For almost a century the American utility paradigm was one of building large, base-loaded central generation. As a result coal and nuclear now provide over half of U.S. electric energy. But renewable generation, wind and solar, is growing at an exponential rate and intermittent resources don't play well with slow/non-rampable generation. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects a flat to slow growth of nuclear over the next 30 years, depending on gas prices. But they most probably haven't taken into consideration the increasing need for grid flexibility that nuclear can't provide
Then there are the environmental and safety issues surrounding both coal and nuclear and the falling natural gas prices…
