Global economic liberalism solves great power wars

Griswold, Associated Director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the CATO Institute in Washington, 02 (Daniel, "seven Moral Arguments for Free Trade," The Insider, 01 May, http://www.insideronline.org/feature.cfm?id=106)
In an 1845 speech in the British House of Commons, Richard Cobden called free trade "that advance which is calculated to knit nations more together in the bonds of peace by means of commercial intercourse." Free trade does not guarantee peace, but it does strengthen peace by raising the cost of war to governments and their citizens. As nations become more integrated through expanding markets, they have more to lose should trade be disrupted.
In recent years, the twin trends of globalization and democratization have produced their own
AND
foreign investment. Not one of them belongs to the World Trade Organization.
During the 1930s, the industrialized nations waged trade wars against each other. They
AND
trade agreements was aimed at promoting peace as much as it was prosperity.

Prefer our studies—only authors use a testable empirical method

Weede, 04 – professor of sociology at the University of Bonn, Germany, In Winter 1986-87, he was Visiting Professor of International Relations at the Bologna Center of The Johns Hopkins University. (Erich, "BALANCE OF POWER, GLOBALIZATION, AND THE CAPITALIST PEACE," http://www.fnf.org.ph/downloadables/Balance%20of%20Power,%20Globalization%20and%20Capitalist%20Peace.pdf)

If one does research or summarize the research of others – of course, most
AND
science, however, the nomothetic approach has advanced little beyond electoral studies.
My own approach is definitely nomothetic. This is related to my training in psychology at one of the first German universities focusing on quantitative research methods in the early 1960s, the University of Hamburg. This epistemological orientation has been reinforced by graduate training in international politics at one of the first American universities emphasizing quantitative research in the late 1960s, Northwestern University, which is located in a suburb of Chicago.
Nomothetic research focuses on hypothesizing, testing and establishing law-like general statements or
AND
inquiry, growth of knowledge is conceivable by the successive elimination of errors.
This epistemological approach borrowed from Popper were easily applicable, if most of our propositions
AND
might be defensible or, for the time being, taken for ’true’.
While a correlation between two variables, like prosperity and democracy, is equally compatible
AND
Then a previously supported causal proposition would have to be overturned and rejected.
The claim of causality implies more than observable association or correlation. It also implies
AND
hodgepodge of ambiguous hunches, contradictory thinking, and unsystematically evaluated empirical evidence.

2—Extinction first—prerequisite to ontology.

Brent Dean Robbins, doctoral student in clinical psychology at Duquesne University, ’99 (Medard Boss, http://mythosandlogos.com/Boss.html-http://mythosandlogos.com/Boss.html)
"Death is an unsurpassable limit of human existence," writes Boss (119).
AND
existence in order to discover previously foreclosed possibilities of being in the world.

Plan enables sustainable energy consumption – exporting airborne globally facilitates less environmentally destructive solutions to growth.

The global economic system is structurally sustainable and only becoming more benign – technology, population decline, externalities

Carroll Quoting UN Environment Specialist 08 (The Guardian, "The Temples of Doom", 10-28-08 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/28/climatechange-population)

The gloom may be misplaced. Reports of capitalism’s death have been exaggerated before and
AND
financial capital," says Achim Steiner, head of the UN environment programme.

Ignore their economic analysis – built upon arbitrary and ideologically biased indicators, don’t use data, and systemically undervalue innovation

Taylor 2002, Director of Natural Resource Studies at Cato Institute ~Jerry, "Sustainable Development: A Dubious Solution in Search of a Problem," Cato Policy Analysis, August 26, No. 449, p. 21, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa449.pdf~~

If resources are growing more abundant while the concentration of pollutants in air sheds and
AND
. Accordingly, they provide little help to policy analysts or political leaders.

Technological innovation averts collapse: their authors systemically underestimate growth potential

Mills 8/25/12, adjunct fellow of the Manhattan Institute, BA in physics from Queens University, CEO of the digital power group, 8/25/12, "The Next Great Growth Cycle"
Today’s techno-pessimists say technology and America have plateaued. Such naysayers flourish during
AND
is a manufacturing paradigm defined not by cheap labor, but high talent.

