FuturePundit Asks a Question About Nuclear Energy

Randall Parker, the brains behind FuturePundit, has been reading an EPRI study about the prospect of the electric industry being able to constrain carbon emissions going forward, and asks a provocative question:

The study assumes only a two thirds increase in nuclear power.

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But imagine instead that we no longer built new coal or natural gas burning electric plants and all new electric plants used energy sources that generate no carbon dioxide. Coal burning technology isn't ready for full carbon sequestration. So go with nuclear and wind instead.

Most drastically, we could halt all carbon dioxide emissions from electric generation (cutting out a third of US CO2 emissions) by switching to only non-fossil fuels for electric power generation. For example, in the United States we could switch to nuclear where we now use coal and natural gas. In 2005 nuclear power accounted for 19.3% of total electric power generated. The United States had 104 nuclear reactors operating in 2005 with a total capacity of 97 gigawatts (almost 1 gigawatt per plant). So as a rough first approximation if we built 400 nuclear power plants or 4 times as much as we already have we could shut down all the fossil-fuels burning plants. Though that would not provide enough electric power during the peak afternoon demand periods.

So here's my question for knowledgeable readers: What percentage of electric power is used for baseline demand and what percentage is used for above baseline usage? Would we have to build 6, 7, or even 8 times as many nuclear plants as we have now in order to eliminate all use of fossil fuels to generate electricity?

I've already sent a link to Randall's post to the interested parties here at NEI, though we're all scattered around the Washington area for the President's Day holiday. Then again, there's no reason why our readers can't participate. Drop by and be sure to comment where appropriate.