real energy alternatives

350.org shared Mosaic's photo.

On Tuesday, catch Bill McKibben, Billy Parish, and Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins in conversation about real energy alternatives. Not to be missed. You can watch the ‪#‎MoneyShift‬ talk here: http://mos.ai/1b4gIG1

 

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#‎MoneyShift‬ represents a new model of shifting our collective money from the fossil fuel economy to a sustainable one. Join us in the hangout http://mos.ai/1b4gIG1SHARE this if you agree money needs to be shifted around!

 

 

 

 

The U.S. Should Be Leading

PEW offered the article and video below  that highlight the importance of government policy and investment to lead in Alternative Energy Technology.

The U.S. can and should be leading the world.

Who's Winning the Clean Energy Race?

The global clean energy sector is undergoing geographic and technological shifts as new markets emerge and renewable capacity grows, according to Pew’s latest report. Among Group of 20 nations, or G-20, China has reclaimed the lead in investment with $65.1 billion—30 percent of the global total—and the United States has fallen to No. 2. The rankings for 2012 show once again that countries that prioritize clean energy policy are better positioned to attract investment. Read our report to learn about changes in the global clean energy race »

Energy Policy

RMI's most recent issue of Spark: Germany's Renewables Revolution offers the video below, as well as Germany's Renewables Revolution that provides a great overview.

Google Hangout: The Role of Energy Policy in the U.S.





RMI Alumni Discuss Energy Policy

Destroying Our Environment One Eco-System At A Time

EARTHQUAKES! Brought to you by Big Energy!

Does Massachusetts have a law that prohibits FRACKING?

Do you think if Beacon Hill was less focused on Predatory Gambling and having their egos stroked by Gambling Lobbyists, they might have worked to protect residents from consequences such as these?

So....we get EARTHQUAKES and Predatory Gambling! Such a deal!

AP: Officials Say Fracking Caused Ohio Earthquake
By Associated Press

Officials said Saturday they believe the latest earthquake activity in northeast Ohio is related to the injection of wastewater into the ground near a fault line, creating enough pressure to cause seismic activity.

The brine wastewater comes from drilling operations that use the so-called fracking process to extract gas from underground shale. But Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director Jim Zehringer said during a news teleconference that fracking is not causing the quakes.

"The seismic events are not a direct result of fracking," he said.

Environmentalists and property owners who live near gas drilling wells have questioned the safety of fracking to the environment and public health. Federal regulators have declared the technology safe, however.

Zehringer said four injection wells within a five-mile radius of an already shuttered well in Youngstown will remain inactive while further scientific research is conducted.

A 4.0 magnitude quake Saturday afternoon in McDonald, outside of Youngstown, was the 11th in a series of minor earthquakes in area, many of which have struck near the Youngstown injection well. The quake caused no serious injuries or property damage, Zehringer said.

Thousands of gallons of brine were injected into the well daily until its owner, Northstar Disposal Services LLC, agreed Friday to stop injecting brine into the earth as a precaution while authorities assess any potential links to the quakes.

Michael Hansen of the Ohio Seismic Network said Saturday that more quakes are possible, most likely small ones, until the pressure at the fault line has been completely relieved.

The temblor Saturday appeared to be stronger than others, which generally had a magnitude of 2.7 or lower. Some residents reported feeling trembling farther south into Columbiana County and east into western Pennsylvania.

Area residents said a loud boom accompanied the shaking. It sent some stunned residents running for cover as bookshelves shook and pictures and lamps fell from tables.

A few miles from the epicenter, Charles Kihm said he was preparing food in his kitchen when he heard a noise and thought a vehicle had hit his Austintown home.

"It really shook, and it rumbled, like there was a sound," said Kihm, 82. "It was loud. It didn't last long. But it really scared me."

There are 177 similar injection wells around the state, and the Youngstown-area well has been the only site with seismic activity, the department said. Zehringer said that to shut down all of the wells because of seismic activity near one would be an overreaction.

Patti Gorcheff, who lives about 15 miles from the epicenter, said her dogs started barking inexplicably Saturday and the ornaments on her Christmas tree began to shake. Her husband thought he heard the sound of some sort of blast.