No root cause – any risk of war access their impact

Joshua S. Goldstein (prof of IR @ American U, Wash D.C.) ’1 War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa. Cambridge University Press. pp. 412
First, peace activists face a dilemma in thinking about causes of war and working
AND
injustice as the main cause of war seems to be empirically inadequate.10

Economic liberalism is causing a massive drop in absolute poverty

Larry Obhof, JD @ Yale, 2003 ("WHY GLOBALIZATION? A LOOK AT GLOBAL CAPITALISM AND ITS EFFECTS". University of Florida Journal of Law %26 Public Policy. Fall 2003)
The effects of globalization have largely been positive for both developed and developing countries.
AND
and with it, greater income levels, particularly for the poorest. n52

And is solves relative inequality

Larry Obhof, JD @ Yale, 2003 ("WHY GLOBALIZATION? A LOOK AT GLOBAL CAPITALISM AND ITS EFFECTS". University of Florida Journal of Law %26 Public Policy. Fall 2003)
Many in the anti-globalization camp have focused their efforts on rising tensions within
AND
that globalization has increased internal conflict is simply not supported by the facts.

Relative inequality decreasing

Kenny 10 ~Charles, a contributing editor to Foreign Policy, is author of the forthcoming book Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding and How We Can Improve the World Even More, Best. Decade. Ever. SEPT. / OCT. 2010 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/16/best_decade_ever?page=full~~
But these horrific events, though mortal and economic catastrophes for many millions, don’t
AND
of millions of people are eating more — and better — each day.

Environment getting better now and its because of growth and tech innovation

Bailey, award-winning science correspondent for Reason magazine, testified before Congress, author of numerous books, member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities,  2k ~ Ronald, "Earth Day, Then and Now-http://reason.com/archives/2000/05/01/earth-day-then-and-now The planet’s future has never looked better. Here’s why.", http://reason.com/archives/2000/05/01/earth-day-then-and-now/4-http://reason.com/archives/2000/05/01/earth-day-then-and-now/4~~
Earth Day 1970 provoked a torrent of apocalyptic predictions. "We have about five
AND
that passionate concern, however sincere, is no substitute for rational analysis.

Through its fear off the state, the affirmative paves the way for para-state movements that ignore the state apparati that stop violence

Kotsko 1-3 Adam, Assistant Professor of Humanities, Shimer College; "Fear of the state" An und für sich; January 3, 2013; http://itself.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/fear-of-the-state/**
It has always puzzled me that some people can look at something like public provision
AND
people who are impatient to destroy and undermine it in every way possible.

Scientific knowledge is good because it subjects itself to constant refinement based on empirical evidence

Hutcheon 93—former prof of sociology of education at U Regina and U British Columbia. Former research advisor to the Health Promotion Branch of the Canadian Department of Health and Welfare and as a director of the Vanier Institute of the Family. Phd in sociology, began at Yale and finished at U Queensland. (Pat, A Critique of "Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA", http://www.humanists.net/pdhutcheon/humanist%20articles/lewontn.htm)
The introductory lecture in this series articulated the increasingly popular "postmodernist" claim that
AND
mean failure, in that the theory itself has altered in the process.

1AR

Plan focused debate is the only way to preserve reflective analysis

Roger Solt, "What is Debate Theory" Passed out at the MNDI, 1994
It could be argued that we are a society with too many advocates and too
AND
topical action proposed by the affirmative is part of the optimal policy package.

Ignore their economic analysis – built upon arbitrary and ideologically biased indicators, don’t use data, and systemically undervalue innovation

Taylor 2002, Director of Natural Resource Studies at Cato Institute ~Jerry, "Sustainable Development: A Dubious Solution in Search of a Problem," Cato Policy Analysis, August 26, No. 449, p. 21, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa449.pdf~~

If resources are growing more abundant while the concentration of pollutants in air sheds and
AND
. Accordingly, they provide little help to policy analysts or political leaders.

Nuclear war would cause authoritarianism, racism, xenophobia, sexism, and religious intolerance

FME 2006  (For Mother Earth, "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons," Last Modified 4-17-06, http://www.motherearth.org/nuke/begin2.php)
To understand the effects of a nuclear war it is important to distinguish it from
AND
external, easily mobilized skilled workers, material resources, and organizational skills.
The massive and simultaneous destruction of economic and human resources would result in an inability
AND
binding together society, restating a common thread of hope and shared aspirations.
Economic destruction, loss of political leadership (especially at the local level), and
AND
, and economic control would be probable responses to post-attack conditions.
However, even before any outbreak of nuclear war, the presence of nuclear weapons has an enormous potential to distort social and economic priorities. Each of the nuclear weapons states has spent billions of dollars on constructing, maintaining and protecting its nuclear weapons. It is not necessary to point out that this money could have been better spent on providing health care, education or other public services.
The development of nuclear weapons also makes it necessary to create an unaccountable "nuclear elite", made up of scientists, military and civil servants, who work largely in secret to control the development, testing and deployment of nuclear weapons. This makes the presence of nuclear weapons incompatible with a democratic society.
It is possible to link an increased importance of the military, and a general increase in militarism, to a growth of xenophobia, racial and religious intolerance, as well as male chauvinism.

