To meet the clean-energy goals set forth in Waxman-Markey, we’d have to double the nuclear power in the U.S. Anyone think that’s likely any time soon? Washington Times:
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.