On February 16, 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama has announced a loan guarantee of $ 8.33 billion to build two units of the first for 30 years nuclear power plant in the United States.
Currently the United States has 65 nuclear power plants, which operate 104 nuclear reactors providing 20% of the country's electricity. However, in the early 80-ies of the last century, nuclear power plant construction had been halted, due to public concerns for the safety of nuclear installations and their environmental impact.
According to Barack Obama, the construction of new nuclear power plant in Burke County in the state of Georgia will be the starting point for his administration's broad campaign to improve the energy efficiency through the development of safe and clean technologies.
At the same time, many experts are convinced that a revival of nuclear power in the U.S. in the first place is not motivated by environmental enthusiasm, but intentions to strengthen energy security by reducing dependence on hydrocarbon energy, which in large quantities are imported from abroad. The bulk of crude oil and natural gas, including LNG, the U.S. imports from the Middle East region.
From an economic point of view, the beginning of the implementation of such a large project said that the Obama administration has completed the first phase of anti-crisis program to support banking and financial sector development, and start the second – the implementation of infrastructure projects in the economy.
It is obvious that Obama's decision to build a nuclear power plant is trying to solve one of the major "headache" of the American economy – unemployment. An unemployment, which is widely spread over the whole country, has become one of the main causes of the declining rate of confidence of U.S. citizens in relation to the current president. Construction of nuclear power plant in Georgia will employ 3,500 construction workers over the next several years, and create about 800 permanent jobs to staff of the station after its commissioning.
Thus, we can assume that the creation of new jobs, development of alternative fuels, as well as the development of strategies to reduce harmful emissions and improve environmental conditions, in general, will have a positive impact on the image of the current U.S. president and to improve its rating among the public.
In summary, it should be noted that Barack Obama has skillfully and promptly took advantage of the program to develop nuclear industry, adopted back in 2005. The implementation of the program was providing to allocate $ 18.5 billion, but the Bush administration at that time was busy with "external projects" and the program never started. The current president has revised its scope and increased loan guarantees funding to $ 54.5 billion, which is planned to build 22 nuclear power plants in the next 20 years. As the American expert of the Institute of Atomic Energy, Marvin Fertel, “an increase in funding can have a tremendous positive effect on the development of the American nation”.
Ashraf Khodjaev
PhD, expert of the CPS