"This is the biggest one we've had so far," said Gorcheff, a North Lima resident who has raised concerns about quakes and drilling-related activity in the region. "I hope this is a wake-up call."

Durban: Progress from the bottom up, not the top down

What a disappointment!

In Glare of Climate Talks, Taking On Too Great a Task
A coal-fired power plant in Changchun, China. Many environmental officials say all countries should be bound by the same rules.
By JOHN M. BRODER

DURBAN, South Africa — For 17 years, officials from nearly 200 countries have gathered under the auspices of the United Nations to try to deal with one of the most vexing questions of our era — how to slow the heating of the planet.

Every year they leave a trail of disillusion and discontent, particularly among the poorest nations and those most vulnerable to rising seas and spreading deserts. Every year they fail to significantly advance their own stated goal of keeping the average global temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius, or about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels.

That was the case again this year. The event, the 17th conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, wrapped up early Sunday morning with modest accomplishments: the promise to work toward a new global treaty in coming years and the establishment of a new climate fund.

The decision to move toward a new treaty — and toward replacing the 20-year-old system that requires only industrialized nations to cut emissions — was hard-won, after 72 hours of continuous wrangling. But for now it remains merely a pledge, and all details remain to be negotiated.

Negotiators also left for another day the precise sources of the money for the fund and how and by who it would be disbursed. Called the Green Climate Fund, it would help mobilize a promised $100 billion a year in public and private funds by 2020 to assist developing nations in adapting to climate change and converting to clean energy sources.

There is no denying the dedication and stamina of the environment ministers and diplomats who conduct these talks. But maybe the task is too tall. The issues on the table are far broader than atmospheric carbon levels or forestry practices or how to devise a fund to compensate those most affected by global warming.

What really is at play here are politics on the broadest scale, the relations among Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan and three rapidly rising economic powers, China, India and Brazil. Those relations, in turn, are driven by each country’s domestic politics and the strains the global financial crisis has put on all of them. And the question of “climate equity” — the obligations of rich nations to help poor countries cope with a problem they had no part in creating — is more than an “environmental” issue.

Effectively addressing climate change will require over the coming decades a fundamental remaking of energy production, transportation and agriculture around the world — the sinews of modern life. It is simply too big a job for those who have gathered for these talks under the 1992 United Nations treaty that began this grinding process.

“There is a fundamental disconnect in having environment ministers negotiating geopolitics and macroeconomics,” said Nick Robins, an energy and climate change analyst at HSBC, the London-based global bank. Mr. Robins noted that the 20-year-old framework convention and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that amended it enshrined the two-tiered system in which so-called developed and developing countries are treated differently. China still is classified as a developing country and is thus exempt from any emissions limits, but it has a vastly larger economy than it had in 1992 and recently surpassed the United States as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

“They are working from a 20th-century agreement,” Mr. Robins said.

The United States is determined to sweep away those distinctions and work toward a system where all countries are bound by the same rules. The conference here in Durban kept the tiered system alive for another few years, but it is fading. And by the time the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2020, a good many leaders hope that it will be gone for good.

Todd D. Stern, the chief American climate negotiator, revealed his qualms about the inability of the United Nations climate bureaucracy to deal with the broad political and financial questions posed by climate change. “We want to see a green fund that is going to draw in a lot of capital from countries all over the world, including the United States,” he said at a briefing. “And although I love climate negotiators and spend much of my time with them, they are not necessarily the most qualified people to run a multibillion-dollar fund.”

So who is qualified to tackle these tasks? Two years ago, more than 100 heads of state and leaders of governments, including President Obama, joined the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen hoping to write a new, legally binding treaty covering all parties. That assignment proved too much even for the leaders, and the meeting collapsed in acrimony and finger-pointing. Few top leaders have shown up at the two subsequent meetings, in Cancún, Mexico, in 2010, and in Durban this year. The agenda has narrowed and expectations have shrunk, yet the ship sails grimly on.

Others think that real progress will not emerge from any global forum but from action at the ground level, by entities unencumbered by the United Nations climate process.

