And even then, the generation capacity would not be baseload, only on when the sun shines.
The baseload sources create more jobs and most are local as it takes more effort to operate.
The principal long-term baseload electric power fuel arbitrage is and has been coal-v-uranium.
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There are also direct rivals to new nuclear plants, such as fossil-fuel plants with carbon sequestration that can provide baseload power.
There's much haggling between industry and Whitehall over the prices needed to incentivise new nuclear and back-up baseload plants fuelled by gas.
So baseload energy sources are much better for the overall local tax base than renewables unless your district includes their manufacturing plant.
In time, all but the six reactors of Fukushima Dai-ichi should come back on line, leaving a baseload generation deficit of roughly 6, 000 mw.
Renewables are not failsafe in a disaster scenario (look at how many solar panels were shattered in the quake) and they cannot replace baseload power.
Nuclear power offers the possibility of large quantities of baseload electricity that is cleaner than coal, more secure than gas and more reliable than wind.
Coal, the cheapest fuel, currently produces America's baseload power: coal-fired plants run constantly to meet basic demand, with natural gas switched on when demand is higher.
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Baseload generation will be very important for years to come.
In conclusion, the authors criticize energy-policy wonks for failing to pull data on orders for new GE gas turbines and corporate plans to transfer gas peaking plants to baseload.
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But there is a concession to sceptics about the government's ambitious targets, and the need to secure reliable baseload capacity to ensure power supplies when the wind drops and turbines stop working.
Best of all, geothermal plants provide power 24 hours a day, 7 days per week and thus are among the few sources of renewable energy that can replace baseload plants powered by fossil fuels.
But unlike other forms of renewable energy, such as solar or wind power, it has the further advantage that it is not intermittent, but can provide steady, predictable baseload electricity, all day and all night.
And, by promising to capture 90% of its carbon, SCS Energy can get away with burning the cheapest but dirtiest source of baseload fuel (coal) in the most expensive retail electricity market in the country.
Far from becoming a vast new source of baseload electricity fuel or even exports as liquified natural gas, a lot of the shale gas will essentially serve as a reserve in times of shortage, he said.
Calpine, which operates 46 power plants and two natural gas companies in the U.S., is expected to be one of the main builders of big "baseload" power plants in California, which is suffering an energy crisis.
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