By Ronald Stein P.E. & Dick Storm
Before the 1800s, much farm work, transportation, heating, and home chores were done with muscle power and wood burning. As coal, petroleum, natural gas, and later nuclear energy were applied to replace muscle power, our country experienced rapid growth in industrial production, food production, shipping, travel, and a growing economy. Also, comforts and conveniences at home and work, such as air conditioning, refrigeration, cooking, dishwashers, automatic washers, and more.
The 105-year period 1850-1955 yielded incredible growth in both industrial output and economic development. The strength of the U.S. grew and expanded, making it the greatest country in the world with the largest economy.
Numerous organizations, including the North America Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), have forecasted that the U.S. needs about 125,000 MW of new electricity generation capacity by 2030 and about 600,000 MW of new generation capacity by 2050 to meet the growing demand for electricity.
If completed, the new power plant construction plans between 2007 and 2009 would have eliminated the electricity generation crisis the U.S. is facing in 2025.
Nuclear power is a good idea, but rebuilding the supply chain will require more time. Natural gas plants, in our opinion, are overbuilt. Nearly all of them have no on-site fuel storage and are always susceptible to pipeline flow disruptions.
We have six ways to generate electricity.
We have four proven ways to generate continuous uninterruptible electricity:
- Coal
- Natural gas
- Nuclear
- Hydro
We have two ways to generate intermittent, unreliable weather-dependent electricity:
- Wind turbines
- Solar panels
The growing demand for continuous and uninterruptible electricity is being compounded by the growth of AI and data centers, which are humongous power consumers. Their electricity demands can be provided by coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro, but it is unrealistic to expect that the new demand for continuous and uninterruptible electricity can be supplied from weather-dependent electricity generation from wind and solar.
Meanwhile, the current U.S. government policy, green religion, renewable electricity policies, and crushing regulations are geared toward electrifying everything, including transportation.
The demand for electricity is increasing because of increased usage by AI, data centers, and EV charging, as well as the natural organic growth of electricity as people of the world are lifted from poverty.
Today, “Net Zero” policymakers setting “green” policies are oblivious to the reality that so-called “renewables” ONLY generate electricity but CANNOT make any products or transportation fuels for our materialistic societies. In addition, everything that needs electricity, like iPhones and computers, is made with petrochemicals manufactured from crude oil, coal, or natural gas.
Electricity came AFTER oil, as ALL electrical generation methods from hydro, coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, and solar are ALL built with the products, components, and equipment that are made from oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil.
All EVs, solar panels, and wind turbines are also built with products, components, and equipment made from crude oil derivatives.
The Obama and Biden EPA was on a mission to kill coal power plants that provide continuous uninterruptable electricity to the grid regardless of the harm to our economy, it is a rogue government agency, staffed by extremists, aligned with rogue NGO’s, guided by extremists first in the Obama Administration, then the Biden Administration that are using the regulations as a weapon against the best interests of America and the citizens. The key people at the EPA during the Obama and Biden Administrations were some of the same people who worked at various NGO’s such as the NRDC. They were aligned with forcing the decline of America and the rise of China.
It is an extreme fantasy to believe that intermittent electricity from weather-dependent wind and solar can power the economies of developed countries.
The elites of society have bought EVs and will continue to buy EVs, but the surge in EV Demand has not really been felt yet because EVs are still a small percentage of the total U.S. vehicle fleet for the elites who can afford them. However, about 80% of the global population of 8 billion people lives in less developed countries. Much of Africa and South-East Asia are prime examples of this, but also the Pacific Ocean Island states.
The people in poorer developing countries might live on less than $10 per day, but the greater problem is that they have little or no access to reliable electricity, nor to the myriad of products manufactured using fossil fuels and their derivatives. The “green” agendas of the developed world are threatening to never allow them access to it.
Yet, the few wealthy developed countries continue to pursue the poor capacity factor, high cost, and unreliability of wind and solar after decades of spending billions.
The answer to supporting the primary energy needed for electricity generation over the next twenty-five years is to build more dispatchable electricity generation capacity from new natural gas, nuclear, and coal plants. We need to build lots of new gas, nuclear, and coal plants. This is easy to write about but harder to accomplish.
Building just one new 1,600 MW Coal Plant
One of the most recent coal plants built is the 1,600 MW Prairie States Energy Center in southern Illinois. The plant construction is well documented by Bechtel and Prairie States. Here are some statistics to explain the immensity of the challenge of building a plant such as the Prairie States Energy Campus.
- 42,000 tons of steel
- 165,000 cubic yards of concrete
- 2,700 construction workers
- 120 miles of piping
- 1,200 miles of electric cable
To accomplish this huge task, thousands of new engineers, technicians, craftsmen, and other factory workers will need to be trained and employed. The next generation has a huge job of rebuilding the supply chain of continuous, uninterruptible electricity to meet the demands of the growing economy.
600,000 MW of new, reliable, affordable, dispatchable electricity generation capacity is needed. Satisfying this demand for new capacity will require more new gas, coal, and nuclear plants to be built to provide continuous, uninterruptible, and emissions-free electricity.
Nuclear power 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 data centers, 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, it takes 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 intentionally 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.
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