Nathanael Greene's Blog: Nuclear Weapons, Waste and Energy tag:switchboard.nrdc.org,2009:/blogs/ngreene//28 2009-08-04T11:30:56Z Movable Type Enterprise 1.52 Nuclear energy folks are starting to sound a little shrill tag:switchboard.nrdc.org,2009:/blogs/ngreene//28.3751 2009-07-21T14:55:54Z 2009-08-04T11:30:56Z On Wednesday, the American Enterprise Institute will be holding a little pep rally for nuclear power. In the event description, they make the following standard disparaging remark about renewables, suggesting that nuclear is the option that can scale: Yet renewable... Nathanael Greene On Wednesday, the American Enterprise Institute will be holding a little pep rally for nuclear power. In the event description, they make the following standard disparaging remark about renewables, suggesting that nuclear is the option that can scale:

Yet renewable energy sources--often touted by policymakers as the panacea for resource scarcity and global warming--currently provide only 3 percent of the energy Americans consume. The role of nuclear power as a source of emissions-free electricity is often ignored.

What I find interesting about this typical analysis in the AEI energy pitch is that they deride renewables as being only a small percentage of total U.S. energy consumption and tout nuclear power as the solution; but if you compare all renewables including hydro to all nuclear as a percent of total energy consumption, renewables equals 7.3% compared to a whopping total of 8.5% for nuclear.  And needless to say renewables is a much higher percentage of NEW energy supplies than is nuclear these days.

Check out this very nice graphic from EIA Annual Energy Review 2008:

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