The United States has taken an important step toward efficiently meeting the country's rising electricity demand by ensuring a greater supply of clean, safe nuclear power.
With plans in place in Georgia for the construction of the next generation of nuclear energy facilities, this industry expansion will promote economic prosperity and continued development of a sustainable clean energy source. We need a cost-efficient, low-carbon solution to the nation's increasing electricity demand -- projected to rise 24 percent by 2035. Expanding nuclear energy as part of the mix of electricity generation options is necessary to meeting our nation's growing power needs cleanly and cost-effectively.
As co-chairs of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, a grassroots organization comprising nuclear energy supporters from the business, industry, labor, academic, health, and environmental sectors, we believe that nuclear energy expansion paves the way to create tens of thousands of American jobs, broader economic benefits, and a clean energy future.
This week the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved combined construction and operating licenses (COLs) for two new reactors at the Vogtle nuclear energy facility in Georgia. The Vogtle project has the support of the Obama administration through a Department of Energy loan guarantee as part of the administration's clean energy initiatives.
These next-generation reactors will power scores of businesses and homes -- 1.6 million in Georgia alone -- and it will do so affordably and reliably. At about two cents per kilowatt-hour, the production cost for electricity at nuclear energy facilities is lower than all other major sources of power. By comparison, energy from natural gas-fueled plants doubles that cost at roughly four cents per kilowatt-hour.
Because of the stable, low price of uranium used to fuel the production of electricity at nuclear energy facilities, the price of electricity from nuclear energy varies little. Georgia residents whose power comes from the new reactors could realize up to $20 in savings on each utility bill by 2034. These two new reactors, Vogtle units 3 and 4, are expected to save Georgia customers up to $6 billion in lower electricity rates over the life of the units as compared to a coal or natural gas plant. These are savings every American needs, deserves, and can have with a greater reliance on nuclear power. The savings complement the more than half a billion in annual tax revenues the communities surrounding the reactors and the state can earn from construction and ongoing plant operation.
The good news for American workers is that new nuclear energy construction creates thousands of jobs and 800 career-long jobs to operate the reactors for at least 60 years. Georgia Power is committed to hiring local workers and suppliers to build the largest construction project ever in the state. These jobs will help abate the near-record unemployment rate, which stands at 9.7 percent in Georgia.
The next generation of nuclear facilities will be safer than ever, beginning with Vogtle Units 3 and 4. New reactor designs being built in Georgia demonstrate the U.S. nuclear energy industry's commitment to safety. The industry continuously updates and improves its best practices based on lessons learned. The COLs represent a new federal licensing model. Subject to a three-year NRC review, the project undergoes the most rigorous, transparent, and collaborative assessment process of any nuclear proposal to date. During the review, the NRC confirms the safety and environmental protection of the reactor site.
These facilities will be built and operated according to the standards set by the NRC, the industry's independent regulatory body. As the NRC determines how best to incorporate lessons learned from Fukushima -- like all American companies that operate nuclear facilities -- Georgia Power will make changes during construction to adhere to NRC requirements. The American nuclear industry is committed to continually updating and improving its best practices throughout the construction and operation of all its facilities. This is an industry that strives not only to meet NRC standards, but exceed them.
The design of the new reactors further testifies to the stringent measures taken to keep Americans safe. Developed out of 50 years of operational experience, the design underwent the NRC's most thorough pre-construction review ever. Westinghouse's AP1000 reactor design layers precaution upon precaution, including backup cooling systems that run without human intervention, and a steel and reinforced concrete building shield able to withstand the impact of a natural disaster or even an airliner crash.
Plans for new reactors at Plant Vogtle mark a critical step forward to make America's energy supply more secure, jumpstart the economy, and protect the environment, all while enhancing safety. The NRC's license approval reinforces nuclear power's role as the leading clean-air electricity source. More than 100 reactors in 31 states already produce more than 70 percent of all low-carbon electricity produced in the America.
The simple truth is that more abundant American-made nuclear energy is a vital part of our brighter energy future, but for many decades and many reasons, our nation failed to expand our energy security by building more nuclear facilities. States like Georgia have established the way forward for nuclear energy expansion. With the right policy support, more states should follow their lead to ensure a sustainable clean energy future for all.
Christine Todd Whitman is the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and former New Jersey governor. Dr. Patrick Moore is a co-founder and former leader of Greenpeace. Together they co-chair the industry-funded Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, a national grassroots coalition that promotes the economic and environmental benefits of nuclear expansion as part of a sustainable clean energy portfolio.
Georgia Power is showing it's true colours. Nuclear Yes, Solar No, unless it is theirs.
