Free enterprise was going to have to build some sort of power generation anyway,
old coal and nuclear plants do wear out and require replacement.
Old coal and nuclear plants are closing due to age and tightening air pollution rules.
Free markets would be preferred, but the US failed to create competitive power markets under deregulation because it awarded
old coal and nuclear power plants all sorts of advantages including stranded cost subsidies, grandfather exemptions to environmental regs, preferential grid access, etc..
The fabulous David Roberts over at Vox reports that even utility CEOs are now predicting that it will be cheaper to build new wind and solar than to keep running
the old coal and nuclear plants that have already been built.
Not exact matches
Ultimately, the replacement of
old, highly polluting
coal - fired power plants by
nuclear reactors is essentially no different from deciding, after putting sentimental considerations aside, to replace your inexpensive
and reliable — but obsolete — 1983 Olds Omega with a 2007 Toyota Camry or BMW 3 Series sedan.
Currently,
nuclear and wind energy (as well as clean
coal) are between 25
and 75 percent more expensive than
old - fashioned
coal at current prices (not including all the hidden health
and environmental costs of
coal),
and so it will take a stiff charge on
coal to induce rapid replacement of obsolete plants.
While the United States is shutting down
old coal - fired power plants
and not building new ones, Europe — also because of the commitment in Germany to get out of
nuclear power — is moving back to
coal.
That meant
coal burned in newer supercritical plants, natural gas,
nuclear, tire burning,
and existing 50 - year -
old hydroelectric plants all counted —
and they already made up more than two - thirds of supply.
THE HEART OF THE STORY (AMERICA CAN BECOME ENERGY INDEPENDENT) Most of our
coal and nuclear plants are
old.
On the other hand, it is reasonable to assume that natural market factors will gradually result in a reduction of ever more expensive fossil fuel combustion as
older coal - fired power plants are shut down
and replaced by
nuclear plants, as hybrid
and electrical cars gradually replace gasoline
and diesel driven ones,
and as energy efficiency is improved
and waste reduced.
The UK has lots of
coal, gas
and nuclear plants that are getting
old.
Electricity's carbon risks could be managed by new
nuclear plants
and «clean
coal,» sustaining
and even bolstering many of the power sector's century -
old institutions — traditional business models, vendors,
and regulators,
coal - mining, even railroads.
The Obama Administration has been pretty upfront about its support for an energy policy that promotes both clean energy technologies
and renewed investment in
old technologies such as
nuclear,
coal and offshore drilling.
This matters because the climate change debate has been hi - jacked, emissions made worse by the net effects of renewables for a fast lobbyist buck in fact, driven by ignorance
and misleading attacks that lump clean low carbon gas with dirty high carbon
coal,
and old school anti-
nuclear activists who oppose
nuclear generation on factualy spurious grounds, while it is in physics
and engineering fact by far the best solution on any measure, through promoting irrational fear unsupported in any area of the facts
and proven physics they deceive the unknowing about with simply false or msleading «sience».