Loan Guarantees Increase Nuclear Promise
Posted February 17, 2010 at 7:52 am 
Filed in: Yesterday, President Obama announced federal loan guarantees totaling $8.3 billion that will enable the construction of two new reactors in Georgia. These would be the first new U.S. nuclear plants in more than 30 years. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu joined the president and described the Georgia nuclear project as the first of “at least a half-dozen, probably more, loans.”
This is a very positive step from an energy and climate perspective. Nuclear is the only non-intermittent, scalable, emissions-free source of baseload power generation. It has been proven effective over many decades and in many countries. (France derives over 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear power). No new nuclear plant has been completed and brought on line in the United States since 1996, and no nuclear plant ordered after 1977 was completed and brought on line. Despite this, nuclear energy does still contribute approximately 20 percent of U.S. electricity generation (see below). If and when a system for regulating carbon emissions is implemented, clean sources of energy will play an even more important role in providing U.S. power.
Electricity demand is forecast to rise by 30 percent between 2010 and 2035. Clean, nuclear power must be part of our approach to meet this demand.
Source: Energy Information Administration
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