Interesting — compared to 1990 last year’s operating plants were down from 112 to 104 plants — but power generation was up 40%. That means utilization rates have improved by 50%. I knew rates were up, but 50% is astonishing — why isn’t this being front-paged!
The U.S. nuclear industry supplied a record 806.5 billion kilowatthours of electricity in 2007. The largest increase came in Tennessee, with 4 billion kilowatthours more nuclear-provided electricity in 2007 than in 2006, an increase of 16 percent, according to preliminary Energy Information Administration (EIA) data released today. National total nuclear generation was 2.4 percent higher than in 2006, and 2.3 percent higher than in the previous record year, 2004. The capacity factor (the amount of power actually generated compared with the maximum amount that could be generated) for 2007 was 91.8 percent, exceeding the previous record capacity factor of 90.3 percent in 2002.
The total number of operating commercial nuclear reactors in the U.S. increased from 103 to 104 in 2007 with the return to service of the Brown’s Ferry 1 reactor, which had been shut down in 1985. The total number of operating U.S. commercial reactors remains well below the peak level of 112 in 1990. However nuclear power generation in 2007 was 40 percent above the 577 billion kilowatthours produced in 1990, largely reflecting a major improvement in utilization rates.
Technorati Tags: Nuclear Power
Steve;
There’s a wild card you might like to keep in mind over the next 8-10 years.
If LawrencevillePlasmaPhysics.com and FocusFusion.org have continued success in development of the garage-sized 5-20MW p-B11 fusion generators, they’ll be providing a source of power that costs out at about $0.0015/kwh, something like 1/40 of current and projected costs for any and all sources.
Every coal, nuclear, gas, oil, solar, hydro, etc. generating plant in the world would instantly become an economic white elephant.