Nuclear energy and the Carolinas: clean, dependable power key to future.

• Author: Little, Jim

Nuclear energy plants are "generators" in many ways, especially for the quality of life they generate for us.

The nuclear energy generators in the Carolinas infuse a $2 billion-plus annual payroll into our economy. Nuclear facilities in general underpin a long-term economic foundation:

1. A single nuclear plant creates up to 1,800 jobs during construction,

2. Each plant regularly employs 400 to 700 people in its 60-year operating lifetime.

3. A new reactor can annually produce more than $400 million in local expenditures for goodsf services and labor (based on a study of 22 reactors in the United States).

4. The facility can generate more than $20 million in state and local taxes,

5. Finally, the plant can produce at least $75 million in federal taxes.

   These figures are compelling in a booming economy. Consider what they mean when economic growth is a challenge as in the past several years.

   The energy from these plants encourages regional economic development. Businesses and industries locating here enjoy low-cost, ample and reliable electric service that the previous generation built for our benefit.

   Because these plants so ably support economic development, these facilities are energy and jobs generators. The plants are not carbon generators. That's critical.

   In the carbon-constrained world we face there is only one carbonless source of base load electricity: nuclear power. Christine Todd Whitman, former EPA administrator, said: "Electric utilities are under increasing pressure to meet that demand while retiring coal-fired plants and replacing them with cleaner energy sources. By this measure, no other source comes close to competing with nuclear energy, which provided more than 70% of America's low-carbon electricity last year."

   Nuclear plants safely produce this clean electricity, too. Here's an example:

   On Aug. 23 an earthquake shook the east coast. The media immediately reported that the North Anna Plant in Virginia, about a dozen miles from the epicenter of the quake, had shut down.

   It's important to note that the North Anna Plant responded to the event as it was designed. It safely shut down until it could be inspected. In fact, the Richmond Times Dispatch reported, "The plant's shrugging off the quake's impact shows that it is significantly stronger than its theoretical design, Dominion Virginia Power and NRC officials said."

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