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"To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we'll need to increase our supply of nuclear power. It's that simple." (The White House)

President Obama promised $8 billion in loan gurarantees to break ground on two new nuclear reactors in Georgia.

We're looking at perspectives from MSNBC, Business Insider, The Wall Street Journal, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Al Jazeera English.

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough is thrilled Mr. Obama is embracing a variety of energy sources, but his colleague has the opposite reaction.

SCARBOROUGH: "This is what Barack Obama promised he was going to do and it's a common sense middle, where this is where most Americans are. They're going, 'you know what, we don't want to be dependent on foreign oil, we don't want to send our sons and daughters to die in foreign wars for foreign oil.'"

OLBERMANN: "What happened about 30 years ago? Oh, Three Mile Island! March 28, 1979, nearly 31 years ago now, a partial melt down at the Pennsylvania plant released 43,000 curies of krypton radiation into the air. I don't really know what that measures, but it scares the crap out of me."

A market blogger on businessinsider.com says reactors are much safer now.

"There is absolutely no way we can deal with our energy crunch without a huge expansion of our nuclear capacity, which sits at a lowly 20 percent of our power generation ... Unless you're a nuclear engineer, you are probably unaware how far the technology has moved ahead in the last 30 years."

The Wall Street Journal discussed other issues that will affect the success of a nuclear energy comeback.

"Critics like Al Gore and Greenpeace also talk about cost, not just the health concerns or the danger of having nuclear power plants open to terrorist attacks, etc. But the reality is that these are very costly and potentially black holes for cash."

At the earliest, the project would be fully operational in 2017, but Georgia residents will begin paying for it next year on their electric bills. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution blogger says that's ridiculous for lawmakers to allow.

"Legislators refuse to even consider small tax hikes to keep prisons operating, teachers teaching and traffic flowing, but they have no apparent compunction about forcing Georgians to pay more to a private company on what is still a risky bet."

Then there's the issue of waste. Last year, Mr. Obama halted plans to develop Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the only approved permanent waste dump in the country.

"The environmentalists like that, but conceded that still leaves the problem of what to do with all the nuclear waste produced in this country since nuclear production began back in the 1950's and that's sparking concerns that the government is looking towards its nuclear future before dealing with its toxic past." (Al Jazeera English) 

Are you concerned about new nuclear power plants being built? Or is nuclear energy a necessary piece of an energy plan?

Writer: Erika Roberts

Producer: Newsy Staff