Not true -- it’s just dormant -- circumventing necessary licensing processes guarantees backlash.
The Economist, ‘12
[“The 30-year itch: America’s nuclear industry struggles to get off the floor,” 2-18, http://www.economist.com/node/21547803]
Some claim that the Georgia decision heralds a nuclear renaissance in America. Another four reactors—two in South Carolina and two in Florida—are up for NRC approval this year, with the South Carolina decision just weeks away. The coal industry may be fighting new federal emissions standards, air-pollution regulations and even the idea of carbon pricing, but those things are all a boon for carbon-free nuclear power. Steven Chu, America's energy secretary, has called nuclear power an essential part of America's energy portfolio, and has been vocal about the administration's commitment to “restarting the American nuclear industry”. In 2009 Lamar Alexander, Tennessee's senior senator, called for 100 new reactors to be built by 2030. The following year Mr Obama proposed tripling the nuclear loan-guarantee programme to $54 billion. Mr Obama's proposed budget for fiscal 2013 (which begins this October) includes money to fund research into advanced small “modular” reactors. Still, nuclear power faces strong headwinds. A poll taken last year showed that 64% of Americans opposed building new nuclear reactors. The NRC's last new reactor approval predates Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, all of which dented public support (and not just in America either: nuclear power supplies three-fourths of France's electricity, yet in one poll 57% of French respondents favoured abandoning it). America's anti-nuclear movement has been as quiet as its nuclear industry, but as one comes to life so will the other. Already a consortium of nine environmental groups plans to contest the Vogtle licence in court, alleging that the NRC violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing fully to consider the environmental impact of the new reactors. Mindy Goldstein, who heads the Turner Environmental Law Clinic in Atlanta and is representing the nine groups, said that the NRC failed to “consider the implications of Fukushima” before issuing its licences.
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