Georgia Power loves Nuclear but see what they really think about others providing solar to Georgia Residents. Now they think they should own rights to the SUN.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-chernobyl-birds-smaller-brains.html
Along with I-131 they are picking up Xe with half life of 9 hrs. They thermometer may have been right before they burned it out.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_120214_07-e.pdf
NISA gave them 24 hours to get a real temperature or else.
The people pushing so hard for aging, nuclear energy sound so strange. Let's be proud of modern innovations and push for things we can be proud to hand off to our grandchildren. One example, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion. Creating endless clean power from the temperature difference in ocean water, and the only byproduct is clean drinking water. The Bahamas is building 2 of those plants while we're risking nuclear disaster.
Here's more info on the Bahamas OTEC projects...
http://www.theonproject.org/2011/the-bahamas-sign-memorandum-of-understanding-to-build-two-otec-plants/?utm_source=huffpost&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=mscomment
Risk = likelihood * consequence
The "disaster" isnt the risk. Its the product of the likelihood * the consequence.
The likelihood is vanishingly remote
Remember, a 50 ft tidal wave just doesnt happen every day, and where in the US has it happened?
Like the remote F5 tornado in San Diego, nature has patterns and probabilities as well.
How many millirems per year are people exposed to in Denver
- source
And
What were the most recent measurements of millirems (per hour or year) near Fukushima
- source
Look, if you want to get technical the whole planet was contaminated by Cold War by that destination
No one is dying or at adverse health risk. Stop the crapola
But of course you will claim it's from other causes.....
However, in order to make a significant impact in the reduction of greenhouse gases, the United States must take the lead in a large-scale deployment of a new generation of nuclear power plants. The extended licenses of older plants will start to expire in 20 years. Not only should we replace these older plants with a new generation of reactors but we should expand clean nuclear power to replace a significant amount of electricity generated by heavily polluting fossil fuels.
The United States invented the peaceful use nuclear power for electricity generation. Now is the time for the US to lead by example. Carry out a comprehensive plan for a large-scale deployment of nuclear power in the US. This will significantly expand the use of clean nuclear power around the globe.
Nanosolar. Pipe dream. We need energy NOW
How come there's no investment in nuclear energy? How come no insurance company will insure them and have to be backed by the government with OUR MONEY???
The industry carries far higher indemnity/insurance then does any other industrial energy facility in America. Big Oil is limited to legislatively limited $75M per spill. With the worst imaginable nuke accident caused by criminal activity in an fragile ancient 50's designed reactor leaving no dead and the long term damage limited to the reactor itself Fuku shows us how small the potential liability is.
On the other hand, it would be impossible to build wind/solar plant if the families of the thousands of citizens murdered every year by deadly fine particulate air polluting radioactive gas spewing fracked natural gas plant required to backup wind/solar at 100% nameplate,
could sue.
Given that a single terrorist with a shoulder fired missile could wipe out many American cities in a nuclear bomb sized LNG storage or tanker explosion, while the zero death meltdown risk in a modern nuke reactor is now certified by the NRC at 1 such accident in every 5 million years of plant operation, nuclear is far safer insurance bet than any alternatives.
In fact rather than receiving subsidy the nuke industry is $80B in the black subsidizing the federal government with funds that will never be used.
Are we considering the fact that as uranium resource will start dwindling it will become more and more expensive?
Let's also not forget that when we label nuclear power as cheap and clean we never account for the damage and cost of handling radioactive exhausts, which are constantly polluting for hundreds of years and the cost of handling them is never accounted in nuclear power business plan, otherwise they would have to call them failure plans...
Waste handling is indeed costed in nuclear power budgets. When it is eventually buried, we'll know it cannot harm us in the same way we know the salt in the Titanic's saltshakers is not going to salt the oceans.
The waste cannot be kept out of the environment for the necessary million years by any known science, and the disasters happen every 25 years or so with the 500 nukes we have now. It was supposed to be once every 10,000 years.
CleanReally? Why don't we ask the Japanese about that?
Sustainable?? By definition every sustainable is also something renewable, and Uranium is not renewable, is actually pretty scares and
We can power the world for a thousand years on existing stocks of nuclear waste without getting into the millions of years worth of seawater uranium and thorium. Presumably by then fusion will have solved the problem.
With a far smaller amount of toxic waste and non renewable materials per KWH produced nuclear is far more renewable than any renewable.
All the world's nuclear waste - less than football field in total - will be burned in Gen IV reactors - enough to power the world for a thousand years. Coal on the other hand already produces thousands of cubic miles of deadly forever toxic ash dumps.
Here the magic machinery is between two and three times more expensive than the alternatives. Ned can rest easy - the same old ways are much cheaper than your proposed solution.