Clean Energy Insight - Moving Energy Forward

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The Energy Information Administration announced today that if higher energy costs created by the current revision of the controversial Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade bill were to be reduced, the United States would have to double its nuclear energy production in the next 20 years.  Although this is unrealistic and pushes the limits of human production, it just goes to show how powerful and important nuclear power is to an American energy future.  Here’s an excerpt from the Washington Times report:

“To satisfy House Democrats’ low-cost solution to global warming, Americans would have to double their reliance on nuclear energy by 2030 - a target the nuclear industry says is unlikely and that many environmentalists and Democrats dislike.

That is the conclusion of a new Energy Information Administration report that looked at the House Democrats’ global warming bill. To produce enough clean energy at a reasonable cost would require construction of dozens of new nuclear power plants, even though no new plant has been built in decades.

The EIA, in its report last week, projected that to keep the costs of implementing the bill low for consumers - about $339 extra per household in 2030 according to their basic scenario - nuclear energy use would rise from 8 quadrillion BTUs a year to 16 quadrillion, or from 11.3 percent of total U.S. energy to 18.1 percent.

That’s the largest projected increase of any source of energy, even topping renewable sources such as wind and solar power, which are supposed to be the hallmark of the bill, and would mean reliance on a controversial technology”