"I think we have a tremendous need and responsibility to provide nuclear power," White House Chief of Staff Andy Card said in a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last week.

Card also said that only part of the responsibility for reducing dependence on foreign sources of energy lay with the government.

"We also have an obligation to pay attention to the private sector," he said.

Last year's energy act provides a series of incentives and federal subventions for companies building nuclear power facilities in an effort to end what amounts to a 20-year moratorium on new plants.

Officials said the Card speech was part of drive by the administration to highlight the potential for nuclear power to reduce dependence on sources of energy -- like Middle Eastern oil -- that are both subject to potential supply disruption because of political instability, and produce greenhouse gases which may contribute to climate change.

"This administration has been clear on the need to expand the use of nuclear power," Craig Stevens, press secretary for the Department of Energy, told United Press International, adding that only 20 percent of the nation's energy supply currently comes from nuclear power.

"The need is to expand the use of nuclear energy and lessen dependence on fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas," Stevens said.

David Slump, chief marketing officer for General Electric Energy, believes a diverse energy supply is "very important" due to the sheer growth in U.S. power requirements along with the inherent volatility in energy markets.

"The trick is finding a way to make matters balance using coal, gas and nuclear" options, said Slump.

He estimated 50 percent of U.S. energy comes from coal, which is not subject to supply disruption, and the environmental impact of which can be lessened by the use of clean coal technology in the future.

Slump said that though no new nuclear facilities have been brought on-line in the last 20 years, the industry had added output equivalent to a whole new plant by "uprating," or upgrading existing equipment.

"Nuclear modernizations and upgrades are providing significant capacity increases at existing facilities," agreed John Wilson, vice president of group strategy at Siemens.

"Life extensions of the existing nuclear fleet, beyond their original lifespan are also a significant source of capacity to that balance portfolio," he added.

But the capacity limit for expanding output in this way may have been reached, according to Dr. Robert Peltier writing in the journal Platts Power. He says the average nuclear plant capacity factor reached a record high of 91 percent in 2004.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 offers several incentives to entice nuclear developers and operators to build new reactors. Two such offers include federal insurance and tax credits for generating new nuclear power.

According to Peltier, the act provides federal "insurance" for the first six new nuclear reactors on a decreasing scale. The first two reactors would have 100 percent coverage against delay costs of up to $500 million each while the last four plants would receive 50 percent coverage of up to $250 million each, after a 180-day "deductible."

The production tax credit for nuclear power currently stands at 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour for the first eight years of generation, according to Peltier. This is in comparison to other sources of energy such as wind, which enjoys a 1.5 cent per kilowatt hour subsidy over a 10 year period. With six new reactors, officials estimate a total capacity of 6,000 megawatts, which would lead to a total annual subsidy of $750 million, according to Peltier.

On the issue of the costs of energy production, Slump told UPI that nuclear energy is the least expensive source of energy to produce -- at $1 per kilowatt hour once the plant is up and running. However, nuclear power is capital intensive making the sunk capital costs in designing and constructing new nuclear facilities much higher than for other energy options.

But critics of nuclear power say that those figures don't take into account the costs of dealing with and storing radioactive waste byproducts and other cost measures from generating electricity in this manner.

"Nuclear power is too expensive, too dangerous and generates nuclear waste with no good disposal options," said Anna Aurilio, legislative director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

Aurilio argued the nuclear industry should not be getting subsidized with federal dollars when other vital programs such as student aid and Medicare are being cut and believes nuclear power as an industry cannot survive without government funding.

"I'd be happy to see a program where nuclear power plants compete on the market without government subsidies," she added.

Public opposition to new reactors -- disparaged by critics as NIMBYism, "Not In My Back Yard" -- has also been a factor in the absence of new plant starts, say observers.

But Stevens said that communities with existing facilities in their neighborhoods are much less opposed to new plants. He said opinion poll data gathered by the nuclear industry backed him up.

A survey conducted last August by Bisconti Research, Inc. with Quest Global Research Group found that 83 percent of Americans living in the vicinity of nuclear power plants favor it as an energy source and 76 percent would be willing to see a new reactor built near them.

The telephone survey of 1,152 randomly selected plant neighbors has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points and was commissioned by the Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the industry.

With a renewed push this year to expand nuclear facilities, Stevens said the administration needed to turn the tide of public perception, and "beat back the erroneous mystique of having nuclear reactors in a community."

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