It will come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog that I am no fan of nuclear power. I think it has many more negatives than even fossil fuels which I also don't like. It has saddened me to hear long time environmentalists pushing nuclear power as a good way to mitigate climate changes. Nuclear power is said to be carbon free but it is not. There is more carbon dioxide released in the construction, fueling, and decommissioning of a nuclear power plant over its lifetime than hydro, solar, wind or geothermal power plants. Another major issue with nuclear power is the fact that it takes years that we do not have to plan, license and construct a nuclear power plant. I have always said that sustainable alternative energy sources are a far better way to fight climate change. So how is alternative energy doing in competition with nuclear power?
Two new reports from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) offer evidence that nuclear power is falling behind renewable energy sources in the race to replace fossil fuels.
A British thermal unit (Btu) is the amount of energy that must be expended to raise the temperature of a one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. EIA latest Monthly Energy Review says that over the last six months biofuels, biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar and wind power have provided about five and one quarter quadrillion Btus of domestic energy production. ( A quadrillion is a one followed by fifteen zeros or a million billion.) Nuclear power provided four and two tenths quadrillion Btus. Thus alternative sources provided twenty five percent more Btus than nuclear sources. This energy provides heat, hot water and electricity for the U.S.
FERC's Energy Infrastructure Update says that the total installed U.S. capacity for hydropower, wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal in terms of sources producing more than one megawatt is about two hundred and sixteen gigawatts, or a little over eighteen percent of national capacity. Nuclear power's installed capacity is a little over one hundred and seven gigawatts. This represents a little over nine percent. By this measure, these alternative sources have more than double the capacity of nuclear power in the U.S.
In terms of actual generation of electricity, in the past seven months nuclear power generated about twenty percent of the electricity in the U.S. as opposed to about fifteen percent of the electricity in the U.S. provided by alternative energy. However, the share of electricity produced by nuclear power has remained about the same over the last ten years while alternative sources have grown by more than fifty percent and are projected to maintain strong growth in the future.
It is possible that if trends continue, within five years alternative sources of energy could surpass nuclear power in terms of actual energy generation. The nuclear industry is working hard to obtain government subsidies in order to continue to compete in the marketplace with other cheaper alternative sources of energy. Such subsidies are a very bad idea and waste of public money. Let the market decide if nuclear power lives or dies.
