Economic prosperity demands continuous and uninterruptible electricity

It will take thousands of new engineers, technicians, craftsmen and other factory workers that will need to be trained and employed to accomplish this huge task. The next generation has a huge job of rebuilding the supply chain of continuous uninterruptible electricity to meet the demands of the growing economy.

The need is for 600,000 MW of new reliable, affordable, dispatchable electricity generation capacity. Satisfying this demand for new capacity will require more new gas, new coal and new nuclear plants to be built to provide continuous, uninterruptable, and emissions-free electricity.

Nuclear today provides about 100,000 MW of electricity generation. Most of the nuclear plants providing this power were built over 40 years ago. It took over 30 years to build the first 100,000 MW of nuclear generation and yes, we should proceed at full speed ahead of doing so again.

The solution, for continuous and uninterruptable electricity demanded by AI and datacenters, is to build more coal plants and build them now. It will be difficult to ramp up the supply chain, but we should begin ASAP. Building plants like Prairie States takes years. At best, about four years from the start of engineering to the first connection to the Grid and then it usually takes months of debugging and fine tuning to reach the full potential of a new plant.

We should begin now as the electricity generation crisis is real, not imagined. In 2008 over 150 new coal plants were planned. Most of these were cancelled. This amounts to intentional Self-Sabotaging the reliable, affordable and dispatchable electricity supply that is the Lifeblood of our nation. Cancelling 150 coal plants vital for our nation's strength and productive capacity, was a mistake that will become apparent during peak electricity demand in the hot summer and cold winter months ahead.