The American South and the Return of Nuclear Energy

In last week's edition of The American Enterprise, columnist William Tucker took a look at how the American South is taking the lead in examining the possibility of building new nuclear power plants and what it might mean for the future of the country:

Just as we have oil-exporting nations and oil-importing nations, so the country may be dividing into power-producing and power-consuming regions. New York City already buys much of its electricity from Canada and may end up importing from below the Mason-Dixon Line as well. All this may shift the country's industrial base.

"We know where there'’s cheap electricity, industry will follow," says Jim Kearse, of Barnwell County. "“We want growth in this area. We'’re building our industrial base."”

"The South shall rise again" -- —that'’s been the prophesy of the last two centuries. But who would have thought nuclear power would lead the way?

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Electricity, Environment, Energy, Entergy, Duke Power, NuStart, General Electric, Westinghouse, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi

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How Nanomaterials Can Make Nuclear Reactors Safer and More Efficient

The following is a guest post from Matt Wald, senior communications advisor at NEI. Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattLWald.

From the batteries in our cell phones to the clothes on our backs, "nanomaterials" that are designed molecule by molecule are working their way into our economy and our lives. Now there’s some promising work on new materials for nuclear reactors.

Reactors are a tough environment. The sub atomic particles that sustain the chain reaction, neutrons, are great for splitting additional uranium atoms, but not all of them hit a uranium atom; some of them end up in various metal components of the reactor. The metal is usually a crystalline structure, meaning it is as orderly as a ladder or a sheet of graph paper, but the neutrons rearrange the atoms, leaving some infinitesimal voids in the structure and some areas of extra density. The components literally grow, getting longer and thicker. The phenomenon is well understood and designers compensate for it with a …

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Huh?

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Is losing the nuclear plants what’s best for the state going forward?

Pennsylvania needs clean air. It needs jobs. And it needs protection against over-reliance on a single fuel source.

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Nuclear plants occupy an unusual spot in the towns where they operate: integral but so much in the background that they may seem almost invisible. But when they close, it can be like the earth shifting underfoot.

Lohud.com, the Gannett newspaper that covers the Lower Hudson Valley in New York, took a look around at the experience of towns where reactors have closed, because the Indian Point reactors in Buchanan are scheduled to be shut down under an agreement with Gov. Mario Cuomo.

From sea to shining sea, it was dismal. It wasn’t just the plant employees who were hurt. The losses of hundreds of jobs, tens of millions of dollars in payrolls and millions in property taxes depressed whole towns and surrounding areas. For example:

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