From Nuclear Street: nuclear needed to meet future energy needs

Nuclear Street highlighted the Washington Post's recent editorial pointing out that phasing out nuclear power in favor of renewables, with the goal of reducing fossil fuel carbon emissions, is not going to be easy.  They made several points that I've reiterated before, a couple of which I'll highlight here.

Washingon Post Editorial Board:  Nuclear Necessary to Meet Carbon Goals

From the Washington Post:   Phasing Out Nuclear

"Before the Fukushima Daiichi disaster last year, Japan derived a third of its electricity from nuclear power. Now, with all but one reactor offline, the country’s consumption of crude and heavy fuel oil for power generation has roughly tripled. Even with that backup fossil-fired power, though, the government worries that the electrical system will fail during peak summer demand if utilities don’t switch on reactors.

"The Financial Times’ Gerrit Wiesmann reports a similar situation in Germany, which has committed to closing all of its reactors, even as its power grid teeters and its electricity sector emits more carbon than it must after eight reactors shut down last year."

Doesn't sound very good, does it?

"Perhaps, a Japanese government report claimed, Japan could still reduce carbon emissions by 25 percent of its 1990 levels by 2030 without nuclear power. Yet even if that’s true, it’s hardly a reason to let all of that existing nuclear infrastructure and know-how go to waste. The report also notes that the country could cut emissions 33 percent if nuclear accounted for a fifth of the country’s generation, or even as much as 39 percent if Japan continued to derive a third of its electricity from nuclear."

Regarding Germany:

"Advocates of green energy point out that Germany already derives more of its electricity from renewables than Japan because of hefty government subsidies. But making up for the loss of that country’s reactors and meeting ambitious emissions goals would still require a veritable revolution in its electricity generation on a scale not seen since post-World War II reconstruction, Bloomberg reports."

  I think it's obvious that a pell-mell, shortsighted rush to phase out nuclear power is both bad for a country's energy infrastructure and bad for global climate change, too.