What would they displace them with?
You don't know? You don't care?
Since you don't know how to do comparisons, you must miss, that Amory Lovins oracles aside,
electrical consumption has been increasing. The fact that coal consumption is increasing is a reflection of this fact.
Once again this is merely an attempt by anti-nuclear activists to attempt to make their prophecies self-fulfilling. The fact that nuclear production has increased by a factor of three since 1980 is
in spite of fraudulent, increasingly twisted and bizarre representations that it is somehow
less safe than fossil fuels.
The Unites States should be like France, where more than 70% of the power is nuclear. Since the United States, to satisfy the
purely negative mythology of anti-nuclear misrepresentations (The bolt was loose! The paper was misfiled!) has not expanded it's nuclear capacity as fast as it should have, and thus is in deep environmental shit. What to I mean, by the way, by
purely negative. What I mean is that there is not one, as in zero, anti-nuclear activists who can point to a positive ability to displace fossil fuels by greenhouse gas free fuels.
It is easy to make representations about imperfect things, especially if you take no action yourself. You want to shut nuclear power stations. But you cannot produce an acceptable form of energy that will displace them. Because you are unable to do this, because you cannot point to a case where the embrace of a greenhouse gas free form of energy has displaced fossil fuels in an industrial economy, as I can point to France, you are merely engaged in wishful thinking.
The fact is that the numbers for coal consumption are
not modeled by the United States, where small minded distractable anti-human "activists" have been asserting mystical nonsense about nuclear power that for a while prevented the building of
new nuclear plants, with the result that the improved production has simply resulted from improved operations.
The place where nuclear energy provides the bulk of the power, instead, is best exemplified by France. France has more than halved it's reliance on coal since 1980, and now uses it chiefly to make steel.
Here is the coal consumption of every country on earth:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table14.xlsHere is the electrical consumption of every nation on earth:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table62.xlsNote that France increased electricity use by 182%, whereas the United States increased by 175%, a smaller amount.
Here is the nuclear production of every nation on earth:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table27.xlsAnd here is the carbon intensity of every nation on earth:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1gco2.xlsI have sorted this list many times to show that with the exception of Norway, which has huge hydroelectric capacity and a small population, the leading 5 industrial nations with low carbon intensity are
all nations with significant nuclear producing capability. They are Switzerland, Sweden (both of which also has significant hydroelectric capacity) Japan, Norway and France. Specifically Switzerland produces 50% of it's power by nuclear means; Switzerland produces 40%; Japan 35%, and France more than 70%. By contrast, the United States, which you so foolishly pose as an example, produces only about 20% of its electricity by nuclear means. I note that in the United States no one ever protests a coal plant, and most of the attention paid to coal operations is just pefunctory lip service, requiring prompting.
Put that in your fantasy pipe and smoke it, bub.
And while you're smoking whatever it is your smoking (since you don't give a shit about things like particulates, carbon monoxide, and other combustion products) please be aware that what you are really after is not France, not Switzerland, but Chad, which has the lowest carbon intensity on earth. What you are arguing for is a world dominated by
poverty and, as is self evident, ignorance.
I suspect that indeed you will get what you wish for.
It is probably too late for nuclear power to save your ass and the asses of whatever fringe still buys your antiquated argument. The 1970's are over, and good riddance. It is time for seriousness. In fact, the world has rejected anti-nuclear hysteria, and is building nuclear capacity anew on an exajoule scale. (I have noted elsewhere that the single new nuclear plant that came on line last month in Japan produces more energy than the solar industry in the entire United States.) I suspect that this is too little too late, for while you have been paying atttention to the forms filled out in nuclear power plants, and running through silly scenarios in the face of dire
realities, the earth's climate is rapidly collapsing.
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