Mary D. Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, which arguably has done more to reduce carbon pollution in the United States than any other body, was in Durban as an observer. Ms. Nichols said that given the inability of the international bureaucracy or the United States Congress to move decisively on global warming, the job would increasingly fall to the states and local governments.

“Instead of waiting for them to negotiate some grand bargain, we have to keep working on the ground,” she said. “Progress is going to come from the bottom up, not the top down.”

Climate of Denial

The article below will appear in Rolling Stone on Friday, June 24.

Although it's lengthy, it's well worth reading for those who care about the environment and the future of our planet.

Climate of Denial
Can science and the truth withstand the merchants of poison?

Another Exxon Mobil War

Listen, read or watch here:

Is U.S. Attack on Libya Legal? Rep. Dennis Kucinich Debates Former Reagan Attorney Robert Turner


On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of 10 members of Congress sued President Obama for violating the War Powers Act of 1973 by failing to obtain congressional approval for military operations in Libya longer than 60 days. We host a debate between Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, one of the Congress members suing President Obama, and Robert Turner, who worked as an attorney in the Reagan White House and is a longtime critic of the War Powers Act. "President Obama’s position is absolutely clear: we are not engaged in war in Libya, and thus, if the War Powers Resolution were constitutional, it still would not apply," Turner says. "I ask you, if another country sent 2,000 planes over the United States, and some of those missions dropped bombs on us, would that be an act of war against the United States?" says Kucinich. "That’s exactly what we’ve done in Libya."


The billion dollar war? Libyan campaign breaks Pentagon estimates costing U.S. taxpayers $2 million a day

The cost of the U.S. campaign in Libya is set to exceed the $750 million Pentagon estimate set out in March, according to a leaked Department of Defence Memo.

The 'eyes-only' DoD dossier said the U.S. had already spent $664 million in Libya by mid-May - a running cost of $60 million a month since the bombing began in March.

At the current rate of spending, the U.S. will have to shell out at least an extra $274 million till the end of the current 90 day no fly zone extension period - brining total expenditure to a minimum of $938 million.


Libya rebels to receive huge cash infusion
By Joby Warrick
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Western and Middle Eastern countries began opening the aid spigots Thursday for Libya’s beleaguered rebels, approving measures that will immediately send at least $1 billion to the opposition and promising much larger sums in the weeks ahead.



Goldman Sachs’ dealings with Libya under scrutiny

By Dawn Lim, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and several other firms are being examined by U.S. regulators to see if they violated bribery laws when dealing with Libya’s sovereign-wealth fund, according a published report Thursday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into the firms’ relationships with the Libyan Investment Authority, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The fund, controlled by Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi, attracted banks and securities firms when it launched in 2007 with $40 billion, the Journal reported.

Instead of fighting resource wars to defend the interests of Energy Companies on the pretext of "Democracy," what if those funds had been invested in a sensible Alternative Energy policy?

The most powerful climate video you’ll see all week

From Grist:

The most powerful climate video you’ll see all week


Bill McKibben published a must-read op-ed in The Washington Post last month about the connection between climate change and recent extreme weather events. Now Stephen Thomson has combined McKibben's words with striking footage of the events he writes about. The result is a chilling must-see video:

Food For Thought

Several regular readers and friends appreciate unique perspectives of the global problems we face and Tom Whipple has provided that opportunity, except for his omission of the bloated US military budget.

Tom Friedman's recent column is available below.


The Peak Oil Crisis: The Gathering Storm
By Tom Whipple

The world is beginning to look a lot like the August of 1914 or perhaps the summer of 1939 all over again. This time instead of the great powers of central Europe dragging the rest of us into a European affair, it seems that nearly every corner of the earth is facing some sort of imminent disaster that could combine into a very unpleasant situation.

In America, where we have been living beyond our means for decades, the time has come to pay the piper. Trillion dollar deficits, rising unemployment, printing of money, $4 gasoline, a weakening dollar and entitlements are combining into a grim outlook for our immediate future. Add to this the toll taken by climate change - unprecedented outbreaks of tornadoes, massive floods, and record droughts - throw in a hurricane or two and we are on the way to serious disruptions.

