But asking what price the nuclear electricity will be is proving a much tougher wrangle.
Instead of putting taxpayers money into Hinkley, ministers would fix the price of the new nuclear electricity.
Germany, which in 2011 produced 5% of the world's nuclear electricity, is abandoning it, as are some smaller countries.
In many power markets today, nuclear electricity is the cheapest you can buy.
Ultimately, it is hoped, much of the energy for these tasks might be supplied in the form of nuclear electricity.
Instead the government is set to fix the future price of new nuclear electricity, to give investors the certainty of a future income stream.
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In a deal with America ten years ago, North Korea had agreed to stop making plutonium, in return for which America and its allies would supply the country with fuel and build two nuclear electricity generators from which it is difficult to produce weapons-grade materials.
Everybody is aware of the radiation risk Japan faces from its damaged nuclear powered electricity generators.
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While it is absolutely essential that we continue to drive down the costs of generating electricity from solar (and wind, which is indirect solar energy, ) doing so alone will not make these renewable energy sources competitive with traditional hydro, fossil or nuclear generated electricity.
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France remains committed to nuclear power, which provides nearly four-fifths of its electricity, and exports both electricity and nuclear-power reactors.
When I was six months old, the first nuclear-generated electricity in the world was produced there.
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W-hour on average today, gas-fired power costs about 5.7 cents, while nuclear cranks out electricity at 1.7 cents or so.
If coal users get punished with taxes or limits on greenhouse gas emissions, vendors of nuclear-fired electricity will be at a financial advantage.
Paradoxically, Iran's assertion, strongly repudiated by the Bush administration, that its nuclear-based electricity will free hydrocarbon supplies for export, has an inherent logic (notwithstanding the suspicion aroused by Iran's nuclear strategy).
Now the internal rate of return, or IRR, matters to us, because it in turn determines the terms of the so-called contract for difference agreed by the government with EDF, which in turn determines the price that consumers (us again) will pay for nuclear-generated electricity.
The new nuclear power station will provide only a fraction of Pakistan's growing electricity needs, but supporters of the country's nuclear programme say nuclear power is the answer to increasing electricity demands.
The existing traditional network will also need to be upgraded to accommodate electricity from new power stations, including nuclear, the report by the Electricity Networks Strategy Group for the government said.
Cheney said the administration's proposal would include calls to generate more electricity through nuclear power.
Companies may use coal, wind, natural gas or even nuclear power to create electricity.
Lithuania, the Slovak Republic and Belgium also derive more than half of their electricity from nuclear plants.
But the region gets roughly 30% of its electricity from nuclear power plants, and each plant needs prodigious amounts of water.
For one thing, Germany obtains about 35% of its electricity from nuclear reactors.
The idea is that Russia and Ukraine should jointly develop and operate Ukraine's energy resources, including electricity and nuclear generation, and sales.
He said his country has every right as a party to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty to pursue nuclear power to generate electricity.
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With 104 operating reactors, the United States produces more electricity with nuclear power than any of the 30 countries with that capability.
Both are by-products of the process that produces electricity inside nuclear reactors.
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Right now, America gets about one-fifth of our electricity from nuclear energy.
The Scandinavian country, which was hard hit by oil price rises in the 1970s, now gets the majority of its electricity from nuclear and hydroelectric power.
Finland and France, which produces more of its electricity in nuclear plants than any other big country, each have under construction a plant of the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) design developed by AREVA, a French industrial group.
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