Constructing the containment vessel
Why? Because nuclear power is safe, clean, reliable and efficient – and produces zero CO2 emissions. Contrast with “renewables” which are horrifically expensive, unreliable and inefficient, and require CO2-belching fossil fuel backup. And wind turbines shred rare birds.
And with the hysteria surrounding Fukushima, which resulted in the most astonishing fear-through-ignorance anti-nuclear knee-jerk reaction from many countries, it demonstrates that at least the US is taking its energy security seriously, and is not prepared to rely on hopeless renewables to keep the lights on.
The United States’ first new nuclear power plant in a generation has won approval after federal regulators voted on Thursday to grant a licence for two new reactors at a site in eastern Georgia.
Atlanta’s Southern Co hopes to begin operating the $14 billion reactors at its Vogtle site, south of Augusta, as soon as 2016. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved the company’s plans on a 4-1 vote.
The NRC last approved construction of a nuclear plant in 1978, a year before a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. That accident raised fears of a radiation release and brought new reactor orders to a near halt.
The planned reactors, along with two others in South Carolina expected to win approval in coming months, are the remnants of a once-anticipated building boom that the power industry dubbed the “nuclear renaissance”. The head of an industry lobbying group said the Vogtle project could be the start of a smaller renaissance that expands nuclear power in the United States.
“This is a historic day,” said Marvin Fertel, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute. He said the NRC vote “sounds a clarion call to the world that the United States recognises the importance of expanding nuclear energy as a key component of a low-carbon energy future that is central to job creation, diversity of electricity supply and energy security”.
President Barack Obama and other proponents say greater use of nuclear power could cut the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels and create energy without producing emissions blamed for global warming. The Obama administration has offered the Vogtle project $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees as part of its pledge to expand nuclear power. (source)
If the climate catastrophe is half as serious as claimed, nuclear is the ONLY option for energy security.
Australian Climate Madness 
Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t our planet need CO2 to survive? Questions: Why is China allowed to build between 3-5 new coal power plants a week?(prop up china’s industry) Why has Obama limited the US less then 3 each year?(because he gets his orders from the UN) It’s called economic warefare! We have THE cleanest coal plants in the world yet we are taxed the most on them.
Yea well said-Destroy the Baby (Nuclear Fission) Erradicate the Daddy (Nuclear fusion) Yea Free energy for all for eternity! Can,t have that. Obama is a Oligarchy Phsychopath puppet.
End their control! END THE FED-!!
These latest generation plants are much different to what they used to be . Its like comparing a 1970’s car with a 2010’s model,, big difference and much safer
plants extract co2 from the air via their stomata, storing the carbon in the plant and releasing o2 via photosynthesis requiring sun light to do that. humans need co2 to regulate our breathing, we also exhale co2 at about 40,000ppm/v. co2 is released when making bread, wine, beer and carbonated drinks. co2 is used in fire extinguishers, its also used in some surgical operations. more co2/ch4 is released by healthy living forrests and land than all of human acctivity put to gether. more co2 is released in the making and use of concrete than all other forms of energy consumption. more methane is released by termites than all of human activity put together. co2 is NOT pollution. co2 is vital to all life on this rock. the carbon (co2) tax is a tax on enegry consumption as everything we do uses energy in one form or another.
Why don’t they research and build a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor instead of those inefficient, waste-generating, intrinsically unsafe horors?
My thanks for mentoining “Thorium Reactors”. They are – you might find the attached “for and against postitions” interesting.
Boo!
Nuclear accidents have caused the deaths of 50 people since the first reactor accident occurred in Canada’s NRX experimental reactor in 1952. Since then, 3 operators died in the SL-1 experimental reactor accident in the USA in 1961 and 47 staff and firefighters died in the Chernobyl-4 reactor accident in 1986.
In Australia alone, 281 coal miners have been killed in 18 major disasters since 1902, and there have been 112 deaths in NSW mines since 1979, though the Australian coal mining industry is considered the safest in the world. China’s total death toll from coal mining to 2008 averaged well over 4000 per year.
With the fail-safe systems that are now available in modern nuclear reactors the embarrassingly antiquated Soviet Chernobyl-4 reactor accident could never happen.
Nuclear power = safe, reliable, efficient and economic power and if CO2 reduction rocks your boat, it’ll do that too!
It costs 0 CO2 to dig up, refine, refine further, then treat, then use special transport for and then use and somehow store and dump? Nuclear power plants also cost far more CO2 to build than a high end coal power plant. the only point it uses less CO2 is right at the point of production… every other aspect is far more costly as far as CO2 is concerned, not that it is a pollutant mind you.
But surely if we are destroying the planet with our emissions (as the catastrophists would have us believe) then nuclear must be a better option than fossil fuels (plus a tiny renewables contribution)?
@scott what do you mean by “uses less co2”? i think you are a bit confused… thorium reactors are the way of the future, technology has been around since the ’50’s…but i guess you cant make bombs with any byproduct of reaction…
remember ,, nuclear fusion will be with us within the next 100 years
Fusion is always 100 years away.
Waste products from the mining, refining and also pollution from transport are all included in what would be the final pollution budget. This budget would continue to grow dealing with past and current spent fuel rods and other material that needs to be stored in often expensive storage facilities. If Thorium or other ‘in the next 20 years they will do this’ reators are actually working now doing a good financial job of competing with fossil fuel power plants then I would like to read it. Theory means 0 if it isn’t working.
Well, no surprise that USA intends to use a pragmatic approach to the energy concerns. Just another way they will reduce their dependence on Middle East energy supplies. It will perhaps encourage other countries to consider nuclear as an option. However, I doubt Australia is ready to go nuclear just now. Pity.
Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fushushima … not in my back yard thank you !
More people have died from mobility scooter deaths (71 since 2000) in Australia than have been killed by nuclear reactor accidents (50 since 1950) throughout the whole world!
@tony three mile island; how do you protect a complex system from mechanical failure? chernobyl; how do you protect a complex, badly designed, constructed and maintained, system from operational malpractice and “honor” (i am in charge you will do what i say)? fukushima; how do you protect a complex system from natural events such as an earth quake and resulting tsunami? BTW…there have been more deaths due to cars than in any nuclear related contamination event or even from a used weapon. more people died and more birth defects in a japanese fishing village were as a direct result of murcury poisoning in the 50’s. btw france generates 80%-85% of its power from nuclear, even sells some of it to the uk! so no disrespect to the admin your post is totally uninformed NIMBYism…
We know France deals with all its own waste too right? Right?
We want Nuclear power in Australia-Unfortunately inundated with Green Nazis! Plus labour dictators-and liberal are the same. The three ringed circus! Do your own research, check out Citizens Electoral Council of Australia! 🙂 Banks owned by the people for the people a credit system to prosper be creative-grow everything humanity stands for. SOVERIEGNTY!!
Why do people say nuclear reactors don’t produce pollution?
They actually produce the MOST TOXIC pollution on the planet…the first cold fusion machines are starting to be produced in Italy, we will see how far they get .
Creating the most dangerous poisons on the planet to boil water is dumb but very lucrative to the energy companies, who as has been shown in the US don’t maintain their plants and when leaking radiation drives the radiation levels around the plant up they just change the minimum safe level allowed NUCLEAR is not safe…corporations put profit before people……
Oh yeah, just to add, the decision has already been made….you can’t build nuclear reactors without desalination plants…ummm, is that why we built a huge one in victoria?…wonder when they will tell the people who live there what they are up to?