Tuesday was an important day in the nation's journey back toward energy independence, as President Barack Obama announced the approval of $8.3 billion in loan guarantees to help the Southern Co. (SO) build a nuclear power plant in Georgia. The Obama administration has made a large increase nuclear power a top priority in its energy policy, in an effort to play catch-up for the decades lost without a coherent energy policy and without the wholesale development of the proven and innovative nuclear technology. Incredibly, no new nuclear plants have been licensed in the United States since 1979.
Along with creating thousands of good-paying jobs, nuclear energy is a domestic, low-carbon-footprint energy source that, if deployed fully, can meet all of our domestic consumer and commercial electricity needs, and then some: it's a technology with enormous potential.
Further, economies of scale and improved plant technology will lower the cost per kilowatt hour. Finally, nuclear waste can be reprocessed: France has successfully reprocessed nuclear waste for more than 30 years.
Energy Analysis: Go nukes! The nation should have as a goal the more than tripling of the number of nuclear plants -- currently totaling 104 -- to more than 300 in 20 years. Unfortunately, it will be an achievement if the nation can build 50 in the current decade. That's why Congress must increase and extend the loan guarantee program, currently limited to $18.5 billion in loans, to encourage additional nuclear plant construction.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-16-2010 @ 8:36PM
JERRY2665 said...
Plant technology will lower the cost per kilowatt hour. Its tims to make this happen we need jobs Congress must increase and extend the loan guarantee program.
2-16-2010 @ 11:34PM
Josh Duyal said...
This means nothing until the environmental permits are secured for construction. My guess -- that will take 5-6 years and it's just before the trial lawyers will make the area residents sue the company, which will take another 3-5 years to settle. In short, doing business in America is Mission Impossible.
2-17-2010 @ 6:05AM
al coholic said...
Fifty years from now historians will be scratching their heads, wondering why it took us so long to ignore the uninformed hysterical Hollywood fruitcakes and maniacal activists who brainwashed America.
Shame on us for buying into their ignorance. They set us back nearly thirty years in our quest for energy independence.
2-17-2010 @ 7:52AM
MyKisa said...
.....licensed....that means gov man, and those that have bought off gov man must be bought off to build one of these plants.....need to build 30 more coal generation plants at the same time....there is clean coal...use the nukes to make hydrogen...