Tournament: NDT | Round: Round 2 | Opponent: UMKC AG | Judge: Symonds, Walters, Jacobs 

2AC

Solvency

Disposition is the antithesis of reprocessing – it eliminates plutonium stockpiles rather than creating them
Bunn 2    Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs    August 2002    U.S. Program for Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium  http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/publication/2376/us_program_for_disposition_of_excess_weapons_plutonium.html?breadcrumb=%2Fexperts%2F368%2Fmatthew-http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/publication/2376/us_program_for_disposition_of_excess_weapons_plutonium.html?breadcrumb=%2Fexperts%2F368%2Fmatthew
Although plutonium disposition is intended to serve nonproliferation goals, some have seen the dual
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be licensed for this mission and will be dismantled when it is complete.

====MOX is just a substitute fuel—doesn’t increase consumption====
CECA 6    Consumer Energy Council of America 2006  Fueling the Future-Better Ways to Use America’s Fuel Options, A Report of The Consumer Energy Council of America Fuels and Technologies Forum, http://usinfo.org/enus/life/science/docs/CECA%20Report%202006%20Final%205-17-06.pdf
Other fuels that often are mentioned in nuclear fuel discussions are thorium and mixed oxide
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used in pressurized water reactors as a direct replacement for enriched uranium fuel.

Russia

Capitalism as a universal structure is both empirically incorrect and politically disabling

White and Williams (senior lecturer of economic geography at Sheffield Hallam University; professor of public policy in the Management School at the University of Sheffield) 12
(Richard J. and Cohn C., Escaping Capitalist Hegemony: Rereading Western Economies in The Accumulation of Freedom, pg. 117-118)

"~O~n the left, we get up in the morning opposing capitalism
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of economy, and structures of desire."—C.C. Williams Introduction
’This chapter contests the widely held belief that we exist in a "capitalist" world, one in which goods and services are produced, distributed, and organized around the unadulterated pursuit of profit in the marketplace. That this belief is both misguided and mistaken is testament to the powerful economic discourse which colonizes the mind and imagination into believing that capitalism is omnipresent, particularly so in the Western economies. In 1898, Kropotkin observed:
~I~ t is certain that in proportion as the human mind frees itself from ideas inculcated by minorities of priests, military chiefs and judges, all striving to establish their domination, and of scientists paid to perpetuate it, a conception of society arises, in which conception there is no longer room for those dominating minorities.’
It is the desire to free the mind from the ideas inculcated by a dominant minority within economies that informs the particular focus of this chapter. To this end the chapter will develop a critical challenge to a central economic discourse the eommodification thesis on two important grounds. The first is related to questioning the empirical data that claims to offer support to such a dominant thesis. The second involves critically unpacking the regime of representation and
discursive construction that effectively serves to legitimate the vested interests of capital and constrain the actions of anarchist (and other) economic agents and policy makers who desire to engage with and harness meaningful alternative economic practices.
From a critical perspective, rethinking "the economic" is to engage in a
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for transforming the way in which we should think about our economic futures.

Not root cause

Brian Martin, Professor of Science, Technology and Society at the University of Wollongong, ’90 (http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/90uw/uw13.html-http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/90uw/uw13.html)
In this chapter and in the six preceding chapters I have examined a number of
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the roots of war and developing strategies for grassroots movements to uproot them.

1AR

Russia

Regulated capitalism is best for freedom and distribution of wealth

Richards  11    Doug Richards: An informed electorate   Posted on February 28, 2011-http://camera-letterstotheeditor.pmpblogs.com/2011/02/28/doug-richards-an-informed-electorate/ by Camera staff-http://camera-letterstotheeditor.pmpblogs.com/author/aaron/
http://camera-letterstotheeditor.pmpblogs.com/2011/02/28/doug-richards-an-informed-electorate/-http://camera-letterstotheeditor.pmpblogs.com/2011/02/28/doug-richards-an-informed-electorate/
Well regulated capitalism by an informed electorate has proven to be the most effective force
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by the ruthless and criminal class. And that’s where we are today.

