The US budget deficit is extremely worrying and it should not be allowed to get that large unless world war III breaks out or something worse. Another thing to notice is the massive layouts for nuclear energy. Why? I don’t think there is public support for that. Large scale protests against construction of new plants or any movement of radioactive waste will drag out the construction and ultimately lead to an abandonment of these projects. Moreover, nuclear power is not the future because it is:

1) Too expensive. No nuclear plant has ever been built without massive public funding and a waiver of economic responsibility for the owners of the plant in case it is hit by a large leak or blows up. No private insurance company is willing to offer such insurance. In other words, it is not safe enough to be economically viable.

2) It increases the proliferation risks. It is impossible to avoid that some of the scientist and engineers that are used to build nuclear power plants will end up helping the enemies of the free world to get their own nuclear weapons. One day this could lead to a nuclear terrorist attract on a large US or Chinese city for that sake. We should do everything in our power to prevent that from happening including dismantling the entire civilian nuclear program.

3) Nuclear power plants are perfect targets for terrorists. 9/11 will be small potato compared to a new terrorist induced Chernobyl in a nuclear power facility in a populated area in the US.

4) Nuclear waste is an unsolved and accumulating problem. Nuclear waste is non-destructible and takes minimum 10s of thousands of years to become non-dangerous to a level where it does not need to be kept under guard and managed. You can’t burry it in a mountain without risking dangerous transports to that mountain. And even if the transportation issue is hypothetically ignored you still haven’t solved the storage problem. The mountain will need to be kept under guard and you will need to constantly monitor and repackage the waste every 30 years or so to be sure that the waste does not leak to the groundwater. Over time it will be extremely expensive to do so for an accumulating mass of waste and we just can’t pass such a burden on to future generations. It is demeaning.

5) Nuclear power plants needs to run constantly at full speed and they therefore cannot provide the grid leverage that is required when using substantial degrees of renewable energy in the grid. Wind turbines and gas turbines fit together because gas turbines can deliver when the wind does not blow. You can’t have both nuclear and renewable energy. You have to choose either nuclear or renewable.

Renewable energy is the future because it don’t pollute and because its fuel is absolutely fee and plentiful for all nations.

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Although I do agree that it is criminal to put such a MASSIVE, unpayable, debt onto our children. This young generation will be the first generation forced to live a lower standard of living because of the excesses and selfishness of our politicians currently in charge of running the U.S.

"Sorry little Sally - you get to pay that $150,000 when you grow up because I want my 'FREE' government money. Good luck with that!"

Or, expect massive inflation in the near future in order to devalue the national debt.

Either way it's a bad scenario.

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Smaller generators start up faster than large ones, the key to using wind and solar is to use decentralized generation to collect this decentralized energy and add in small NG/biogas powered engines for back up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_generation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_power_plant
"The Institute for Solar Energy Supply Technology of the University of Kassel pilot-tested a combined power plant linking solar, wind, biogas and hydrostorage to provide load-following power around the clock, entirely from renewable sources."
http://www.solarserver.de/solarmagazin/anlagejanuar2008_e.html

Goracle

Let all those people who support nuclear power invest in it. No one is stopping private investors from doing so. If nuclear is so great, the money will be available privately. Just don't put my tax dollars in it.

JMartin said: Let all those people who support nuclear power invest in it. No one is stopping private investors from doing so. If nuclear is so great, the money will be available privately. Just don't put my tax dollars in it.

No doubt you say the same thing about solar, wind, and other tax-payer subsidized (HEAVILY subsidized!) energy. Of course the same goes for government health care, etc., as well, correct? If some tax payer doesn't want their tax dollars going to something, let the market take care of it and don't use said person's tax dollars.

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Goracle

If you are one who believes that people must live on zero energy use then, yes, wind energy is for you. Wind powers about one percent of the U.S. Wind must have a BIG backup system available for those non windy days. The cost is ridiculous.

All wrong.

