Senator Graham’s comments on this article: “This is a major step on the road to a nuclear renaissance. NRC approval allows us to move forward in building new reactors for the first time in more than 30 years. When it comes to the development of nuclear power, America has been sleeping like Rip Van Winkle, plus another ten years. I am hopeful SCANA and Santee Cooper will be the next in line to receive permits for Jenkinsville, S.C.”
By Matthew Daly, Associated Press
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The nation’s first new nuclear power plant in a generation won approval Thursday as federal regulators voted to grant a license for two new reactors at a site in eastern Georgia.
Atlanta-based Southern Co. hopes to begin operating the $14 billion reactors at its Vogtle site south of Augusta as soon as 2016. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the company’s plans on a 4-1 vote.
The NRC last approved construction of a nuclear plant in 1978, a year before a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. After that accident, fears of a radiation release were heightened and new reactor orders were brought nearly to a halt.
The planned reactors, along with two others in South Carolina expected to win approval in coming months, are the remnants of a once-anticipated building boom that the power industry dubbed the “nuclear renaissance.” The head of an industry lobbying group said the Vogtle project could be the start of a smaller renaissance that expands nuclear power in the United States.
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