Politically America is split over what do about all this. Many are simply unwilling to admit that numerous forces are trending towards disaster and keep talking about the return to prosperity. Some favor still more tax cuts until there is little left of government, or increased oil well drilling as the universal balm; some favor Keynesian pump-priming and emissions controls. Still others are totally confused by events that are foreign to the way of life they have known and seek solace in demagogic claims to return the country to growth and prosperity.

The EU too is beset by problems. Although Germany and France seem to have avoided the excesses that are besetting others, most of the EU members, like the U.S., are suffering from living beyond their means. The Union has been bouncing from economic crisis to crisis for months. Regional sources of energy -- coal, oil, and natural gas -- are playing out and the continent will soon be even more dependent on imported energy to keep moving about and the lights on. Germany's and Switzerland's recent decisions to foreswear nuclear power stations only add to the problem.

Despite gloomy prospects for European prosperity, it still looks good to millions from the undeveloped parts of the Eastern Hemisphere who in increasing numbers are risking their lives to make it into the EU where the lights still work. The steadily increasing global population, currently growing by circa 70 million each year, with rising expectations brought about by the communications revolution, is putting an increasing strain on supplies of food, water, and electricity. Shortages of these essentials are becoming increasingly common, and these shortages in turn are leading to increased turmoil and violence. Climate change is taking its toll across the underdeveloped world with droughts and record temperatures being seen across much of the world.

In America, where we have been living beyond our means for decades, the time has come to pay the piper.
For those who can afford air conditioning, the rising temperatures are putting an increasing strain on power stations and the sources of fossil fuel that supply them. Around the world, hydro-power dams are producing well below their rated capacity.

There are some areas of temporary respite. Things in Russia are moving along pretty well with oil production and exports hitting post-Soviet highs and global oil prices are keeping the coffers well filled. There was a little problem with a drought last summer, which took out so much of the crop that Moscow had to stop exporting grain, thereby playing a behind the scenes role in the Egyptian uprising. Moscow is still benefiting from unloading all those peripheral countries that the Czars and the Soviets had taken over a century or so ago.

Still the Russians have their troubles: their oil fields should be going into depletion in the next few years and the remaining separatist groups are still blowing up things in Moscow.

South Asia - Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh - seem to be suffering the most at the minute. Available power supplies are not sufficient to cope with unusually high temperatures and still keep factories and vital infrastructure such as water pumps running. Even India with 1.2 billion people and an economic growth rate almost as impressive as China's is running into trouble as water and coal supplies are running short. It seems inevitable that economies across southern Asia will be going into decline shortly likely coupled with increasing political turmoil.

Asia is still doing well, except in Japan where tales of its nuclear meltdowns seems to grow worse every day. It is increasingly obvious that the tsunami/nuclear events have dealt Japan a considerable economic blow which even in normal times would take many years for recovery. Given the increasing costs of fossil fuels, all of which must be imported, Japan may be on course to becoming a shadow of its former self.

The other economic power houses of Asia - Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore - are relatively small and have for the most part little or no sources of fossil fuel. Eventually high energy costs will lay them low, but in the interim, they may be bright spots in an otherwise dismal global economy.

Now we get to China, which has enjoyed phenomenal economic growth in recent decades and continues to expand at 9 or 10 percent a year. Although the numbers still look good for another year of rapid economic growth, just below the surface are some serious troubles. The aquifers that supply water to 440 million people living in the north China plain are about to run dry. Beijing is rushing to bring water from the Yangtze basin to the north in an effort that has been likened to diverting the Mississippi River to New York and New England.

At the minute parts of China seem to be simultaneously beset by the worst drought in 100 years and the worst floods in 200. When the serious environmental problems are coupled with the current power crisis, a case can be made that the years of rapid growth in China are nearing an end. The concern for the rest of the world is that Beijing with trillions in foreign currency reserves may begin importing food, oil, and minerals in such quantities that there won't be much left for the rest of us.

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Tom Whipple is a retired government analyst and has been following the peak oil issue for several years.



