US utilities sceptical over nuclear energy revival

[bananas]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21871489/
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto111820071727554142

US utilities sceptical over nuclear energy revival
By Sheila McNulty and Ed Crooks
updated 1:40 a.m. ET Nov. 19, 2007


After three decades without any applications for a licence to build a nuclear reactor in the US, almost 20 companies are considering applying to build over 30 new plants. In September, NRG Energy of Texas became the first to make an application in 29 years.

<snip>

Jeffrey Immelt, chairman and chief executive of General Electric, one of the world's biggest nuclear engineering companies, believes at most a third of those planned nuclear power plants will go ahead.

<snip>

"If you were a utility CEO and looked at your world today, you would just do gas and wind," Mr Immelt says. "You would say easier to site, digestible today I don't have to bet my company on any of this stuff. You would never do nuclear. The economics are overwhelming."

<snip>

[jpak]

1. First of all - the meme "Nuclear Renaissance" was dreamed up by the Nuclear Energy Institute

Secondly, there are only enough Cheney Bucks in the 2005 Energy Bill to (heavily subsidize) the construction and operation of 6 new nukes...

...hence the prediction of "at most a third of those planned nuclear power plants will go ahead."...

[GliderGuider]

2. I caught a lot of flak from the pro-nukes when I produced my first energy scenario

I estimated we'd build about a third of the currently "planned and proposed" reactors. The scoffs were long and loud. "We'll need it all , so we'll build it all," they said. So I changed my scenario to show what would happen if we built everything on the books. It still wasn't enough, and the scoffers said, "No, no, you don't understand - we'll need more than that, so we'll build more than that!"

Now the CEO of GE says "Oh, we'll build about a third..."

Anyone mind if I scoff?