[EagleUSA]

Also, a natural cause of the subsequent oil price fall soon.
----
I hope you are right -- but we need to move forward agressively with nuke power -- the price per kilowatt hour cannot be touched with any other method that yields the amount of power one plant alone can generate...

[yobid]

I work in the power industry and can tell you that if we began designing a new nuke in the USA today, it most likely wouldn't go on line for 7-10 years later. This is due to the extreme amount of documentation and the permitting processes associated with this kind of work. Or to put it another way, government RED TAPE.

[JoeFromSidney]

but we need to move forward agressively with nuke power -- the price per kilowatt hour cannot be touched with any other method that yields the amount of power one plant alone can generate...

Although I've been in favor of nuclear power for years, I'm still not certain about the economics. The morning paper (DAYTON DAILY NEWS) carried an article about the "failure" of deregulation of electric power in Ohio. It seems that only consumers in the northeastern part of the state are choosing new suppliers, while those in the southwestern part (where I live) are not (I haven't). The article stated that the reason was that electric rates in the Northeast are higher than in the Southwest because more power in the Northeast comes from nuclear plants, while that in the Southwest comes from coal-fired plants. The alleged reason for higher cost of nuclear-generated electricity was the higher capital cost of nuclear plants.

Anyone got any good figures on the relative economics of nuclear and coal as sources of electicity?