A large cooling tower and other buildings at the Salem nuclear power plant, known as Artificial Island, near a farm in Lower Alloways Creek Township, New Jersey, in 2007. (AP)

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The Obama administration has proposed billions in loan guarantees to restart the nuclear power industry. This week, the President said it’s a “necessary step” in creating a new low-carbon economy.

Republicans may give the White House some bipartisan support on this one. But critics are already saying that the economics — not to mention the perpetual safety and storage concerns — make this a bad deal.

The debate is now live — and it may affect America’s energy landscape, economy, and environment for decades to come.

This hour, On Point: Debating an American nuclear renaissance.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Tom Ashbrook is on vacation this week.

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Stephen Power, reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering energy and environmental issues. He’s written recently about the Obama administration’s energy priorities as reflected in the new budget.

Also from Washington, we’re joined by Edwin Lyman, senior scientist in the Global Security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists and former president of the Nuclear Control Institute. 

And from Madison, Wisconsin, is Paul Wilson, professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He chairs the Energy Analysis and Policy Program of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin.

There is no precedent in American history for the hammer Secretary of Defense Robert Gates brought down on the Air Force last week.

In one day, one announcement, the top general and top civilian leader of the Air Force — both out. Canned.

Gates sited a “chain of failures” in U.S. nuclear security, including an Air Force bomber flying unauthorized over U.S. airspace with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles mounted on its wings. And the Air Force didn’t even know they were there.

And that’s just the beginning. This hour, On Point: Shake-up at the U.S. Air Force, and the story behind the story.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Tom Bowman, Pentagon correspondent for NPR

Loren Thompson, military analyst and chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a nonprofit public-policy research organization. He previously served as Deputy Director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University.

Erik Holmes, reporter for Air Force Times

Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists.