One step closer...

[Sonic Glitch]

... to new Nuclear power plants in the US. It's about damn time.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama next week will announce a loan guarantee to build the first nuclear power plant in the United States in almost three decades, an administration official said Friday.

The two new Southern Co. reactors to be built in Burke, Ga., are part of a White House energy plan administration officials hope will draw Republican support. Obama's direct involvement in announcing the award underscores the political weight the White House is putting behind its effort to use nuclear power and alternative energy sources to lessen American dependence on foreign oil and reduce the use of other fossil fuels blamed for global warming.

Loan guarantees for other sites are expected to be announced in the coming months, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the decision had not yet been made public. The federal guarantees are seen as essential for construction of any new reactor because of the huge expense involved. Critics call the guarantees a form of subsidy and say taxpayers will assume a huge risk, given the industry's record of cost overruns and loan defaults.

Even with next week's announcement, actual construction of the first reactor is still years away. The Southern Co. has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a construction and operating license for the plant, one of 13 such applications the agency is considering. NRC spokesman Eliot Brenner said the earliest any of those could be approved would be late 2011 or early 2012.

The Southern Co. has begun site preparation in Burke, but cannot begin construction without NRC approval.

Obama called for "a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants" in his Jan. 27 State of the Union speech, and followed that by proposing to triple loan guarantees for new nuclear plants. Obama's budget for the coming year would add $36 billion in new federal loan guarantees on top of $18.5 billion already budgeted - but not spent - for a total of $54.5 billion. That's enough to help build six or seven new nuclear plants, which can cost $8 billion to $10 billion each.

The proposed new reactors would generate power for some 1.4 million people and employ about 850 people, the official said, adding that the Georgia project would create about 3,000 construction jobs.

Spiraling costs, safety concerns and opposition from environmentalists have kept utilities from building any new nuclear power plants since the early 1980s. The 104 nuclear reactors now in operation in 31 states provide about 20 percent of the nation's electricity. But they are responsible for 70 percent of the power from pollution-free sources, including wind, solar and hydroelectric dams that Obama has championed as a way to save the environment and economy at the same time.

During the campaign, Obama said he would support nuclear power with caveats. He was concerned about how to deal with radioactive waste and how much federal money was needed to support construction costs. Those concerns remain; some say they've gotten worse.

Environmentalists and fiscal hawks oppose new nuclear plants and note that they come at the same time Obama has proposed eliminating a long-planned nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Obama has appointed a commission to find a safe solution for dealing with nuclear waste, but in the meantime the government has no long-term plan to store commercial radioactive waste.

Energy has served as a major plank of the president's domestic agenda, but his focus on building a green energy economy has broadened in the past month to include nuclear power, offshore oil drilling and development of clean-coal technology, all energy sources championed by Republicans. The shift came after Republican Scott Brown won a special election in Massachusetts to replace the late Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, depriving Democrats of the votes needed to keep Senate Republicans from blocking their agenda.

Republicans like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham welcome the shift, but some pro-nuclear Republicans remain nervous about the heart of the Obama-backed climate bill - a plan to limit heat-trapping pollution, which will raise energy costs.

Environmentalists, who once saw Obama as a friend of renewable energy, have said they feel betrayed by his shift. They said renewable energy such as wind and solar are more cost-effective than nuclear power and do not come with side effects such as radioactive waste.

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Daly and Philip Elliott contributed to this report.

[Monroe]

I agree. I don't understand the liberal / progressive view that nuclear power plants are bad. It makes zero sense.

[Reliant121]

I think they are still wetting themselves over the likes of Chernobyl.

[Tyyr]

Then they're fucking idiots.

[Captain Seafort]

About bloody time. This is one of the reasons I was hoping the States would have President McCain - this would have been happening months ago, as it should have.

[Tyyr]

That was one of my Bush disappointments. We should have started this nine years ago.

[Sionnach Glic]

I heartily second the "about fucking time" comments. The sooner we all switch to using nuclear power the better.

[Reliant121]

I had a huge debate with my Geography teacher about Nuclear power. safe to say it ended in a "i'm the teacher, So i'm right. Nuclear is dangerous, wind is the way forward."

[Deepcrush]

That was one of my Bush disappointments. We should have started this nine years ago.

Seeing how long that list of disappointments is... we shouldn't be shocked.

[Sionnach Glic]

IIRC, you'd need to cover pretty much half of Britain to power London alone.

Sorry, but all those "clean" energies are pretty fucking useless for any large-scale work.

[Deepcrush]

Yeah, windmills are fine for a single house out on a farm. But not for general power needs of a mass population.

[Aaron]

Should just stick a windmill on top of a reactor dome and tell the locals its a "turbo-charged windmill."

[Captain Seafort]

I had a huge debate with my Geography teacher about Nuclear power. safe to say it ended in a "i'm the teacher, So i'm right. Nuclear is dangerous, wind is the way forward."

Did said geography teacher get their degree with their Weetabix or their Shreddies? Not only is wind power reliant on the wind blowing (surprise, surprise), it produces net negative energy - offshore wind farms (which is the only place you're likely to get planning permission for the requisite numbers) require more energy to construct than they'll produce over their lifetimes.

As for "nuclear is dangerous", I assume this is yet another idiot who takes their knowledge of how nuclear power plants operate from the gross incompetence demonstrated in the design and operation of Chernobyl, rather than a modern reactor.

[Reliant121]

That was my point. If we intend to keep up with current and growing power expectations, there is NO option but to go Nuclear. Nothing else will produce enough power.

[Deepcrush]

How many nuke power ships do we have in the fleet? They seem to be fine...