Regulated capitalism avoids the dehumanization of their alternative

Foster 9     Nathan Foster  SEPTEMBER 14, 2009      Regulated Capitalism vs. Socialism
http://open.salon.com/blog/nathan_foster/2009/09/14/regulated_capitalism_vs_socialism-http://open.salon.com/blog/nathan_foster/2009/09/14/regulated_capitalism_vs_socialism
3) Regulated capitalism is a negative law system. Socialism is a positive law
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laws rather than positive laws. Positive laws are usually constricting and dehumanizing.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent: KY GS | Judge:
2AC Immigration—NDT 

2—Economic decline doesn’t cause war.

Jervis 11 ~Robert, Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics in the Department of Political  Science, and a Member of the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia  University. Force in Our Times  Saltzman Working Paper No. 15  July 2011 http://www.siwps.com/news.attachment/saltzmanworkingpaper15-842/SaltzmanWorkingPaper15.PDF~~

Even if war is still seen as evil, the security community could be dissolved  
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times bring about greater economic  conflict, it will not make war  thinkable.

3—No recession—econ recovering—best indicators prove risk is low.

Perry 13 ~Mark, Chart of the day: US recession probability is down to 0.20%, AEIdeas, The public policy blog of the American Enterprise Institute, http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/02/chart-of-the-day-us-recession-probability-is-down-to-0-20/~~
The chart above shows University of Oregon economics professor Jeremy Piger’s "Recession Probability Index
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not even close to being in the early stages of an economic contraction.

5— No immigration reform – GOP border security requirement

York 3-27
Byron York Chief Political Correspondent The Washington Examiner Border security in exchange for immigration reform? Napolitano says no deal. http://washingtonexaminer.com/border-security-in-exchange-for-immigration-reform-napolitano-says-no-deal./article/2525505
Republicans working to craft a comprehensive immigration reform bill say there is one rock-
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reform, they can forget about making a deal, now or ever.

7—Congress will fight the cuts—burns Obama’s political capital.

Fletcher 13   Kenneth Fletcher, Los Alamos Study Group  Feb 1, 2013    Nuclear Weapons %26 Materials Monitor   vol 17 no 5
MOX SUSPENSION ON THE TABLE IN THE EVENT OF SEQUESTRATION  http://www.lasg.org/press/2013/NWMM_1Feb2013.html
The deferral of MOX would lead to stiff opposition to the project’s backers in Congress
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claims to support," Wilson spokeswoman Caroline Delleney said in a written response.

8—Graham can get the funding – history proves

Russell 13    Pam Radtke Russell, Roll Call Staff      Feb. 5, 2013    Budget Cutters Eye Nuclear Reprocessing Plant
Taxpayers for Common Sense  http://www.taxpayer.net/media-center/article/budget-cutters-eye-nuclear-reprocessing-plant
The MOX facility has survived earlier challenges. Former Rep. David L. Hobson
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, could lead the Russians not to honor its end of the agreement.

9—Obama is staying away from immigration reform – keeps the GOP on board

AP 3-28
Associated Press March 28, 2013 Obama ’confident’ immigration bill could pass by summer http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/28/obama-says-immigration-bill-could-pass-by-summer/
While overhauling the nation’s patchwork immigration laws is a top second term priority for the
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of the Union address, then purposely handed off the effort to lawmakers.

10—Obama will just use executive order to pass immigration reform. He already declared that he will.

The Hill 2-16
The Hill, 2/16/13, "Dems: Obama can act unilaterally on immigration reform" http://thehill.com/blogs/regwatch/administration/283583-dems-recognize-that-obama-can-act-unilaterally-on-immigration-reform~~%23ixzz2L6gVWc7r
President Obama can – and will – take steps on immigration reform in the event
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is "the waiving of deportation" in order to keep families together.

12—Obamas losing capital on Keystone – Senate vote

SB 3-25
SustainableBusiness.com, 03/25/2013, "Senate Votes YES On Tar Sands Pipeline" http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/24698
It was late Friday afternoon when the State Department denied any negative environmental impacts from
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Big Oil masters," says Michael Brune, Executive Director of Sierra Club. 

