Obama Administration Announces Loan Guarantees to Construct New Nuclear Power Reactors in Georgia

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://energy.gov/news/8643.htm

February 16, 2010

Obama Administration Announces Loan Guarantees to Construct New Nuclear Power Reactors in Georgia

Conditional deal is major step towards restarting the domestic nuclear industry

Washington D.C. --- Underscoring his Administration’s commitment to jumpstarting the nation’s nuclear power industry, President Obama today announced that the Department of Energy has offered conditional commitments for a total of $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for the construction and operation of two new nuclear reactors at a plant in Burke, Georgia. The project is scheduled to be the first U.S. nuclear power plant to break ground in nearly three decades.

“To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we need to increase our supply of nuclear power and today’s announcement helps to move us down that path. But energy leaders and experts recognize that as long as producing carbon pollution carries no cost, traditional plants that use fossil fuels will be more cost-effective than plants that use nuclear fuel. That is why we need comprehensive energy and climate legislation to create a system of incentives to make clean energy profitable,” said President Obama. “What I hope this announcement underscores is both our commitment to meeting the energy challenge – and our willingness to look at this challenge not as a partisan issue, but as a matter far more important than politics.”

The two new 1,100 megawatt Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant will supplement the two existing reactor units at the facility. According to industry projections, the project will create approximately 3,500 onsite construction jobs. Once the nuclear reactors become operational, the project will create 800 permanent jobs.

“This is a significant step by the Obama Administration to restart our domestic nuclear industry, helping to create valuable long-term jobs and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said.

Project sponsors include Georgia Power Company (GPC), Oglethorpe Power Corporation (OPC), the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG) and the City of Dalton, Georgia (Dalton).

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 authorized DOE to issue loan guarantees for projects that avoid, reduce, or sequester air pollutants or anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and employ new or significantly-improved technologies as compared to technologies in service in the United States at the time the guarantee is issued. These are the first conditional commitments for loan guarantees to be offered by DOE for a nuclear power facility since enactment of the 2005 law. The Department’s Loan Programs Office administers the loan guarantee program.

The nuclear facility is eligible for loan guarantees because it achieves substantial environmental benefits by reducing greenhouse gases and other pollutants. In addition, the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor has incorporated numerous innovations resulting in significant operational, safety, and cost enhancements.

Georgia’s need for electricity is growing and is expected to increase by approximately 30 percent over the next 15 years. When the new nuclear reactors come on line, they will provide reliable, base-load electricity capable of serving about 550,000 residences or 1.4 million people.

Compared to a similar sized coal plant, the new Vogtle units will avoid significant greenhouse gas emissions each year: 16 million tons of carbon dioxide, 3,900 tons of nitrogen oxides, and 5,500 tons of sulfur dioxide.

As one part of the conditional loan guarantee deal, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must determine if the AP1000 fulfills the regulatory requirements for a construction and operating license.

This is the fifth time that DOE has offered conditional commitments for a loan guarantee under The Energy Policy Act of 2005. Other recipients of commitments for loan guarantees for innovative technology energy projects include Solyndra, Inc., a manufacturer of cylindrical solar photovoltaic panels; Nordic Windpower, USA, a maker of two-blade, one megawatt wind turbines; Beacon Power, an energy storage company; and Red River Environmental Products, an activated carbon manufacturing plant.

For more information, please visit the Loan Guarantee Program office.

Media contact(s):
[phone]

[xultar]

1. I know I'm movin. I live in GA and this is not good.

[Nihil]

10. I'd suggest buying a house on the Florida shoreline ...

... preferably a nice bungalow with a sea view.

It should be far enough away from Georgia to protect you
from any radioactive threat.

[Donnachaidh]

12. not really -- Florida gets a lot of it's fresh water from Georgia

So it's basically downstream.

[Nihil]

13. In that case she'd have to go further South ...

... to the areas where they are draining the underground aquifers
rather than abstracting river water ... don't want any of those
(potential) alpha particles (potentially) upsetting anyone's life
do we?

Just kick back, enjoy the beach, the sea, the fresh water
"filtered by thousands of years through purifying rocks",
the sun ... what's not to like?

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. Obama touts nuclear loan guarantee as just a start

http://www.thenewstribune.com/apheadlines/business/story/1071975.html

Obama touts nuclear loan guarantee as just a start

By JULIE PACE; Associated Press Writer
Published: 02/15/1011:40 pm | Updated: 02/16/10 9:05 am

LANHAM, Md. –

Promising "this is only the beginning," President Barack Obama announced more than $8 billion in federal loan guarantees Tuesday for the construction of the first nuclear power plant in the United States in nearly three decades.

Obama cast his move as both economically essential and politically attractive as he sought to put more charge into his broad energy agenda. Obama called for comprehensive energy legislation that assigns a cost to the carbon pollution of fossil fuels, giving utility companies more incentive to turn to cleaner nuclear fuel.

"On an issue that affects our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, we can't continue to be mired in the same old stale debates between left and right, between environmentalists and entrepreneurs," Obama said in a stop at a job training center outside Washington. "Our competitors are racing to create jobs and command growing energy industries. And nuclear energy is no exception."

Rising costs, safety issues and opposition from environmentalists have kept utility companies from building new nuclear power plants since the early 1980s

...

