USA Builds Nuclear Power Plant but Asks Other Countries to Put up Windmills

The USA decided to resume the development of the nuclear industry. Two new nuclear reactors are planned to be built in the State of Georgia. President Obama stated February 16 in Maryland that the US administration was ready to assign $8.3 billion of credit guarantees for the construction of a nuclear power plant.

Spokespeople for Southern Company, which is going to build the reactors, stated that the governmental funding would cover 70 percent of the cost of all works. The project totals $8.8 billion. The reactors are to be launched in 2016 or 2017.

The constriction of nuclear power plants in the United States was stopped in 1979 after a breakdown at a plant in Pennsylvania. Miscalculations resulted in the partial melting of the active part of the reactor and an emission of radioactive substances. Before the Chernobyl disaster it was the largest nuclear accident in the whole world.

After the nuclear disaster in Pennsylvania, the US considered an opportunity to refuse from the use of nuclear fuel in the energy industry. It was eventually decided not to shut down the plant – the reactors were suspended indefinitely for the time of the construction of new nuclear power plants.

Nowadays, there are 104 reactors and 65 nuclear power stations in 31 states of the country. US nuclear power plants produce 20 percent of all electric power in the United States.

The new plant in Georgia is going to be built at the location where the construction of a similar object was frozen in 1979.

It seems that the US government is seriously concerned about the revival of the nuclear program. According to Carol Browner, assistant to the president on Climate and Energy, the scheduled construction in Georgia will be a first step in a number of other nuclear projects.

It may mean that the construction of new nuclear stations marks the beginning of the reindustrialization of the country, if it is not a cover to a regular affair.

The construction of the nuclear power plant in Georgia will employ about 3,000 people. About 850 will be permanently employed at the station afterwards. Obama said that the new station would save the funds required for purchasing 30 million barrels of oil used as fuel for thermal stations. The project will be equal to the withdrawal of 3,500 cars from US roads, he added.

Hardly had Obama promised $8.3 billion for the nuclear industry when American ecologists showered him with criticism. All of them claimed that the US government was going to spend tax-payers’ money on potentially dangerous objects and pollute the US territory with radioactive waste. Some of them accused Obama of lies and reminded him of his own promises to build the future of pure energy in the country.

Adversaries of the nuclear program say that the project will eat up the funds assigned for the implementation of other state programs, including in the social field. Democrats may eventually lose popularity because of the project. However, opinion polls show that over 50 percent of Americans support the construction of the nuclear power plant.

The project obviously has a political side too. If the US builds a nuclear power plant and calls upon other countries to put up windmills and solar panels, this politics will looks quite bizarre.