U.S. approves first new nuclear plants in 3 decades

World Headline News vs Tokyo Top Story, It's for Tokyo Activists to comment (condemn?) !

We made a mistake... Last year we left Japan to Georgia,

Excellent.

Read this earlier. Said that the prices of natural gas have come way down...so why are the Japanese saying the costs are very high.....? Profit gouging?

We made a mistake... Last year we left Japan to Georgia,

Ah yes, because we all know how Georgia is constantly under threat from earthquakes and tsunamis, right?

Good on the committee for approving these plants, finally. Unfortunately, to merely maintain the current share of nuclear energy use we'll need many more.

The new reactors are safer and cleaner. Only about 20% of the US's electricity is created by atomic power plants. The remainder comes from coal, natural gas and other sources. The country that relies on nuclear sources most is France, which during the last three decades has dug itself out of dependency on energy imports partly by investing heavily in nuclear capacity. Nearly 80% of France's electricity is produced by the country's 59 nuclear reactors, and a French company, Areva, is one of the world's foremost builders of nuclear power plants. Lithuania, the Slovak Republic and Belgium also derive more than half of their electricity from nuclear plants.

Do you know why? These other countries are going nuclear? Because China and India are paying top dollar for oil and gas and we have to compete with them to get it.

"Safe, clean, and cheap." Oh sure.

Misguided and foolish.

Why, I believe most of America's energy needs going forward well into this century could be met by plugging any RNC meeting into the national grid, thereby eliminating the need to build any new nuclear reactors......:-)

That's probably because if you don't include plant construction costs and the 1 in a million chance of a meltdown during a plant's lifetime, it generally is.

US is not reprocessing their fuel, and as a result they are sitting on huge stockpiles of spent Uranium that will be radioactive for eons.

Japan is reprocessing their fuel, and as a result they are sitting on a somewhat smaller but still huge stockpiles of plutonium that will be radioactive for eons, and an attractive target for terrorists.

Is this the legacy that we want to hand over to future generations?

US natural gas prices are about $2.50. In Japan it's about $15. The problem is that while we can move gas around inside North America by pipeline, the only way to get it to Japan is by ship in liquid form. It takes at least 5 years to build the liqueficiation and regasification plants and about 2 - 3 years for each ship.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Interesting point...most of the spent nuclear fuel rods in the States are located next to the plants they were pulled out of.

So imagine each spent rod as a red dot next to each reactor on the map, and as the years go by, more and more dots appear around each reactor.

In contrast, in Japan, I believe most/all spent fuel rods are taken (presumably by road and hopefully(!) in a way that does not expose people to radiation) to a storage site in Aomori, nearby residents of which apparently receive large regular payments to have the site nearby.

I refuse to believe this could happen on President Obama's watch.

@Sushi: No. On the whole, the rods are kept on site. That's why Unit 4 at Dai-Ichi has 1500 rods in its very stressed storage pool. The Japanese have not figured out how to store the waste in molten glass, it is still in the experimental stage. Anything stored in the earthquake prone zone in Aomori is not NOT secure. This waste lasts 100, 000 years... that's like 25 times longer than the Pyramids at Giza have been around for... we really should NOT be producing energy by this means it is just STUPID.

I hope the USA never has a Fukushima style problem.

"Stupid is as stupid does."

Truly philosophical.

Why should Russian (Chernoybl) and Japanese (Futenma) incompetence hold back American nuclear power? Three Mile Island was 33 years ago, and nobody died. Nor is the surrounding area a radioactive wasteland.

I refuse to believe this could happen on President Obama's watch.

I hope the president shows some pragmatism.

Actually zichi, there is now an international lack of storage space for spent fuel rods which just shows what a lie this whole "cheap, safe, clean" tag is for nuclear power.

Nuclear is not needed, and never was.

SushiSake3Feb. 10, 2012 - 10:31AM JST

That's probably because if you don't include plant construction costs and the 1 in a million chance of a meltdown during a plant's lifetime, it generally is.

Let's see how many million nuclear plants are there world wide????

How many melt downs have we had.? At least three (all in Fukushima)significant ones that we all here know about. But wait if you look further there are many more, let's see TMI, Chernobyl, plus many more if you bother to look.

Very glad I will not live anywhere this new technology!

Anything that goes pear-shaped in the US will drift over to Europe. Anything bad in Europe will drift over the Asian land mass. Any power plant in China/Korea that goes wrong will send plumes over the Pacific to the US, oh, wait, the whole world will be gradually irradiated.

Well, like the frog in the pan of heating water, we will probably never notice the gentle increases in cancer rates, deformities, etc.

Buy our way out of global warming today with... hey, let's use the future!