What’s the best way to build another nuke plant in Missouri?
With gas prices topping $4 a gallon (I paid $3.99 in Effingham on Friday), folks are thinking more and more about alternative energy sources. That brings to mind the story today about AmerenUE considering whether to build — and how to pay for — another nuclear power plant in Callaway County.
The St. Louis-based utility…and its partner, Baltimore-based UniStar Nuclear LLC, will seek a construction and operating license as soon as next month for a $6 billion, 1,600-megawatt plant next to the existing Callaway nuclear plant.
AmerenUE executives won’t decide whether to go forward with the project until 2010, but they want to make sure that everything is in place if they do. Among the items on their agenda: reversing a 1976 law that prohibits Missouri utilities from charging customers for power plants while they’re being built.
Do you support the construction of another plant? Folks who voted in our online poll so far today were quite supportive (check it out here).
What would be the best way to finance such a thing?
Kurt is the director of social media for the Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since August 2002. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
I believe a new nuclear power plant is a bad idea. The nuclear waste that is generated from the plants is toxic for hundreds of thousands of years and must travel through OUR neighborhoods to “safe” storage sites. Nuclear power plants are also perfect targets for terrorists. A better idea would be to take the money needed for the plant and invest in CLEAN, renewable energy such as solar and wind.