A Century-Old Company The Government Owns Wants To Solve A Big Energy Problem

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A Century-Old Company The Government Owns Wants To Solve A Big Energy Problem

By District Energy posted 13 days ago

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Summary

The Biden administration wants the United States to triple the global supply of nuclear power, with American-designed reactors running on fuel enriched in the West. The goal: Usurp Russia’s near monopoly on atomic energy exports, and keep China from gaining control of yet another green energy industry.

But there’s one big problem: The U.S. isn’t even building any more reactors at home.

After nearly 15 years of billion-dollar cost overruns and delays, the utility giant Southern Company just hooked the second of two new reactors at a power plant in Georgia up to the grid this week — the only two atomic energy units built from scratch in the U.S. in decades. Developers are shopping around all kinds of novel designs for new-age nuclear plants. Yet few utilities can afford — or persuade investors to put up the cash for — projects that can take a decade or more to complete.

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