It’s true that the administration’s ideologues are foot-dragging, but this time the forces are against them (unlike 1994, when Hazel O’Leary was able to kill the IFR). Watts Bar and Brown’s Ferry Unit 1 are showing what the nuclear industry can do today, and establishing momentum. Europe is pushing ahead and China and India are both going like crazy. Even Bill Gates is behind fast-breeder technology! Anything the Obamoids can do to stop it won’t last beyond 2013, maybe not past 1/2011.
This isn’t to say that the “alternatives” are bad. They have their points, like 18-month schedules from plan to finish. There’s a 2.7 gigawatt compressed-air energy storage (CAES) plant planned for Ohio, addressing the intermittency issue. Of course, it also addresses nuclear’s peaking issue. In other words, it’s all good.
