Dr. V. K. Mathur opines that not too many years ago, coal and nuclear power competed fiercely against each other in the energy arena. But now natural gas, cheap and abundant, is superseding both in the production of electricity. But, the cost can also be much higher...
Although a political cloud hangs over both (notice he lumps coal and nuclear together) and environmentalists (he means adversaries) are causing headaches (say irritations because they are often misinformed and distribute falsehoods), coal and nuclear power are here to stay (coal for burning will go away, but nuclear will remain and expand). Together, they provide a large share of the base-load electricity that drives our economy, without which cities would go dark and industries would shut down.
But it is clear that President Obama and his energy advisers do not really care about coal or nuclear power. In his proposed budget for 2016, Obama earmarked no funds for two critically important energy projects. One is FutureGen, a project slated for Illinois, which was going to be the first full-scale demonstration of a process to capture carbon dioxide from a coal plant and bury it underground (becasue this is a waste of public money). Because coal currently supplies almost two-thirds of the world electricity, and is especially important in fast-growing economies like China and India, carbon sequestration is the key to meeting international climate goals. But this is not true. Facts show that both China and India are turning off coal plant construction and turning on nuclear plant construction.
The other project is the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. We need a facility to store the radioactive waste from electricity production and the weapons program, which is safely stored at 121 reactor sites in 39 states. The Yucca technology for waste storage is well-studied, understood and regulated. Political interference has been the problem. This should be opened and operated as originally planned.
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