By By Frederic Garlan AFP - Friday, November 9, 8:28
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The stigma that surrounds the growing coal opens an avenue to nuclear power in the U.S., where new plants must be strictly constructed in the coming years to ease a power grid to the brink of collapse.
"Nuclear power is no longer the enemy. The enemy, coal," joked Anne Lauvergeon, President the French reactor builder Areva, which has great hopes on the revival of the atom civilian in this country.
Coal provides half of the energy used in the U.S. to produce electricity, against 20% for nuclear. But coal-fired, polluting and throwing lots of carbon dioxide, have fallen out of favor in a country that recently discovered a fiber environmentalist.
Of the 151 projects identified by coal Areva, 16 were canceled and 76 are considered uncertain. The will of the electrician Texas TXU to build eleven coal plants had caused such a public outcry that his recent resurgence by investment funds has given him the perfect excuse to abandon construction of eight of these units.
David Sandalow, an expert on energy issues at the Brookings Institution thinktank, says that the boss of a U.S. utility told him it was now easier to propose the construction in the United States of a nuclear plant than a coal plant.
Coal, although present in abundance in the basement U.S. is already competitive with nuclear, because of the surge of course, like many other commodities. And even before taking into account any abatement costs and carbon capture technology that could make this more acceptable to people.
No nuclear plants have been built for 30 years in the United States, which in 1979 experienced one of the most serious accidents civilian nuclear plant at Three Mile Island. The increasing demand of around 2% a year, was offset by the entry into service gas stations.
This has not prevented several regions of the country - New England New York, Pennsylvania and Florida - to be here today to thank you for the slightest incident: the difference between the maximum capacity of production and consumption do not exceed 15%. An unstable situation aggravated by the sorry state of the electrical network, fragmented and worthy of a developing country.
The massive use of gas - whose prices are aligned with the oil - has recently caused a surge in private bills: up +72% last year to some consumers in the State of Maryland ( east).
"American consumers do not expect that their bill Electricity is cheap. They want it to be predictable. The only energy source that allows it, it's nuclear - as well as coal, but I do not believe it because the pressure in favor of limiting emissions will prevent him from finding the position that was hers "notes Senator Richard Burr, a Republican expert on energy.
" If nuclear power does not represent at least 65% of new capacity built, I do not see how you can say that we want to reduce our carbon emissions, "said the senator from North Carolina.
Thirty projects nuclear plants have been raised in the United States, but none has been an irrevocable decision to launch. Despite an acceleration and simplification of administrative procedures, the first should not enter service until 2015.
0 comments:
Post a Comment