Good news as natural gas, coal, and solar see the biggest changes.
Just before the holiday break, the US Energy Information Agency released data on the country’s electrical generation. Because of delays in reporting, the monthly data runs through October, so it doesn’t provide a complete picture of the changes we’ve seen in 2023.
But some of the trends now seem locked in for the year: wind and solar are likely to be in a dead heat with coal, and all carbon-emissions-free sources combined will account for roughly 40 percent of US electricity production.
“Nuclear itself is largely unchanged, allowing it to pass coal thanks to the latter’s decline. Its output has been boosted by a new, 1.1 Gigawatt reactor that come online this year (a second at the same site, Vogtle in Georgia, is set to start commercial production at any moment). But that’s likely to be the end of new nuclear capacity for this decade; the challenge will be keeping existing plants open despite their age and high costs.”
With its very high cost, still unresolved waste issues and government-required support, it’s hard to believe that nuclear has any real future. At the same time the costs for renewables is trending downward.
The whole point of modular plants is their lower entry cost. And nuclear waste has been being recycled in France for decades.
Nuclear has an important role in a zero emission world along the other green energies.
You are absolutely correct about the eulogy for nuclear but will get many downvotes online from the idealistic yet unrealistic youth.
From what I understand on nuclear, it’s expensive because few people have experience planning or building them.