New Nukes?

I think this is actually a good thing. EEI is reporting that the growth of renewable energy may make it financially unattractive for the energy industry to build more nuclear power plants: Market Changes Could Disturb Nuclear Renaissance Predictions

Power industry experts said predictions of a wave of new nuclear plants - helped by federal insurance for the first six plants to be built - overlook uncertainty over the influence of markets and the role of new energy-efficient technologies, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Sunday.

Bob Simon, the Democratic staff director of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, cautioned that the growth of renewables could lessen any dependence on nuclear. Simon also noted that any breakthrough in the use of LEDs for lighting could drastically alter demand, and predicted that power markets will be in "a very dynamic situation going forward," making long-term forecasts difficult.

Simon said: "At this point, it looks like the competition will be between clean coal and nuclear in the immediate future," he said. "But we don't know what effect other market factors will have on this calculus, factors like development of renewable fuels and energy efficiency."
Atlanta Journal-Constitution , Aug. 6.

Nuclear energy is generally baseload energy -- you can't ramp nukes up and down very fast, so you generally turn them on and leave them on, adding more power from plants such as gas or hyrdro that can turn on and off as needed. Nuclear energy has one thing going for it -- it doesn't emit greenhouse gasses. But it has lots of problems. It's expensive. And it creates waste that is terribly dangerous for thousands and thousands of years. No one wants to store it in their backyard. Nor do we really even know that it can be stored completely safely. So if we're reaching the point where LEDs for lighting (conservation) and wind power (renewables) can make it less financially attractive to build new nukes while still meeting our needs for energy, that would actually be a good thin.