If "environmentalists" keep fighting nuclear then it will lead to more coal consumption as there are no current alternatives for cost-effective BASELOAD power. Baseload power is needed to balance the grid because most other renewable sources can not be scheduled.

So, for cost-effective baseload power, we burn coal. But coal releases CO2, NOx, SOx, and MORE RADIATION than nuclear per MWh produced. What's more is that coal releases all of these nasties directly into the atmosphere instead of encasing it in glass where it can not leech into the environment a la nuclear.

Nuclear isn't perfect, but it's a whole lot better than any feasible alternative. America needs a complex energy porfolio with more wind, more solar power, and yes, more nuclear. Each technology has positives and negatives, and each is required.

I am not a huge fan of subsidies, even for nuclear power, but I reluctantly agree that the industry needs some government policy changes in order to encourage investors to take the risk that comes from trying to build very capital intensive projects, especially since we have not built any new commercial nuclear plants in more than 30 years here in the US.

There are many reasons why the industry needs some policy help, but not the least of them is the fact that the established fossil fuel energy industry has been very successful in their efforts to raise the "barriers to entry" for the competitive nuclear power business.

Did you know that a company wanting to build a new plant has to pay the Nuclear Regulatory Commission a fee of $258 for every hour that one of its regulators spends reviewing a license application? The estimates available so far is that the license applications that are currently being reviewed will take about 42 months – including several planned pauses in the process for public comments – and cost between $60-100 million in fees to the regulator. That does not even include the cost of setting aside the property for four years without being able to begin pouring the foundation.

Last year, nuclear power plants produced more than 800 billion kilowatt hours of very low emission electricity in the US.

Wind and solar power together produced about 26 billion kilowatt hours, despite decades worth of investment tax credits, accelerated depreciation schedules and renewable energy portfolio standards. Even though we have not built a new nuclear power plant in 40 years, the annual growth in nuclear power in most years between 1990 and 2008 was nearly as high as the total amount of wind and solar electricity produced.