It's never that simple. While I don't have the numbers at my fingertips the number of coal projects canceled over the past year has been substantial. New Nuclear projects are having trouble getting traction for various reasons but primarily uncertainty of the regulatory environment and the cost of that regulation. Abandonment of Yacca mountain is the handwriting on the wall from this administration as well as the appointment of antinuclear commissioner to run the NRC and anti coal & nuclear to head the Energy department. We are talking about very serious investments and years of development. Even a coal plant takes 2 to 3 years to construct and a nuclear plant 6 to 10. Who is going to make that kind of commitment with an uncertain regulatory environment? There are lots of ways to kill a technology and they will use as many as necessary.
I completely agree. But those are gradual changes and are meant to stop future coal plants. Which goes to my point that the way Dems get what they want is often gradual and covered under levels of bureaucracy, so as your energy costs go up it's hard to figure out what happened. The cap and trade bill will be immediate. The change in your energy bill will occur within months and you will know it was cap and trade that did it, and you will blame your Senator or Congressman if he voted for it.