The most recent nuclear power plant to open in the United States, Watts Bar Plant, took 22 years to complete and cost an estimates $7 billion dollars, it provides electricity for approximately 650,000 homes producing 1,170 megawatts of electricity. By comparison the cost of constructing the world's largest solar power facility in the Mojave Desert of California is expected to cost approximately $6 billion dollars, generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity and supply roughly 800,000 thousand homes with power. The Mojave Desert facility, commonly known as the Blythe plant, will take approximately 6 years to be completed but will begin to generate electricity after approximately two years. This cuts the time for production down by a factor of over 3.5 times compared to nuclear power; it comes at a lower cost and doesn't have security risks the same way that a conventional nuclear facility would. There is no nuclear waster, no nuclear security risks and it doesn't take two decades to complete. For a fiscally conservative, security conscience Republican this is a project that makes sense, nuclear energy may sound fancy but it's a liability that's simply expensive!
Mark Pittman
Layton
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