Solar and wind energy can't be used as baseline power without resorting to costly storage systems (like a big pile of batteries). Nuclear power can be provided at a price that competes very well with both solar and wind power (particularly for the 2nd - nth plants of the same design), and nuclear takes far less space than a solar or wind farm. Coal has plenty of issues, but it currently provides about half of all electricity produced here, and we can produce that electricity much more cleanly if we build modern facilities. This experience would also enable us to compete in supplying other countries that are building their energy infrastructures.
This blindness to our reality of a growing population and a (hopefully) growing economy is a terrible attribute for a policy maker in this position.
Energy Regulatory Chief Says New Coal, Nuclear Plants May Be Unnecessary - NYTimes.com:
"No new nuclear or coal plants may ever be needed in the United States, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said today.
'We may not need any, ever,' Jon Wellinghoff told reporters at a U.S. Energy Association forum.
The FERC chairman's comments go beyond those of other Obama administration officials, who have strongly endorsed greater efficiency and renewables deployment but also say nuclear and fossil energies will continue playing a major role.
. . .
Jay Apt, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Electricity Industry Center, expressed skepticism about the feasibility of relying so heavily on renewable energy. "I don't think we're where Chairman Wellinghoff would like us to be," Apt said. "You need firm power to fill in when the wind doesn't blow. There is just no getting around that."
Some combination of more gas- or coal-fired generation, or nuclear power, will be needed, he said. "Demand response can provide a significant buffering of the power fluctuations coming from wind. Interacting widely scattered wind farms cannot provide smooth power."
Wellinghoff said renewables like wind, solar and biomass will provide enough energy to meet baseload capacity and future energy demands. Nuclear and coal plants are too expensive, he added.
"I think baseload capacity is going to become an anachronism," he said. "Baseload capacity really used to only mean in an economic dispatch, which you dispatch first, what would be the cheapest thing to do. Well, ultimately wind's going to be the cheapest thing to do, so you'll dispatch that first."
He added, "People talk about, 'Oh, we need baseload.' It's like people saying we need more computing power, we need mainframes. We don't need mainframes, we have distributed computing."
The technology for renewable energies has come far enough to allow his vision to move forward, he said. For instance, there are systems now available for concentrated solar plants that can provide 15 hours of storage.
. . .
"I think it's being settled by the digital grid moving forward," he said. "We are going to have to go to a smart grid to get to this point I'm talking about. But if we don't go to that digital grid, we're not going to be able to move these renewables, anyway. So it's all going to be an integral part of operating that grid efficiently."
. . .
Congress created significant financial incentives to encourage the construction of perhaps a half-dozen nuclear plants with innovative designs, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu has promised Congress to accelerate awards of federal loan guarantees for some of these proposals.
But a major expansion in U.S. nuclear energy would require a high effective tax on carbon emissions from coal plants, or an extended loan guarantee and tax incentive policy, according to the Congressional Research Service and outside consultants. The leading energy bills before Congress do not provide more loan guarantees.
"If expansion of nuclear plants is the nation's policy, then Congress has to recognize that the U.S. energy companies cannot afford to do this alone," said Paul Genoa, policy director for the Nuclear Energy Institute, in a recent interview.
"The president needs to show his cards on nuclear energy," said energy consultant Joseph Stanislaw, a Duke University professor. "He cannot keep this industry, which must make investments with a 50-year or longer horizon, in limbo for much longer."
. . .
Unlike coal and nuclear, natural gas will continue to play a role in generating electricity, he said.
"Natural gas is going to be there for a while, because it's going to be there to get us through this transition that's going to take 30 or more years."
Chu reiterated before the House Energy and Commerce Committee today that he supports loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants and is working with the White House on the issue.
"I believe nuclear power has to be part of the energy mix in this century," Chu said.
Chu also noted today that nuclear technology, along with renewables, is an area where the United States has lost its lead. "We are trying to start the American nuclear industry again," he said.
Coal currently provides half of U.S. power, while nuclear energy accounts for about 20 percent."
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