by Jarret Adams

In this difficult economic climate, there has been much talk among policymakers and others about investing the energy infrastructure and creating new green jobs. Renewables are often mentioned are key elements in creating green jobs, but often overlooked is the contribution that investment in nuclear energy is already making in creating green jobs.

By the end of 2008, approximately 15,000 new jobs had been created by private investment in new nuclear power plants, according to a recent NEI study. The study projects that if all 26 reactor projects that have submitted license applications are built more than 60,000 new construction jobs will be created.

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Click here for a special message from Jacques Besnainou, President of AREVA Inc.

by Jacques Besnainou, President of AREVA Inc.

Jacques Besnainou

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to AREVA’s blog for North America. We hope this blog will offer a forum on energy issues and our activities in North America. We also hope to foster discussions about energy issues and foster discussions about combating climate change, increasing energy security, and improving economic growth. It will also focus on AREVA’s solutions for clean power generation and electricity distribution in North America.

Though we are joining a diverse and exciting energy blog community, AREVA is the first nuclear energy company, and one the first energy companies of any kind to maintain a blog. This is very much in keeping with our policy of openness with our stakeholders, a policy spearheaded by our CEO Anne Lauvergeon and supported by the rest of the AREVA team.

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Check out this great profile of AREVA Inc.’s president.  In this profile, Mr. Besnainou talks about the future of nuclear energy in the U.S. and some of AREVA’s plans for helping combat climate change.

As President of AREVA Inc., Jacques Besnainou provides oversight and vision for the North American arm of a world leader in energy. Besnainou, a French and American citizen, brought 20 years of management and systems engineering experience to his current role. He has served as senior executive vice president for the company’s Nuclear Back-End sector in France, managing recycling operations at two of AREVA’s plants and began his career as a systems design engineer. He also served as a civilian advisor for nuclear affairs at the French Ministry of Industry and spent several years in the United States directing an environmental consulting company and working at COGEMA Inc., a predecessor of AREVA.

“In the energy business we are faced with the growing challenge of providing clean energy for growing demand in a difficult market,” says Besnainou. AREVA uses multiple technologies to provide solutions for generating clean energy. The heart of the company’s clean-energy business is nuclear power, yet we are expanding our activities in renewables.

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