Dense/thin is not how we value a source of electricity. We value sources and technologies based mainly on the LCOE that technology delivers. LCOE plus time of delivery and “side effects”.

Nuclear’s LCOE is one of the two highest, nuclear and coal. Nuclear has a time of delivery problem as you can’t turn reactors off at night. And nuclear has way more than it share of side effect problems, all the way from sudden meltdowns to centuries of very hazardous waste.

One of the reasons that nuclear is so expensive, has such a high LCOE, is that it is just plain dangerous. We have to add all sorts of safety systems and security measures to nuclear plants so that they don’t go Chernobyl on us. Or at least they don’t go Chernobyl on us too often.

Uranium and coal are our most energy dense electricity sources. They are also the most expensive ways to bring new generation to the grid and they bring with them dangers totally unlike that of any other electricity source.

Wind and solar are energy ‘thin’. But we’ve learned how to turn those relatively thin sources of power into cheap electricity. And we’ve brought no important dangers to our environments with this technology.

(Don’t stand under wind turbines in icing conditions. You might get hit by falling ice. As long as the ice doesn’t hit anyone, it will simply melt away. It won’t contaminate the Earth for centuries.)

And tell us which safety features/regulations you would eliminate from nuclear reactors in order to make them affordable.

And how do you feel about the fact that no one would build a new nuclear plant unless they could receive some rather heavy subsidies?

They are used to making very sweet money when peak demand and merit order pricing take the wholesale/closing price of electricity very high.

PV solar whacks those high peak prices. Cuts deeply into coal and nuclear profits.

Right now about 1/4th of all US nuclear plants are in trouble because wind and natural gas are cutting profits almost to the point where they can’t stay in business. One big repair bill could easily do them in. Lots of solar will make their lives even worse.

Within the decade solar will the at grid parity or better in all but the cheapest electricity markets (many of which are subsidized anyway!). The only hope for electric companies is 1) areas that are to power dense to produce all that they need (commercial and industry) and 2) as a commodity trading market (aka buy excess ower at just a slightly lower price than they sell it).

I just don’t understand why commercial giants refuse to see what’s right in front of them – in many industries. I understand trying to fight it for a while to allow you to transition to the new business model, but trying to fight it forever is futile! Might actually be a good idea to short their stocks now that I think about it…

Using a google search with ‘cleantechnica’ at the end, the best i’m coming up with is this:
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/08/03/oil-gas-over-13-times-more-in-historical-subsidies-than-clean-energy/
if that’s not it, take a stroll through our “Oil” category (yep, we really do have one): http://cleantechnica.com/category/fossil-fuels/oil/

But, were I heavily into oil, I’d be checking EV battery technology every day. I would not at all be surprised to see a 200 mile range battery suddenly appear. The big boys tend to develop behind closed doors and then spring new product on the market.

Once we get affordable 200 mile range EVs I can see the market quickly shifting to EVs and after that it will take roughly 15 more years to get most ICEVs off the road.

Coal is going to die much faster.