Edging Back to Nuclear Power

[FBaggins]

FOR the first time since the 1970s, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced a step that it once took routinely: appointing an inspector for a new reactor construction project.

With 17 applications in hand from companies that want to build 26 reactors, the agency is likely to name a lot more inspectors; it also expects five more applicants in the next few years.

Is this the long-awaited renaissance of the nuclear construction business, after years of being moribund?

Certainly, some crucial ingredients are falling into place. Nuclear power provides 70 percent of the nation’s carbon-free electricity, important at a time when environmentalists track carbon in the atmosphere the way baby boomers check their cholesterol levels. And while Congress has not agreed on setting a price on carbon emissions, important people say we need more low-carbon power. President Obama said in his State of the Union address that it was time to build “a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country,” and his budget plan would triple the pool of loan guarantees available for construction, to $57.5 billion.



At the site of the Southern Company's Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors, workers lay fill over a rock-like base to make a foundation for one of the two new units.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/business/energy-environment/22NUKE.html?src=busln