• The Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) “Annual Energy Outlook 2008” forecasts that U.S. electricity demand will increase 25 percent by 2030. The United States will need about 260,000 megawatts of new electric generating capacity by then—hundreds of new power plants.
• Policymakers recognize the need to increase the role of clean energy sources such as nuclear energy. As part of this effort, the U.S. Department of Energy developed the Nuclear Power 2010 program to encourage new nuclear power plants. It is a cost-share program with industry to reduce the uncertainty in the decision-making process for building new nuclear power plants.
• Nuclear Power 2010 has two basic objectives: (1) to demonstrate the regulatory process for licensing new reactors and (2) to complete the final design for two reactor technologies, the Westinghouse AP1000 and the GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy ESBWR. 
• Completing the design and engineering work for the two selected reactor technologies will enable reactor vendors to develop credible estimates of cost. This information is essential before utilities can request approval from their boards of directors and state regulatory authorities to proceed with construction of a new nuclear plant. Approximately two-thirds of the 31 new reactors publicly announced depend on successful completion of the Nuclear Power 2010 program. 
• Through its Nuclear Power 2010 program, the federal government achieves enormous leverage on behalf of the American taxpayer. The $727 million total government investment in the program, matched by equal industry funding, will stimulate more than $100 billion of investment in new nuclear projects by 2015-2020.
• New nuclear plants will provide hundreds of highly skilled, high-paying jobs, helping the United States maintain its leadership in nuclear technology. In addition, building more nuclear plants will moderate the increased use of natural gas in the electricity sector, easing pressures on natural gas supply and price while enabling the U.S. nuclear industry to sustain global competitiveness.
• The industry supports the president’s budget request of $241.6 million for fiscal 2009 for Nuclear Power 2010.
  

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