Obama Administration Committed to Nuclear Power Generation, Gives $6.5 Billion Loan Guarantee to Vogtle Reactor Construction

It's all for " low-carbon energy future", says Obama's Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

Additional loan guarantee of $1.8 billion is still pending, according to the article below.

The Obama administration, in its quest for "low-carbon energy future", has invested and lost a fortune (taxpayers money) on dubious solar ventures (including infamous Solyndra). I guess the administration is now betting on a sure thing this time, on Toshiba/Westinghouse's A1000. The construction of two reactors using A1000 was approved by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in February 2012 (still under Dr. Gregory Jaczko, who cast the only dissenting vote).

(Conversely, Toshiba/Westinghouse has cleverly betted on a sure thing - national government that will print limitless amount of fiat money and collect money from the vast tax farm - the rest of us. Smart move.)

From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (2/20/2014; emphasis is mine):

A $6.5B federal loan guarantee jolts Ga. nuclear power project

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Waynesboro, Ga. - The Obama administration signed off Thursday on a $6.5 billion loan guarantee to help Georgia utilities build the nation’s first new nuclear reactors in more than three decades.

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz traveled to the sprawling Plant Vogtle site in east Georgia to announce the loan aid for Southern Co. and Oglethorpe Power. Another $1.8 billion loan for a third company involved in the plant, MEAG, is still in the works.

“This plant will be the economic engine for the state of Georgia,” said Georgia Power chief executive Paul Bowers. “We are proud to be the first utility to restart the nuclear renaissance here in America.”

The two nuclear reactors underway at Vogtle were supposed to be the first in a wave of new nuclear construction as part of a push toward cleaner energy when the Obama administration announced the aid in February 2010. But the boom never materialized.

Stalled efforts to limit carbon emissions, plunging natural gas prices and other stumbling blocks have delayed the loan four years and stalled a broader nuclear revival. Vogtle on Thursday became the first project to receive the federal loan guarantee since Congress established the program in 2005 to jolt the nuclear industry.

Critics pointed it out safety concerns surrounding nuclear power plants, and cited the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant in the wake of an epic tsunami there.

“Fewer than three years have passed since the tragedy at Fukushima demonstrated that nuclear reactors can never be safe,” said Katherine Fuchs of Friends of the Earth. “Yet the president and energy secretary are ignoring its lessons.”

But Moniz said the federal guarantee is part of a broader “all of the above” effort to offer an range of alternative energy sources that could lower carbon emissions. He said he huddled with Georgia Power executives to reach a final agreement after years of delays.

“If we don’t move out with these kinds of projects, we won’t be ahead of the train,” said Moniz. “And we in the United States shouldn’t be running to catch up with the caboose.”

"Lessons" of Fukushima? What kind of lessons is Ms. Fuchs thinking of, I wonder, other than that "accidents can, and do happen at nuclear power plants".

But unless her organization starts to cite very specific lessons, Dr. Ernest Moniz will pay no attention, I'm afraid. It was Dr. Moniz who declared back in 2011 that "It would be a mistake, however, to let Fukushima cause governments to abandon nuclear power and its benefits."

But "ahead of the train", Mr. Secretary? To be run over by the train, you mean?

The Obama administration has already allocated nearly a half billion dollars for the small modular nuclear reactor development, the effort spearheaded by the world 2nd richest man Bill Gates.

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NRC Approves First New Reactors in U.S. Since 1978

Two new reactors by Westinghouse (Toshiba) are to be added to the Vogtle Nuclear Plant's existing two reactors in Waynesboro, Georgia, population of about 5,800.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Nuclear Safety, welcomed the approval, and added, "Nuclear energy has helped curb our reliance on dirty fossil fuels and has helped reduce harmful air pollution that damages health and causes climate change."

Hahahaha.

Dirty fossil fuels? Senator, just take a look at those bags being piled up in Okuma-machi in 130 microsieverts/hour radiation, thanks to your "clean" nuclear energy gone bust.

From LA Times (2/9/2012):

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday approved construction of the first new nuclear reactors to be built in the United States since 1978. The commission’s board approved the decision by a 4-1 vote, with its chairman Gregory B. Jaczko casting the dissenting vote.

The new reactors will be added to the Vogtle plant outside of Waynesboro, Ga., and operated by Southern Co. The reactors will use light water technology developed by Westinghouse. The new reactors could be in full operation by 2016, according to Southern. The reactors will together generate 2,200 MW, enough to power almost 1.8 million homes.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Nuclear Safety, welcomed the approval.

"These new reactors will employ cutting-edge technology that requires fewer components than our current nuclear fleet, thereby increasing safety by providing fewer opportunities for things to go wrong during an emergency,” he said in a public statement.

He added: "Nuclear energy has helped curb our reliance on dirty fossil fuels and has helped reduce harmful air pollution that damages health and causes climate change.”

The plan to expand the plant has faced opposition from Congressman Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and environmental groups including Friends of the Earth, which questioned the safety of the reactor design in the wake of the damage caused to nuclear power plants in Fukushima, Japan, by an earthquake last year.

“Today, the NRC abdicated its duty to protect public health and safety just to make construction faster and cheaper for the nuclear industry,” Markey said in a statement.

The Department of Energy is expected to provide $8.3 billion in conditional loan guarantees for the construction of the reactors.

The last reactor granted approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission came shortly before the Three Mile Island nuclear incident in 1979.

It will be Westinghouse's AP1000 pressure-water reactors, untested in the real world anywhere. The local community of Waynesboro, Georgia is very excited about the new construction, because it creates jobs for the community and double the tax revenue. (It's the same anywhere in the world, how these things are sold.)

Here's a USA Today article from March 18, 2011, after Reactors 1, 3, 4, 2 had explosive events at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. The comment from the mayor of Waynesboro can be from any mayors around any nuclear power plant in Japan - in the plant operator we trust, the giver of shining new town halls, schools, recreation centers:

A nuclear plant disaster in Japan has done little to change the thinking about nuclear energy in Waynesboro, Ga., where the USA's first nuclear power plant construction in decades is planned.

Mayor George DeLoach, 70, says people in Waynesboro trust Southern Co., which is expanding its Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant from two nuclear reactors to four.

"We have a lot of confidence in the Southern Co.," says DeLoach, who is in his 16th year as mayor. "The plant is over 20 years old. It's been operating since the late '80s and we haven't had a serious accident or complaint out there. They do a great job."

.....

Plant Vogtle is a source of considerable largesse in Waynesboro, which bills itself as the Bird Dog Capital of the World for the Georgia Field Trials held there since 1901. Vogtle is the county's largest employer and generates about $25 million annually in utilities taxes — 70% of the local tax base. That is expected to double to between $50 million and $60 million with the new reactors, which will generate 3,000 construction jobs and 800 to 900 new permanent positions, the mayor says.

"We have five new schools, a new hospital, a new library and one of the best rural emergency management systems in the state," he says. "The nuclear plant in Japan was built in 1971. That's 40 years. We've had a lot of new technology that's come out since that plant was built in Japan."

The last bit sounds just like Japanese. Oh we have new technology now, we're not Japan.

That's what the Japanese have said all along. We have new technology now, we're not America (referring to TMI), we're not Russia (Chernobyl). In fact, they still say that regarding the state-of-the-art decontamination technologies of bags and screw drivers.

I'm sure Chinese and Indians are saying it too. We have new technology now, we're not Japan, the US, or Russia.

And so it goes.

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