Japan on gas, coal power building spree to fill nuclear void

[GliderGuider]

12. Interesting article from the Grauniad, thanks!

Mark Cooper, a senior fellow at the Vermont Law School's Institute for Energy and the Environment, was more pessimistic. Cooper, a longtime critic of nuclear power economics, argued in a July 2013 paper called "Renaissance in Reverse," that competition from natural gas as well as carbon-free wind and solar power producers could push more than 30 U.S. reactors "to the brink of economic abandonment."

Cooper believes market conditions are so unfavorable that premature closures will not be limited to plants that have to compete for customers. He said closures will also hit nuclear plants that operate in regulated markets, where they are mostly protected from the competitive forces that drove the Kewaunee and Vermont Yankee plants out of business.

Good stuff.