Why Sleeper Nuke Is Southern Company’s Ace in the Hole

Nuclear power remains a vexed issue even as pressure grows to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and cut greenhouse gas emissions. Electrical utilities stopped building coal-fired power plants more than a decade ago and are closing old ones down as quickly as possible, switching instead to natural gas, which is relatively cleaner.

Image source: Georgia Power. 

The ghosts of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima haunted the public and scared utilities away from building new 1,250-megawatt nuclear reactors. In addition, cost overruns and bureaucratic delays meant that few were willing to take the bet on large-scale nuclear plants.

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