There is no doubt that the United States is facing an Energy Crisis. One could easily argue that our security interest in the Middle East is rooted in protecting our energy sources as much as it is fighting terrorism. For most of the past thirty or so years, the dividing line has been drawn between the Democrats who want to do away with fossil fuels entirely at all costs to our economy and the Republicans who want to find new energy sources closer to home. One source of energy that seems to be absent from the debate is nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is responsible for providing 20% of our nation's electrical needs. It is a clean energy whose technology has improved considerably from the last time a reactor was approved and constructed. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) just approved the construction of two new reactors in Georgia. This is progress people! The last time we built a reactor in this country was 1978. Yes, 1978! The population has grown and so has our need for electricity and the bureaucrats in Washington, along with the Environmental lobby has caved in and granted this approval. This is big news, but unfortunately we need 100 more by 2030 just to maintain the current 20% output. I hope the next President has the leadership and backbone to stand up to the tree hugging environmentalists and develop a real energy policy. Lord knows we need one!

From Scientific American:

Years of shifting and smoothing Georgia red clay paid off today, as the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) voted to allow construction of two new nuclear reactors (pdf) at the Plant Vogtle nuclear power station near Augusta. Atlanta–based utility giant Southern Co. will soon have permission to complete construction and operate two AP1000 type nuclear reactors designed by Westinghouse.

But what were initially lauded as the first reactors of a nuclear renaissance when proposed are more likely to be the exceptions that prove the rule of no new nuclear construction in the U.S. Only this twin set of reactors in Georgia, another pair in South Carolina and the completion of an old reactor in Tennessee are likely to be built in the U.S. for at least the next decade. "We won't build large numbers of new nuclear plants in the U.S. in the near term," says Marvin Fertel, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a lobbying group for the nuclear industry.