US licenses first nuclear reactors since 1978
Source: MSNBC.com
US licenses first nuclear reactors since 1978
By Miguel Llanos, msnbc.com
Updated at 1:25 p.m. ET: It's been 34 years -- and several nuclear accidents later -- but a divided federal panel on Thursday licensed a utility to build nuclear reactors in the U.S. for the first time since 1978.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's chairman, Gregory Jaczko, opposed licensing the two reactors at this time even though he had earlier praised their design.
"There is still more work" to be done to ensure that lessons learned from Japan's Fukushima disaster last year are engrained in the reactor design, he told his colleagues. "I cannot support this licensing as if Fukushima never happened. I believe it requires some type of binding commitment that the Fukushima enhancements that are currently projected and currently planned to be made would be made before the operation of the facility."
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The licensing covers two reactors estimated to cost $14 billion that the Southern Company wants to add to its existing Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia. Preliminary work has already begun and plans are for the first new reactor to be operating in 2016.
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http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/09/10362722-us-licenses-first-nuclear-reactors-since-1978
certainot
(9,090 posts)big money, tax payer subsidized 'solutions' like nuclear.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)nt
David__77
(23,503 posts)As soon as possible.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)jpak
(41,759 posts)snooper2
(30,151 posts)to send it into the sun
Folks around here don't think outside the box too much
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)*FAINTS*
Terry in Austin
(1,868 posts)"Soon" and "nuclear reactor construction" don't really go in the same paragraph.
We're energy junkies looking for the next fix. Even nukes.
boppers
(16,588 posts)It's really not that complex: No power, heavy shaking, underwater, hit by a plane, whatever, the system loop shuts down.
AndyTiedye
(23,500 posts)It still needs active cooling long after it "shuts down".
boppers
(16,588 posts)No active positive power, no chain left to self-sustain the chain, cooling needs vanish.
You are correct, of course, that cooling needs to be available during the shutdown, and that has to be a time interval that is fairly short.
trof
(54,256 posts)hunter
(38,326 posts)We ought to have banned coal fired power plants forty years ago.
truth2power
(8,219 posts)We are doomed!
DCofVA
(714 posts)rayofreason
(2,259 posts)Odin2005
(53,521 posts)A victory of reason over fearful technophobic ignorance
BadtotheboneBob
(413 posts)I agree completely...
tabasco
(22,974 posts)It's our only hope to get off coal.
lovuian
(19,362 posts)Nuclear will be toast here
NickB79
(19,258 posts)Or are you just making shit up?
Skwid
(86 posts)NickB79
(19,258 posts)Which we now know is just as carbon-intense as burning coal, despite all the hype about how clean NG is: http://cleantechnica.com/2012/02/13/natural-gas-climate-benefits-not-all-theyre-fracked-up-to-be-study-finds/
Oops.
Skwid
(86 posts)But I suppose some people would rather freeze in the dark than embrace progress.
(Before you call me a troll, please understand I'm writing this thinking of Jimmy Carter, a nuclear engineer and even yet a victim of uneducated neo-Luddites.)
fujiyama
(15,185 posts)but it's important to first understand that to keep up with energy demand and fight climate change and dirtier forms of power production (coal being the worst), nuclear power has to be expanded - at least as a transition over the next fifty years or so. This would give the nation enough time to upgrade the grid and improve the efficiency of other renewables.
Besides, the designs for these reactors are much different from those at Fukushima.