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Charlie Rose had a fascinating interview with Immelt recently. It's interesting to see a pro-environment, pro-efficiency policy being pushed as the most pro-money making way of doing business by such a major corporate head.
US Utilities Sceptical Over Nuclear Energy Revival - MSNBC - 19 Nov 07
"That view is shared by the administration of President George W. Bush. Yet, for all the political enthusiasm, many in the industry believe the nuclear revival will be limited and slow. Jeffrey Immelt, chairman and chief executive of General Electric, one of the world's biggest nuclear engineering companies, believes at most a third of those planned nuclear power plants will go ahead.
Nuclear is important in the US energy mix. There are 103 nuclear power plants, which supply about 20 per cent of the country's electricity. Yet many of them are so old that they are operating on 20-year extensions on their 40-year operating licences. At the same time as these plants are going out of service, US electricity demand is rising. It could grow by 45 per cent by 2030, according to projections from the US Energy Information Administration. [Recall here the predictions of large electrical consumption increases before the previous nuclear glory days went down in financial flames. Predictions that never materialized.]
That widening gap should create a powerful case for building reactors. However, it has been hard convincing utilities to take the risk.
'If you were a utility CEO and looked at your world today, you would just do gas and wind,' Mr Immelt says. 'You would say [they are] easier to site, digestible today [and] I don't have to bet my company on any of this stuff. You would never do nuclear. The economics are overwhelming.'"
