Disasters in Japan 2011, Impact on United States Economy: 8.) Nuclear Power Plant Construction Slows in U.S.

Countries and their governments all around the globe are “pushing the nuclear pause button” and shutting down reactors to implement safety checks and security issues. After Chrenobyl, people realized that after one enormous nuclear emergency like that of Ukraine, maybe nuclear power plants should wait, that accident was over 25 years ago; and two months ago in Japan, the Fukushima nuclear power plant had an emergency almost to the same radiation levels as Chrenobyl. The United States supported building new nuclear power plants, after 25 years without a nuclear emergency, American government officials decided that it was time to build new power plants. But after the disaster at Fukushima, the U.S. is being a bit more cautious.

Japan depends on nuclear power so much that when the disaster happened, they lost over 10 percent of the countries power supply. The United States uses around 20 percent of nuclear energy to supply the country with power. Nuclear power plants cost millions to make, but once they are up and running, they are a good source of power. When oil runs out, nuclear power may be one of the only solutions we have as of right now; but if the United States is shutting down the plans of building more reactors, then we will keep having to spend money that we don’t have in order to import oil and natural recourses into America.