US Nuclear Plants will be built again

Nuclear power has returned from the grave. The US Nuclear Regulatory Agency has given the go ahead for the construction of new nuclear plants--something that hasn’t been done since 1978. The license grants Southern Company, a utility company from Atlanta, GA, the right to build two nuclear power plants at one of their sites.

The US Nuclear energy industry pretty much died the day that Three Mile Island happened, and no new plants have been built since out of fear. While the existing plants continued to operate, serious thought was put into whether nuclear energy should be used at all.

It had been expected that nuclear power would be reauthorized sometime soon, but most thought that the Fukushima disaster would have put a serious damper on the developments. After all, the disaster drove Germany away from nuclear power altogether, made Japan close most of its nuclear power plants for inspections, and made many other countries review their energy plans. But the state of nuclear power got a bit less dire when rampant corruption was discovered, resulting in falsified inspections, damaged parts not getting replaced, and injuries going completely unreported. And it still took a tsunami to cause the cooling system to fail.

The new US power plants will feature all the design advances that occurred between now and 1979, design features that Fukushima didn’t have. For example, the new plants will feature a water tank on the roof capable of keeping the plant cool for up to 72 hours, without any power at all.

Following the construction of the two for Southern Company, two more will be built for the South Carolina Electric and Gas Company. So it looks like the nuclear Renaissance might just be back on track.

NewScientist Photo by : redjar