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One way to look at the prospects for US new nukes is to consider this analysis of the potential effect of shale gas.
According to the EIA, in the US, natural gas power plants (excluding gas-fired peaking plants) and coal fired power plants have roughtly the same total capacity to generate power. (31%, and 33%, respectively). But actual electricity production is coal 50%, while gas generates only 20%. (2007 figures).
Note that things are changing lately:
This situation may change even more.
Flavin and Kitasei of The WorldWatch Institute used EIA figures to come up with that graph up there in support of their analysis that by increasing the use of gas and cutting down on coal the US could significantly reduce CO2 emissions in the near term.
But if you ignore CO2, which the US Senate seems to think is a wise thing to do, you could ramp up gas use while keeping the coal fires burning. One Congressional Research Service study in 2010 found that as much as 1/3 of existing coal could be replaced just by getting more out of existing gas plants. There's a lot of power there to drive US expansion, if you just kept the coal plants going while ramping up the gas, and all you have to do is pretend you don't know how this will affect the interests of all your future descendants and all life on Earth. Its a small price to pay for a few more years of business as usual.
The top execs may not even look like that guy over to the left.
The top execs may just be driven by what Adam Smith called the "invisible hand" of the market. So it is possible for US utilities to forget about nuclear for the time being, which seems to be happening.
The trouble with putting a price on carbon was, the "visible hand" of politics was trying to modify the way this "invisible hand" of economic forces works, so that the "invisible hand" could drive everyone to emit less carbon, but since everyone could see what the visible hand was doing and they all had something to say about it, we're stuck with the same old invisible hand. And he is that guy to the left up there. Its all his fault that we're killing the planet. Anyway, that's what I'm writing in the note I'm leaving for my grandchildren to read, should they survive long enough to read it. No one has ever proved any of this had anything to do with me.
Ignoring CO2 may be about to move from being merely fashionable to mandatory. The Freedom Institute of Erie County, a Tea Party group, has a position statement circulating that tells supporters to demand of prospective election candidates that they "oppose... the teaching of global warming theory in schools". (For all we know, after the next election, the Senate will legalize planetary euthanasia)
Utilities can play this gas card without much fear of environmentalists turning on them, as most environmentalists have bought the line that gas is green. The big opposition from green types has been over building new coal plants - their entire line of we don't need no new energy depends on existing coal. And maybe by the time anything in any part of this mix changes forcing more of a look at nukes, the new small ones will be ready to go.
All the utility execs have to worry about is will the shale gas be there, and will the price be low and stable.
The potential to increase gas use is somewhat limited because of where the gas plants are located compared to where the existing transmission lines are and where the demand is. That same study I referred to up there stated that location reduces how much existing gas could be ramped up but concluded there are still substantial possibilities. It may be that transmission lines are easier to build than new nukes.
New build "right sized" gas generators have proven to be easy for utilities to throw at the grid in any case.
The Economist did an article on gas recently: "The International Energy Agency says oil consumption has peaked in the West and could rise globally by just 0.5% a year to 2030. But Exxon Mobil expects gas consumption to be 55% higher in 2030 than it was in 2005."
