Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...
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Since they have drastically delayed their North Carolina plants in lieu of a conservation push, I expect more of the same for Progress Florida. Progress seems to be a waste of time with respect to getting new construction rolling sooner rather than later.
I think that TVA or Southern are the best bets for Toshiba to get new reactors built soon in the US. Those two organizations have the will and the money to do so. However, if TVA does move forward with Watts Bar 2, then they will delay new plants at Bellefonte. That leaves Southern at Vogtle to get the job done.