http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/28/usa-nuclear-financing-idUSN2818128120110328Public fears about nuclear
safety stacked up on untenable economics make it unlikely that
any new nuclear reactors will be built in the United States in
the next several years, a lawyer who specializes in energy
project financing said on Monday.
Even if public opinion were to "snap back" after the
emergency at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant -- the world's
worst atomic crisis in 25 years -- nuclear plants cost too much
to build, even with government loan guarantees, said Irving
Rotter, a partner with New York law firm Sidley Austin.
"The likelihood that the United States will have a nuclear
reactor within the next several years is exceedingly remote --
it was as exceedingly remote before the incident in Japan,"
Rotter told a nuclear policy conference held by the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace.
Long before the Japanese plant was battered by an
earthquake and tsunami earlier this month, natural gas was a
far cheaper fuel source for electricity in the United States.
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