Posted on 02/14/2010 10:09:48 AM PST by TaxPayer2000
President Barack Obama is to signal a major step-change in the global nuclear industry this week when he announces loan guarantees for two nuclear reactors to be built in the US.
The move will pave the way for the construction of the first nuclear power plants in America for more than three decades.
Financial assistance will be given to build two 1,150-megawatt reactors to Southern Company's two-unit site south of Augusta in Georgia in the first of billion of dollars of loans guarantees allocated to the nuclear power industry. Mr Obama has said he wants to use nuclear power and other alternative sources of energy in his effort to create a more self-sufficient energy policy for America.
In his first State of the Union address last month, Mr Obama declared it was time to build a "new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country". He said nuclear power could play an important role in creating "clean energy jobs" and more efficient energy.
In his budget, Mr Obama proposed tripling the funds available for nuclear loans guarantees to $54.5bn (£34.7bn) in the coming fiscal year.
A Washington official, who confirmed the announcement next week, told reporters that proposed new reactors would generate power for some 1.4 million people and employ about 850 people. He added that the Georgia project would create about 3,000 construction jobs.
In Britain, plans are already under way to build two new nuclear power stations as part of a similar drive to improve energy security. EDF, the energy giant 80pc-owned by the French government, is planning to build the country's first nuclear stations in decades at Sizewell in Suffolk and Hinkley Point in Somerset.
There have been no new licenses issued to nuclear plants in the America since 1979 when a major accident at....
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Normally I would support it but Obama is still a marxist and the soviet political system played a huge part in the Chernobyl disaster.
Political and union appointees will run the place and anybody with actual knowledge will be afraid to speak out about problems.
I’m suspicious.
I read the article a few times and can’t figure something out.
What’s the catch (trap)? Besides only two (we need more than that). There is always a catch with these guys.
This will go along with the “Nuclear Economics” he is unleashing on our country.
Posted yesterday. And if he was so pro-nuclear, why not fund long-term waste disposal sites like Yucca Mountain? Seems to me he pretty much gutted it last year. Yeah, say one thing, do another—it’s the Obama way.
Do we have any experienced nuclear engineers capable of designing the equipment and plant? It’s been 31 years since the last license was issued for a nuclear generating unit was issued in the U.S. A whole generation of design engineering skills and experience has been lost. Starting over again from scratch generally doesn’t produce optimal outcomes.
Or even better, fund technologies like molten salt reactors that can use all the “waste” fuel that current generation reactors put out. The waste from these reactors is inert. That means no long-term storage problem.
These people are so full of cr**.
If I had to guess, because there is always a catch with the Democrats, is that the Feds will guarantee the loans but that doesn't say anything about the decades long permitting process that the eco-nazis make the industry go through.
Me too. His support probably means he’ll dump billions into setting up solar panels atop the cooling towers.
3,000 jobs at just the cost of a few billion in load ganatees.
Now, what about the other 6.5 million folks looking for work?
The Canadians use the heavy water plants. As I understand it they aren’t the most efficient but they do appear to be fairly safe.
Nuclear under Obama better put safety over efficiency.
Actually, Mitsubishi has designs for a modular plant (1750MWe) that are much more reliable than the current designs. Also, we’ve learned a lot from Naval plants, as well as reasearch done at EG&G Idaho and Los Alamos.
Which makes me even more suspicious of Obama's intentions. After all, It is he and his political comrades who have made it impossible for this country to build a nuclear power plant or oil refinery for the past 35 years. Hell it takes 20 years of legal hassles to even build a coal powered power plant! What's in it for his Marxist agenda I wonder? Very interesting indeed.
I worked at Stone& Webster in the late ‘70s early 80’s and watched as our nuclear industry was systematically disassembled, through a combination of neglect, high costs and malice. I don’t think it will ever fully recover.
“The waste from these reactors is inert.”
I’m not sure about that- it will have less uranics and transuranics, but there is plenty of other stuff, like cesium, cobalt, barium, and the like.
When did this about face take place?
Powder..patch..ball FIRE!
Obama signals Nuke loan.
Environmental groups sue and it gets tied up for years.
Yobama shrugs and says “I tried” while winking at the greens.
This is wonderful news. The left will be dissembling.
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