No new coal or nuclear power plants may ever need to be built, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) told reporters yesterday.
At a press conference in Washington hosted by the U.S. Energy Association, Jon Wellinghoff expressed the sentiment that has been repeated time and again by environmentalists and supporters of alternative energy.
Talking about coal-fired power plants and nuclear power plants he said: "They’re too expensive."
“The last price I saw for a nuke was north of $7,000 a kilowatt. That’s more expensive than a solar system,” he said.
“Coal plants are sort of in the same boat," he added.
“There’s 500 to 700 gigawatts of developable wind throughout the Midwest,” he said, and “enough solar in the southwest, as we all know, to power the entire country. It’s a matter of being able to move it to loads.”
There is also “at least 100 gigawatts” of hydropower, not including offshore projects that use wave and tides to generate electricity, said Wellinghoff.
He said natural gas power plants will continue to be needed to help bridge the transition to renewable power.
Wellinghoff’s comments are more progressive than those stated by other administration officials, who continue to say that coal and nuclear will need to play a role in the nation’s future energy mix.
He said that planning to modify the nation’s grid must take place in the next three to five years in order to take advantage of an upsurge in the development of renenewable energy.
"If we don’t do that, then we miss the boat," he said. "That planning has to take place so you don’t strand a lot of assets, a lot of supply assets."
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