There are also direct rivals to new nuclear plants, such as fossil-fuel plants with carbon sequestration that can provide baseload power.

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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.

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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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Again, this would not be reliable baseload power.

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The principal long-term baseload electric power fuel arbitrage is and has been coal-v-uranium.

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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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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.

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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.

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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.

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