“It’s killed off new coal and now it’s killing off new nuclear.”
The Wall Street Journal reports:
The U.S. nuclear industry seemed to be staging a comeback several years ago, with 15 power companies proposing as many as 29 new reactors. Today, only two projects are moving off the drawing board.
What killed the revival wasn’t last year’s nuclear accident in Japan, nor was it a soft economy that dented demand for electricity. Rather, a shale-gas boom flooded the U.S. market with cheap natural gas, offering utilities a cheaper, less risky alternative to nuclear technology.
“It’s killed off new coal and now it’s killing off new nuclear,” says David Crane, chief executive of NRG Energy Inc., NRG -0.12% a power-generation company based in Princeton, N.J. “Gas has come along at just the right time to upset everything”…
Something else killed off new coal before fracking could get at it. It’s a complete mystery what it was. Oh yeah, high efficiency wind turbines producing nearly 0% of the world’s energy.
…until the Administration can put a stop to fracking…