[DesertFlower]

3. i live in arizona. we have

the palo verde plant.

[frebrd]

4. Wonderful! More indisposable nuclear waste.......

to pretend to dispose of.

:(

[NNadir]

8. That's nonsense. When you have a way to dispose of coal waste in Georgia, other than the dump

other people call "air," you'll have something to say.

The handling of used nuclear fuel is trivial, which is why no one in this country has ever died from it.

The silly claim to the contrary - that there is any kind of energy waste that is as harmless as so called "nuclear waste" is strictly arbitrary.

There is NOT ONE anti-nuke anywhere in the world, NOT ONE, who can say as much about any other form of energy that produces on an exajoule scale.

There is no such thing as "nuclear waste." It's a fantasy made up by people who don't understand a shred of nuclear science and despise the science precisely because they are incapable of understanding it.

[On the Road]

5. I am Hoping

that the industry will start to pursue thorium as a substitute nuclear fuel. Much more abundant, less radioactive, and it can't be militarized.

http://www.thoriumenergy.org/

[WVRICK13]

6. Another Ass Kiss To The Republicans

when is Obama going to start demanding Quid Pro Quo? Just thinking it is kind of odd to reward people who try to fuck you over.

[amborin]

7. Amy Goodman:

Obama's Nuclear Option

by Amy Goodman

snip

No one will loan a power company the money to build a power plant, and the power companies refuse to spend their own money. Obama himself professes a passion for the free market, telling Bloomberg BusinessWeek, “We are fierce advocates for a thriving, dynamic free market.” Well, the free market long ago abandoned nuclear power. The right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation remarked, “Expansive loan guarantee programs ... are wrought with problems. At a minimum, they create taxpayer liabilities, give recipients preferential treatment, and distort capital markets.”

Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a longtime critic of the nuclear power industry, told me, “If you buy more nuclear plants, you’re going to get about two to 10 times less climate solution per dollar, and you’ll get it about 20 to 40 times slower, than if you buy instead the cheaper, faster stuff that is walloping nuclear and coal and gas.”

In his 2008 report “The Nuclear Illusion,” Lovins writes, “Nuclear power is continuing its decades-long collapse in the global marketplace because it’s grossly uncompetitive, unneeded, and obsolete—so hopelessly uneconomic that one needn’t debate whether it’s clean and safe; it weakens electric reliability and national security; and it worsens climate change compared with devoting the same money and time to more effective options.”

The White House Office of Management and Budget, in the same statement announcing the $54.5 billion for nuclear power, also listed a “credit subsidy funding of $500 million to support $3 to $5 billion of loan guarantees for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.” Thus, just one-tenth the amount for nuclear is being dedicated to energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. At the same time, the Obama administration plans to cancel funding for the hugely unpopular Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility. Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists told The Christian Science Monitor: “ doesn’t have a plan for radioactive waste from a new generation of nuclear power plants. That is irresponsible.”

The waste from nuclear power plants is not only an ecological nightmare, but also increases the threats of nuclear proliferation. Obama said in his recent State of the Union address, “We’re also confronting perhaps the greatest danger to the American people—the threat of nuclear weapons.” Despite this, plans that accompany what Obama has proposed, his “new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants,” include increased commercial “nuclear fuel reprocessing,” which the Union of Concerned Scientists calls “dangerous, dirty and expensive,” and which they say would increase the global risks of both nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism.

snip

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/obamas_nuclear_option_20100216/?ln

[kristopher]

9. On target.

[One_Life_To_Give]

11. Until the US Attorneys office puts teeth in Safety Laws

Safety Engineer's failing to execute their resposnibilities was made a Class D Felony years ago. Yet still we see no test case or demonstration. Untill we hold people accountable don't expect much change. And I don't concider forcing a board room to decide between a 20% of a fine vs xx dollars per year, buisiness calculation. The typical executive or stock holder has more to worry about from one drink too many than any exposure from underfunding preventive maintenance or risk containment efforts.

When a CEO of someplace like Entergy does 5 yrs because some employee failed to follow proper proceedures and ensure cleanup and protection of the environment and by extension public. Then Nukes may become safe.

[OKIsItJustMe]

14. Southern Co.'s lobbying draws complaints

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gYlDc2l2ekAk4H4boGwjYoNChAxwD9DU5TA00

Southern Co.'s lobbying draws complaints

By SHANNON McCAFFREY (AP)

ATLANTA — President Barack Obama's award of billions of dollars in federal nuclear loan guarantees to Southern Co. has angered environmentalists who say the president is embracing the energy powerhouse that worked aggressively to defeat a key climate change bill championed by his administration.

The Atlanta-based company had nearly twice as many climate lobbyists as any other company or organization during last year's debate over cap and trade legislation, according to the Center for Public Integrity. The company hired 16 outside firms to supplement their stable of in-house lobbyists and spent $16.5 million on Capitol Hill lobbying in 2009. The company maintains the report overstates their lobbying role.

Some environmentalists — while not surprised that Obama is moving forward on nuclear power — are upset that Southern Co. is the recipient of such federal largesse.

"It's shameful," Georgia-based Sierra Club lobbyist Neill Herring said. "They gave a big wet kiss to their very worst opponent."

...