The Wall Street Journal Energy Report

In the unlikely event you've missed it today, The Wall Street Journal has published a special package on Energy and nuclear is the cover girl/boy. WSJ editor Michael Totty has written the lead article, The Case For and Against Nuclear Power. (Janus-like, Totty sees, and provides, both arguments.)

Sidebar materials include a podcast interview with Eileen Claussen, president of the nonpartisan Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Interesting exchange at the 8:44 mark,

Totty: What's your assessment? Will the [nuclear] industry succeed? Or will nuclear power, at least in the U.S., slip in importance over time as other energy sources come up?

Claussen: Well, if you look at the mix of sources that we now have—I think coal is about 50% of electricity generation, nuclear is about 20%—renewables, for all the growth we've seen, particularly in wind, is still in the single digits. So even if we worked really hard to increase the share of renewables, we're still going to need baseload power. And the demand for that power is growing in the United States, not shrinking or staying stable. To meet that, you're going to have to go to either nuclear, coal, with carbon capture and sequestration, or natural gas. And I think, with a carbon price, nuclear will do very well in that. This is going to last for a long time, so I think it [nuclear power] will do well over time. In fact, probably better and better.