Is Nuclear Power America's Best Energy Alternative?

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Most of the energy that we use comes from the “always on”, 24/7/365 generation facilities. When you raid the refrigerator at 3 am, you expect the lights in the kitchen to come on if you flip the switch; you expect your automatic computer backups to occur when you’re sleeping; those sorts of things happen because of baseload electricity.

Many people may not know that there are only three types of energy that consistently and inexpensively produce our baseload energy supply in North America . They are coal, nuclear, and large hydro. In fact, in January 2008, these three power sources provided over 75% of all the energy generated in the USA (Coal 50.3%, Nuclear 19.5%, and hydro 6.2%).

Other forms of energy like wind, natural gas, and oil are typically used to provide “peaking” or supplemental power when demand grows beyond the expected baseload levels – like on a hot day, or around supper time. Baseload plants typically take longer to start up but have very low energy costs. Peaking plants can start up or shut down very quickly, but have much higher fuel costs.

We need to maintain our baseload supply of inexpensive electricity because when we try to push peaking power sources into the realm of producing baseload energy, our electrical bills can skyrocket. Keeping our baseload options open allows for abundant, affordable supplies of energy. That benefits everyone who uses electricity.