Picking up where the Bush administration left off, the Department of Energy under President Barack Obama is preparing to make more than $18 billion available to the nuclear power industry for building new reactors. The loan guarantees were approved by Congress in 2005 at the urging of President George W. Bush, a big proponent of reenergizing the nuclear power industry. It took Energy Department officials until now to craft a way to evaluate applications and charge power companies for the guarantees so that the government is compensated for absorbing the risk, in case new plants fail to work out. Few new reactors have gone on-line since the Three Mile Island accident 30 years ago, while safety concerns and design issues have caused construction costs to soar.