13—Obama has no political capital

Vespa 3-22
Matt Vespa | March 22, 2013 | CBS Political Director Now: Obama Shouldn’t Agitate GOP; Back in January: ’Go For The Throat,’ Mr. President http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/matt-vespa/2013/03/22/180-turn-cbs-political-director-says-obama-shouldnt-agitate-gop-said-go-
Perhaps Dickerson was part of the liberal crowd that felt the president, fresh off
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will the media start to note openly that the emperor has no clothes.

3—H-1Bs fail – no labor market test, wage requirements are too low, visas are held by employers, and oversight and enforcement failures

Hira 10
Ron Hira associate professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology, October 14, 2010  "The H-1B and L-1 Visa Programs: Out of Control," http://epi.3cdn.net/490c30d8f9f16bc16c_b0m6b5b9c.pdf
H-1B and L-1 visa use has become antithetical to policy makers’
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DHS IG report found that there were "signifi cant vulnerabilities to abuse." 

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent: KY GS | Judge:
2AC PIC

No reactors have commited

Fretwell  13     Sammy Fretwell, The State (Columbia, S.C.) February 5, 2013  Columbia Dispatch   Cost, goal of plutonium-fuel factory questioned       http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2013/02/05/cost-goal-of-plutonium-fuel-factory-questioned.html
Meanwhile, federal officials are scrambling to find a utility that will use the mixed
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. 14 letter to outgoing U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

No reactors are willing to buy the MOX
Brailsford 12   Beatrice Brailsford et al, ALLIANCE FOR NUCLEAR ACCOUNTABILITY March 2012    Nuclear Budget Busters     http://ananuclear.org/Portals/0/documents/final.pdf
~The~ Mixed Oxide (MOX) Plutonium Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction at
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MOX plant will produce expensive plutonium fuel that no utilities want to buy.

Cost is the barrier for reactors

Skutnik 12   Steve Skutnik, assistant professor of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Tennessee.  9-10-12
The Neutron Economy   Wading into the "nuclear zombie" horde
http://neutroneconomy.blogspot.com/2012/09/wading-into-nuclear-zombie-horde.html-http://neutroneconomy.blogspot.com/2012/09/wading-into-nuclear-zombie-horde.html
 Zombie Argument ~%233: Nobody wants MOX
A relatively specious argument which can be relatively swiftly
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as used in current reactors - hence, it was cheaper and easier).

Incentives are necessary because of costs
Fleischauer 10    Eric Fleischauer, The Decatur Daily, Ala.    July 31, 2010     The Decatur Daily (Alabama)    Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News  lexis
An advantage of converting plutonium to MOX is that it cannot be converted back to
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complicated option because that’s what the Russians wanted us to do."

Subsidies are necessary to offset higher costs

Hanna 12    Autumn Hanna, Taxpayers for Common Sense   June 19, 2012   MOX Misses the Mark
http://www.taxpayer.net/library/article/mox-misses-the-mark-http://www.taxpayer.net/library/article/mox-misses-the-mark
In late 2008 the contract between Duke Energy and MOX Services committing Duke to buying
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is, they can find any companies interested in processing the volatile substance.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent: KY GS | Judge:
2AC AT – Must eliminate a ban / restriction is a ban

Testing and licensing are prohibitions – no reactor will be able to operate without testing and a license

Brailsford 12   Beatrice Brailsford et al, ALLIANCE FOR NUCLEAR ACCOUNTABILITY March 2012    Nuclear Budget Busters     http://ananuclear.org/Portals/0/documents/final.pdf
Current Completion Date: In mid-January 2011, DOE said that construction will
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grave risk of sitting idle with no utility able to use its product.

Restriction is any limitation

Law.com Dictionary 13   http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1835
Restriction   n. any limitation on activity, by statute, regulation or contract provision. 

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent: KY GS | Judge:
2AC Sequestration

4—Impacts to the cliff are overstated

Preble 12
Christopher Preble is the vice president for defense and foreign-policy studies at the Cato Institute, Let Sequestration Happen July 17, 2012 http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/let-sequestration-happen-7204
Sequestration likely won’t be as bad as special interests and those in favor of ever
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indicates that some businesses are already positioning themselves to weather reduced government spending.

6—Administrative actions blunt sequestration

Tsai 12-29
Joyce Tsai, December 29th, 2012, "How badly will budget cuts hurt troops, DOD civilians?" http://www.stripes.com/news/how-badly-will-budget-cuts-hurt-troops-dod-civilians-1.202310-http://www.stripes.com/news/how-badly-will-budget-cuts-hurt-troops-dod-civilians-1.202310
Patrick Lester, director of fiscal policy at OMB Watch, a progressive Washington think
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more urgent activities and accelerate spending to avoid employee furloughs, Lester said.

