Nuclear Power?

The Economist has an article where they discuss what is going to happen with the availability of electricity. As you can see in the figure demand is going to outpace availability if new plants are not built. In Sweden the availability differs. A lot of free hydroelectric and nuclear, about fifty/fifty. But the plants are getting old here too.

As the English, we also have to build new plants and I believe that we have to build more nuclear plants. Otherwise we have to sign up for Russian gas which is less secure and dirtier environmentally. What will England do? Build coal plants or drastically expand their nuclear or simply buy more gas?

A neighbor told me about a new fuel source for nuclear plants, Thorium, the other year. I saw an article in Washington Post the other day that explained that it can be used in the plants they have now for Uranium but that it is not useful for making bombs. I learned, however, that the enthusiasm for nuclear in the US is lukewarm at best. I have a feeling it is the same in Sweden. I agree with Jan Björklund that nuclear is the only realistically available environmental source. For some reason there is very little talk about these terawatt windmill parks so far and buying solar energy from Sahara might not work so well either. And we have Uranium in the ground here in Sweden.