Wind delivers twice as much power as you state. A figure even a few years old is hopelessly out of date since wind power is the fastest growing new source of energy, showing double digit growth year after year. There is 39 GW installed capacity in the USA by the end of 2009. Despite the crisis, a record amount of 10 GW new wind was installed.

Non windy days only occur locally. On the scale of a country, especially one the size of the US, there is always wind.

Wind is cheaper than nuclear. The capital cost of nuclear power alone is more than $0.10 per kWh. See cost estimates for some new plants:
http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/stories/2008/11/03/daily21.html ($ 14 billion for 2234 MW)
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/665644 (C$ 26 billion for 2400 MW)

The Fraunhofer Institute has published a report showing that Germany can shut down half of its baseload in 2020 due to the increase in renewable energy (mainly wind): http://www.wind-energie.de/fileadmin/dokumente/Themen_A-Z/Erneuerbare-Strompotenziale/090915_BEE_IWES_Studie_PK_Hintergrund.pdf

The national debt was 33% of the national domestic product in 1981 and 69% in 2009.

Since the Clinton years had a 7% surplus, the Republican Presidents more than doubled the US debt ratio during twenty years, all the while cutting tax rates for the rich.

However radiated one hopes we become, don't blame Obama's year for Republican decades of debt spending.

Gas turbines provide a lot of peak demand power now, there is no reason that they can not run on renewable methane. The smart grid should be able to track load profiles more accurately for less spinning reserves and more efficiency.

Nuclear energy is spelled o-v-e-r-r-u-n-s, even triple typical utility rates:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/01/nuclear_power.html

Germany already has over 14% renewable energy, with 28% insight for 2020.

But perhaps even greater budget problems lie in far flung $1 million per soldier per year foreign invasions and occupations.

@ Stan,

Your numbers are out of date. The inherent energy in photovoltaic panels has been dropping for decades. Now with thin-film providers like First Solar, Solyndra, and NanoSolar, the Energy Return on Invested Energy (EROIE) apparently passes break even in 2 months to 1 year. http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/1980028598.html

Get a new hobby horse to ride.

Stan,

A New fleet of Nuclear plants will be built, on time and on schedule

Keep on dreaming.

Duke Energy eyes delay for Lee nuclear project

Olkiluoto 3 losses to reach €1.7 billion

Bruce refurbishment

A quote from the last article (dated april 2008):
The consortium said last week that after a “comprehensive review” it remains confident that units one and two of the complex on the Lake Huron shore can be returned to service “close to the planned dates of 2009 and early 2010,”

Now in november 2009, you can read this:
Two reactors at Canada's Bruce A nuclear power plant that have been out of service for over a decade have been given regulatory approval for refuelling, and look set for 2011 restarts.

So they racked up another year of delay in 1.5 years. And they already spent 10 friggin' years refurbishing that plant.

The refurbishment has cost C$ 3.4 billion for two 750 MW reactors. That's just a refurbishment!

Nuclear is expensive, slow and unplannable.

The difference in the success of nuclear power in France and the failure in the US comes from the free market dogma: In France they built ONE nuclear power plant, and copied it. In America you have ~28 nuclear power companies and I think each either designed their own power plant or had them built to their own criteria.

It's been said that in France a nuclear plant operating crew can walk into any plant in the country and find even the coffee maker in the same place.

Or atleast that's what I've been told; if someone has better info, please feel free...

SJC:

Your assumptions make sense.

Japan + France + many other nations may not have too many other choices for base load electricity supply. Of course they could import coal and use 400+ polluting coal fired power plants instead of 150+ larger nuclear plants. Thank God they did not.

Wind power could supply 20% in each country in the relatively near future. Sun power may also help latter.

China is planning to build 100 to 120 up-to-date nuclear power plants in the next 20 years. They will probably recycle the used fuel. Those new power plants will be required for the 300 million BEVs they will have on their roads in the same time frame.