Energy companies are predicting that the need for power will grow in North Carolina in the coming years. With climate legislation likely, they are turning back to an energy source that has been put on the back burner for several decades: nuclear.

In February, President Obama announced 8 billion dollars in loan guarantees for a Georgia utility company hoping to build new nuclear reactors. Progress Energy and Duke Energy both have plans to also build new nuclear to serve customers in North Carolina.

Concerns over the effects of climate change have exceeded anxiety over nuclear waste and security. As a carbon-free source of energy, nuclear power is receiving support from many sides, including politicians and scientists.

Considered the godfather of climate change and arguably the most influential environmental scientist in the world, James Hansen prefers nuclear to the coal alternative.

"If you look at the damage that has been done to humans and the environments by nuclear power and compare that to what has been done by coal, you're talking several orders of magnitude. The safest large industry in the United States has been nuclear power," Hansen said.

President Obama echoed this sentiment in his state of the union address, receiving support from both sides of the aisle, a rare show of unity during hyper-partisan times.

"To create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean, nuclear power plants in this country," Obama said in the address.

New nuclear plants are in the works for both of the major utilities that serve North Carolina. Duke Energy wants to build a reactor in South Carolina. Progress wants to build two additional reactors at Shearon-Harris, their nuclear power plant about 20 miles outside of Raleigh. To get that done, it will take billions of dollars in federal loan guarantees, a decade or so of regulatory activities and strong public support.

Lloyd Yates, CEO of Progress Energy Carolinas, does not expect to make any final decisions about building any new nuclear power plants in North Carolina until 2010, although he hopes nuclear plays a much larger role in the state's energy future.

"What can it be by 2050? I would like to see 70 to75 percent nuclear by then. I think there's some significant hurdles between now and then to get there, but I’d like to see us there by then," Yates said.

Those hurdles include cost. Projections are that two new nuclear reactors at Shearon-Harris would cost around $9.3 billion; Progress Energy’s current market capitalization is a little more than 11-billion. To get those reactors built will take years of wrangling over regulations and financing and scores of public hearings.

This public, while wary of the implications of nuclear power, are beginning to change their position on the issue. Jim Warren, the executive director of the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, has been waging war against the nuclear power industry for about two decades.

Swayed by James Hansen’s support of so-called fourth generation nuclear power, concern over climate change is at a tipping point for Warren. He’s leaving the door open for nuclear - just a little.

Hope in technology like fourth generation nuclear power and a justified fear of climate change are just a couple of the reasons many believe that increasing nuclear power generation is a good idea. And why decision-makers are closer to making a multi-billion dollar bet on it.