Earlier today, the US Department of Energy announced that it was ready to guarantee $8.33 billion in loans for the first nuclear power plant to be constructed under its auspices in decades. The project, a planned expansion of the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia, would involve building two additional reactors that generate a total of 2.2GW of power. The guarantees are contingent upon the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing a new reactor design.

The authorization for the loan guarantees dates back to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which was intended to encourage technologies that avoided emission of greenhouse gasses. So far, however, the majority of the money from the program has gone to wind, solar, and energy storage companies. This will be the first time the program is used to promote the construction of a nuclear plant. It's also the first time the US has constructed a nuclear plant in a while. No new facilities have been ordered since the 1970s, and the last plant to come online was in 1996.

In a statement released with the announcement, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said, "This is a significant step by the Obama Administration to restart our domestic nuclear industry, helping to create valuable long-term jobs and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions." President Obama stated, "To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we need to increase our supply of nuclear power and today’s announcement helps to move us down that path." He also said that it will be difficult to make the economic case for nuclear power "as long as producing carbon pollution carries no cost," and called for comprehensive energy and climate legislation to correct that.

The decision was to go forward with what are termed conditional commitments. Because of the long lag since the last construction projects, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not licensed any up-to-date designs. The new construction will use the Westinghouse AP1000, which incorporates many new approaches to active and passive safety, and can go longer between refuelings than existing reactor designs. The loan guarantees won't go forward unless the NRC approves this specific design.