On Thursday, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted to approve a new nuclear reactor design, the AP1000 from Westinghouse. As Energy Secretary Steven Chu put it, the "decision certifying the AP1000 reactor design marks an important milestone towards constructing the first U.S. nuclear reactors in three decades." The administration has already offered over $8 billion in loan guarantees to a project in Georgia that would feature two of these reactors as part of its push for domestic, low-carbon energy.

The Westinghouse design is a pressurized water reactor that includes numerous features that would allow it to continue to cool the reactors even if the site were to lose power—a key design feature, given what happened at Fukushima. Mindful of public perception, the company's website for the design features an entire section that provides a timeline for shutdown following a blackout.

It has been several decades since the US last built a nuclear reactor, and a lot of the country's existing facilities are pushing the edge of their designed lifespans. A significant amount of new construction is going to be needed if the country is to retain nuclear as a source of low-carbon baseline power. At the same time, the lack of recent construction leaves us without a good picture of the economics of building new plants in the US, something the Georgia project could help clarify.