9—Won’t pass—not enough alternative cuts

Carroll 1/18/2013, Conn, senior editorial writer for  the examiner, "Morning Examiner: the Sequester is going to happen," http://washingtonexaminer.com/morning-examiner-the-sequester-is-going-to-happen/article/2519017~~%23.UPryqidZUoM
This reality has already been accepted by many in the conservative defense hawk community.
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is nowhere else to go. The continuous punting is not a solution."

Doesn’t solve conflict.

Fettweis, Political Science – Tulane, 10 ~Christopher J., fifth year doctoral
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Policy, April 2010 Survival, 52:2, 59 - 82~

One potential explanation for the growth of global peace can be dismissed fairly quickly:
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to reach the conclusion that world peace and US military expenditure are unrelated.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent: KY GS | Judge:
2AC Security

4—Anti-proliferation is good. We should try to get rid of as many nuclear weapons as possible

Paul Schulte, Director of Prolif %26 Arms Control - Ministry of Defense @ UK, ’7 ~International Affairs 83.3, "Universal vision or bounded rationality?" p. Blackwell~
It is also very much worth remembering that, despite Walker’s criticisms, the effect
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the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made’.6 

5—Data proves heg lowers absolute poverty and war deaths.

Barnett 11 (Thomas P.M. Barnett, Former Senior Strategic Researcher and Professor in the Warfare Analysis %26 Research Department, Center for Naval Warfare Studies, U.S. Naval War College American military geostrategist and Chief Analyst at Wikistrat., worked as the Assistant for Strategic Futures in the Office of Force Transformation in the Department of Defense, "The New Rules: Leadership Fatigue Puts U.S., and Globalization, at Crossroads," March 7 http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/8099/the-new-rules-leadership-fatigue-puts-u-s-and-globalization-at-crossroads-http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/8099/the-new-rules-leadership-fatigue-puts-u-s-and-globalization-at-crossroads,
It is worth first examining the larger picture: We live in a time of
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term instability even as it builds the basis for longer-term stability. 

Experience proves safety
Reilly 13    BILL REILLY, a retired colonel, formerly headed the U.S. Army’s reactor program.   Sunday, July 1, 2012   Updated: Tue Jan 29, 2013.    MOX offers a nuclear power boost      http://www.columbiatribune.com/commentary/op-ed/mox-offers-a-nuclear-power-boost/article_4075b9c4-bd1c-5f22-99fb-0783224782cf.html~~%23.USB3wmfQaSo
The TVA reactors, however, would not be the first nuclear power plants to
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the world. It’s a well-established technology, especially in Europe.

Consensus supports safety
Yurman 12   Dan Yurman, formerly at the Idaho National lab and reporter for Fuel Cycle Week   9-9-12      Idaho Samizdat:
Nuke Notes    Mix it up about MOX in Chattanooga  http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2012/09/mix-it-up-about-mox-in-chattanooga.html-http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2012/09/mix-it-up-about-mox-in-chattanooga.html
ANS members and its board have endorsed the important role that ANS should play as a professional society in informing the public about the nonproliferation benefits of the MOX fuel program and the safe and successful track record of manufacturing and using MOX fuel.
This endorsement by the ANS Board of Directors is not common in ANS position statements and underscores the importance of this issue.
Every credible scientific and technical organization in the world that has closely examined this issue has endorsed the use of MOX fuel technologies for this purpose. 

7—Alt fails

Jeroen Gunning, Lecturer in International Politics @ Univ. of Wales, ’7 ~Government and Opposition 42.3, "A Case for Critical Terrorism Studies?" p. Blackwell-synergy~
The notion of emancipation also crystallizes the need for policy engagement. For, unless
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at the interaction between the violent group and their wider social constituency.104 

9—Arms control is peaceful action—reduces interstate conflict

Jonas Hagmann, @ Graduate Institute of International Studies (IUHEI), Geneva, 07 ~Paper presented at the Sixth Pan-European Conference on International Relations, "Not whether but how: Introducing complex securitization," http://archive.sgir.eu/uploads/Hagmann-SGIR%20Turin%20-Threats%20as%20subject%20positions-%20JHagmann%20IUHEI%20Geneva.pdf~~
This paper developed two arguments. First, security concerns are not necessarily favouring self
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inter-group peace efforts through a manipulation of the security knowledge base.