WASHINGTON — On the brink of a nuclear power resurgence in America, the once-vilified industry is buoyed by a slate of presidential candidates who seem ready to embrace -- or at least consider -- a nuclear energy future.
Already enjoying strong support in the White House, nuclear-fueled electricity is championed by all of the Republican front-runners. And, while the top contenders on the Democratic side cite serious concerns about safety, waste disposal and plant security, only former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina flatly opposes construction of new nuclear plants.
The Republicans tend to frame their interest in terms of energy independence, as a means of weaning the U.S. off natural gas -- which is subject to price spikes and shortages. Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona joins the Democrats in emphasizing climate change as the prime reason for pushing nuclear power, which does not emit greenhouse gases.
"We don't really care how we get there," said John Keeley, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade association. "We're dancing with different partners, but it doesn't matter what music is played."
The near-meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979 and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine brought a dramatic halt to the nuclear industry's expansion plans in the United States. More than 100 nuclear reactors generate 20% of the nation's electricity, and the last completed plant was ordered in 1973.
American nuclear power got a boost in 2001 when Vice President Dick Cheney's energy plan called for it to become "a major component" of the nation's electricity supply -- as it is in France and Japan. When President Bush signed the latest energy bill into law this month, he said: "If we're serious about making sure we grow our economy and deal with greenhouse gases, we have got to expand nuclear power."
This fiscal year alone, more than $1 billion in federal research and development spending was devoted to nuclear-power research, far more than any other source of electricity.
The new approach has borne fruit: This year, three applications for nuclear power plants landed at the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Keeley said his group expected at least 15 more proposals to be launched by the end of 2009.
