As of 2008, nuclear power in the United States is provided by 104 commercial reactors (69 pressurized water reactors and 35 boiling water reactors) licensed to operate at 65 nuclear power plants, producing a total of 806.2 TWh of electricity, which was 19.6% of the nation’s total electric energy generation in 2008 The United States is the world’s largest supplier of commercial nuclear power.

As of 2010, demand for nuclear power softened in America, and some companies withdrew their applications for licenses to build. Ground has been broken on two new nuclear plants with a total of four reactors.

The only reactor currently under construction in America, at Watts Bar, Tennessee, was begun in 1973 and may be completed in 2012. Of the 104 reactors now operating in the U.S., ground was broken on all of them in 1974 or earlier.

In September 2010, Matthew Wald from the New York Times reported that “the nuclear renaissance is looking small and slow at the moment”.

Following the 2011 Japanese nuclear accidents, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced it will launch a comprehensive safety review of the 104 nuclear power reactors across the United States, at the request of President Obama. The Obama administration “continues to support the expansion of nuclear power in the United States, despite the crisis in Japan”

Following theFukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, public support for building nuclear power plants in the U.S. dropped to 43%, slightly lower than it was immediately after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, according to a CBS News poll.

A survey conducted in April 2011 found that 64 percent of Americans opposed the construction of new nuclear reactors.





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