Nuclear power in the United States

[26] The US Navy took the lead, seeing the opportunity to have ships that could steam around the world at high speeds for several decades without needing to refuel, and the possibility of turning submarines into true full-time underwater vehicles.

Natural gas and coal capacity factors are generally lower due to routine maintenance and/or refueling at these facilities while renewable plants are considered intermittent or variable sources and are mostly limited by a lack of fuel (i.e. wind, sun, or water).

[33] Pacific Gas & Electric planned to build the first commercially viable nuclear power plant in the US at Bodega Bay, north of San Francisco, California.

[42][43][44][45] Environmental Sociologists Chad L. Smith and Gregory Hooks have deemed these areas and tribal lands as a whole "sacrifice zones",[43] due to the prevalence of mishandled nuclear materials.

[46] In 1986, the US government tried to put a permanent nuclear waste repository on the White Earth Reservation, but the Anishinaabe people who lived there commissioned the Minnesota legislature to prevent it, which worked.

"[55] The World Nuclear Association reports that "...more than a dozen major, independent studies have assessed the radiation releases and possible effects on the people and the environment around TMI since the 1979 accident at TMI-2.

Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant was completed but never operated commercially as an authorized Emergency Evacuation Plan could not be agreed on due to the political climate after the Three Mile Island accident and Chernobyl disaster.

The petitioners also asked the NRC to supplement its own investigation by establishing an independent commission comparable to that set up in the wake of the serious, though less severe, 1979 Three Mile Island accident.

[75] An industry observer noted that post-Fukushima costs were likely to go up for both current and new nuclear power plants, due to increased requirements for on-site spent fuel management and elevated design basis threats.

[76] Mark Cooper suggested that the cost of nuclear power, which already had risen sharply in 2010 and 2011, could "climb another 50 percent due to tighter safety oversight and regulatory delays in the wake of the reactor calamity in Japan".

[78] In 2011, London-based bank HSBC said: "With Three Mile Island and Fukushima as a backdrop, the US public may find it difficult to support major nuclear new build and we expect that no new plant extensions will be granted either.

[82][83] In March 2018, FirstEnergy announced plans to deactivate the Beaver Valley, Davis-Besse, and Perry nuclear power plants, which are in the Ohio and Pennsylvania deregulated electricity market, for economic reasons during the next three years.

On September 13, 2021, the Illinois Senate approved a bill containing nearly $700 million in subsidies for the state's nuclear plants, including Byron, causing Exelon to reverse the shutdown order.

[citation needed] On October 23, 2008, it was reported that Northrop Grumman and Areva were planning to construct a factory in Newport News, Virginia to build nuclear reactors.

[115] In August 2011, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) board of directors voted to move forward with the construction of the unit one reactor at the Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station.

[118][119] One week after Southern received its license to begin major construction, a dozen groups sued to stop the expansion project, stating "public safety and environmental problems since Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor accident have not been taken into account".

On March 28, 1979, equipment failures and operator error contributed to loss of coolant and a partial core meltdown at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania.

In 1981, workers inadvertently reversed pipe restraints at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant reactors in California, compromising seismic protection systems, which further undermined confidence in nuclear safety.

[162] As of February 2009, the NRC requires that the design of new power plants ensures that the reactor containment would remain intact, cooling systems would continue to operate, and spent fuel pools would be protected, in the event of an aircraft crash.

The research scientist Harold Feiveson has written that nuclear facilities should be made extremely safe from attacks that could release massive quantities of radioactivity into the community.

Recently, as plants continue to age, many on-site spent fuel pools have come near capacity, prompting creation of dry cask storage facilities as well.

[195] A major recommendation was that "the United States should undertake...one or more permanent deep geological facilities for the safe disposal of spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste".

[38] Some scientists and engineers have expressed reservations about nuclear power, including Barry Commoner, S. David Freeman, John Gofman, Arnold Gundersen, Mark Z. Jacobson, Amory Lovins, Arjun Makhijani, Gregory Minor, and Joseph Romm.

[235][236] Then in 2012, his first post-Fukishima state-of-the-union address, Obama said that America needs "an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy," yet pointedly omitted any mention of nuclear power.

The movie features several notable individuals (some of whom were once vehemently opposed to nuclear power, but who now speak in support of it), including: Stewart Brand, Gwyneth Cravens, Mark Lynas, Richard Rhodes and Michael Shellenberger.

[241] As of 2014, the U.S. nuclear industry has begun a new lobbying effort, hiring three former senators—Evan Bayh, a Democrat; Judd Gregg, a Republican; and Spencer Abraham, a Republican—as well as William M. Daley, a former staffer to President Obama.

[242] Founder of the Energy Impact Center, a research institute analyzing solutions towards net negative carbon by 2040, Bret Kugelmass believes that “even if we achieved net zero new emissions globally, we’d continue to add extra heat at the same rate we are adding it today,” explaining that we need to remove the already existent carbon dioxide in our atmosphere in order to reverse climate change, not just stop the generation of new emissions.

[249] A January 2014 Rasmussen poll found likely US voters split nearly evenly on whether to build more nuclear power plants, 39% in favor, versus 37% opposed, with an error margin of 3%.

[260][261][262] In February 2014, the Financial Times identified Pilgrim, Indian Point, Clinton, and Quad Cities power stations as potentially at risk of premature closure for economic reasons.

[263] As of 2017[update], the U.S. shale gas boom has lowered electricity generation costs placing severe pressure on the economics of operating older existing nuclear power plants.