A couple of comments on Biello's op-ed

David Biello said some sad things about nuclear power recently:

Is nuclear power doomed to dwindle?

This leads me to make a couple of brief comments.

Biello uses the Crystal River plant shutdown to lead off the article.  Then he follows with this factum:

" What will replace the reactor’s 860-megawatts worth of power? Electricity generated by natural gas turbines, according to Duke. In fact, cheap natural gas may sound the death knell for the nation’s dwindling number of nuclear reactors, now down to 102. "

The problem is, burning natural gas is STILL not good for climate change.  The big natural gas boom (fracking and the like) is not good for climate change.   So the momentum swing back toward nuclear will (at least could) happen when the urgency of climate change becomes apparent. 

(Which is why climate change skeptics make me very angry, frequently.)

Biello alludes briefly to this problem at the end of the article.  If we burn more natural gas, our emissions dip won't stay dipped very long, because we constantly need more power.  We Americans are not energy conservationists - yet, that is.

The problem is, nobody is talking about the transportation sector yet.  Cars and every other vehicle with an internal combustion engine still pretty much use oil-derived gasoline to get around.  If we replace lots of IC vehicles with electrics, which is possible, then we'll still be burning fossil fuels in natural gas plants to power them, not nuclear.  Hence, more carbon dioxide.  We're still stuck with that.

Here's another thing Biello says:

"Nuclear power has more steam in countries such as China, which continues to push forward with a massive construction program in a bid to cut down on coal burning. Last week, Westinghouse lowered the top of the containment dome on its first new AP1000 reactor in Sanmen. But even 80 large nuclear power plants will do little to restrain China’s now world-leading greenhouse gas emissions (and air pollution) from all of the country’s coal burning."

When I read that, I just wondered if Biello read this:

China to cap dirty coal

""The State Council of China took a decision (February 2013) that implies putting a cap on coal consumption of less than four billion tonnes, which is a huge amount of coal but it's not much more than they're consuming now."

Is it achievable?  Perhaps not, but it's a goal.  And with China trying to reach its goals, the nuclear renaissance will likely continue - at least with China leading the way.  If we (U.S., that is) see China making real progress with clean nuclear power and greenhouse gas emissions reductions, then there might be a rather sudden sea-change in the nuclear prospects in this country.