What killed nuclear power was not Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, or the demonstrations of public opposition such as at Seabrook, NH in the late 1970’s or the Musicians United for Safe Energy concerts in New York, Sept. 19-23, 1979, (both of which I attended).

What killed nuclear power was the realization by the bankers on Wall St. that after an event like Three Mile Island their multi-billion investment very quickly became a multi-billion pile of junk with virtually zero salvage value and a tremendously negative return on investment.

And coal today?

According to the National Energy Technology Laboratory “Historically, actual capacity has been seen to be significantly less than proposed capacity. For example, the 2002 report /of the National Energy Technology Lab, NETL, of the Department of Energy, DOE/ listed 36,161 MW of proposed /coal/ capacity by the year 2007 when actually only 4,478 MW (12%) were constructed.” Tracking New Coal-Fired Power Plants, NETL, Office of Systems Analyses and Planning, by Erik Shuster, Feb. 18, 2008, pg, 4, 5.

Housley Carr, writing in McGraw Hill’s Engineering News-Record, reported on the impending demise of  “King Coal” Uncertainty Over Carbon has Coal Plants Stymied

with public, regulatory and lender concern growing, many proposed plants are being cancelled. Permits issued for others require offsets for their carbon emissions, while the ones that remain in permitting are being intensely challenged. The U. S. Envrionmental Protection Agency must regulate carbon-dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act, the Supreme Court ruled last year, but Congress has failed to give EPA guidelines for a national policy. Three investment banks last month announced guidelines they would use to assess the risks of investment in coal-fired generation in the absense of a national policy. Further, the largest electric utility in Kansas, citing “seismic shifts in the assumptions shaping our industry,” issued a strategic plan that knocks the crown from King Coal’s head.”