On Tuesday (February 16th), Barack Obama, president of the United States, while addressing the union members at IBEW Local Headquarters in Lanham, Marryland announced the plan to build two brand new nuclear reactors in Burke, Georgia. He announced around $8 billion in federal loan guarantees for this project of enormous proportions.

“Investing in nuclear energy is a necessary step,” said Obama. “I hope that, with this announcement, we’re underscoring both our seriousness in meeting the energy challenge and our willingness to look at this challenge, not as a partisan issue , but as a matter that’s far more important than politics because the choices we make will affect not just the next generation but many generations to come.”
He also noted that this project will produce thousands of jobs in the first phase, and around eight hundred permanent jobs after the project is completed.

Mr. Obama also noted that other countries have already invested huge amounts into the nuclear energy sector. China leads the way (21 reactors in construction at the moment), followed by South Korea (6) and India (5).
“If we don’t invest in the technologies of tomorrow, we might fall behind. We cannot let that happen.”

Some environmental activists protested against this project, saying that “nuclear energy isn’t really environment-friendly”. However, Obama said that this isn’t an issue as this project will cut carbon pollution by 16 million tons each year when compared to a similar coal plan.

These will be the first nuclear reactors built in the US since 1979 and the Three Mile Island accident (partial core meltdown in a pressurized water reactor in Pennsylvania; this caused a release of around 480 PBq of radioactive gases).

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