“The Earth Is Full”: Tom Friedman on “The Great Disruption”
By Joe Romm

The Earth Is Full
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

We hear a lot these days about 'bullying'

We are writing to you from UN climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, where diplomatic cables exposed by WikiLeaks this week confirm what we'd already been hearing: The U.S. is bullying poorer countries into accepting an unjust and dangerous climate deal.1

Do you want your government to stop pushing poor countries around and start acting as a constructive force in international negotiations?

If the answer is yes, then we need your signature on our petition to the chief U.S. diplomat, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The leaked cables show how the Obama administration used its foreign aid budget to bribe some developing countries into supporting a deeply flawed climate proposal called the Copenhagen Accord, which could set the world on a path to devastating levels of global warming -- up to nine degrees Fahrenheit by this century's end.2

The U.S. followed up by cutting off aid funding to other poor countries that refused to do its bidding.

Just yesterday, the deputy prime minister of Tuvalu, a small island that could be wiped off the map by climate change, declared, "We cannot afford to be held hostage by the domestic political backwardness of one large developed country. It is now time to act."

Will you stand with Tuvalu and call on U.S. negotiators to stop undermining strong global action to fight climate change?

When President Obama came into office, he promised to engage cooperatively with other countries to address the climate crisis. But at last year's climate talks in Copenhagen, and now in Cancun, his negotiators have done the opposite.

The planet desperately needs industrialized countries like ours to commit to steep, science-based emissions reductions. But the Copenhagen Accord is based on a system of voluntary pledges that would allow each country to cut emissions however much it likes, without regard to science or what's fair.

Bullying poor countries into accepting the Copenhagen Accord undermines the global cooperation required to solve the climate crisis. The bullying must stop now. As American citizens, we need to demand better.

It's not too late for President Obama and his administration to change course.

Progress is still possible here in Cancun, and the work of achieving a comprehensive climate agreement will carry over into next year's UN climate summit in South Africa.

But progress is only possible if the bullying stops. Tell Secretary Clinton to give U.S. diplomats a fresh mission: acting as a constructive force for fair and effective climate solutions.

In solidarity from Cancun,

Nick Berning, Kate Horner and Karen Orenstein
Friends of the Earth

Notes:

1. The Guardian. "WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord": http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-us-manipulated-climate-accord?mobile-redirect=false

2. United Nations Environment Program. The Emissions Gap Report: http://www.unep.org/publications/ebooks/emissionsgapreport

CFLs and Mercury

NRDC offered the following information regarding the issue of changing to CFLs (worth reading if that caused your hesitation):

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CFLs AND MERCURY Hysteria or Legitimate Concern?

Spectacular New Energy Source Discovered

TIME reported on a spectacular energy source in December 2008:
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This may sound too good to be true, but the U.S. has a renewable-energy resource that is perfectly clean, remarkably cheap, surprisingly abundant and immediately available. It has astounding potential to reduce the carbon emissions that threaten our planet, the dependence on foreign oil that threatens our security and the energy costs that threaten our wallets. Unlike coal and petroleum, it doesn't pollute; unlike solar and wind, it doesn't depend on the weather; unlike ethanol, it doesn't accelerate deforestation or inflate food prices; unlike nuclear plants, it doesn't raise uncomfortable questions about meltdowns or terrorist attacks or radioactive-waste storage, and it doesn't take a decade to build. It isn't what-if like hydrogen, clean coal and tidal power; it's already proven to be workable, scalable and cost-effective. And we don't need to import it.
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When the article Middleboro utility won’t partner on wind farm project appeared, I was clearly in a quandary about whether the Middleboro Gas & Electric Department was aware of this source.

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The following almost seemed as if the MG&E might have an inkling:
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Granahan said there’s been a “handful” of customers who have inquired about generating their own power through backyard windmills or solar panels. To lead the way, the utility is installing a solar panel on the roof of the electric division on Wareham Street to power the office.
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Granahan said there will be a display at the electric department on South Main Street and in the schools, tracking how the solar energy is produced and integrated into the power supply. He said the panel will cost $175,000, or less than $10 per watt.
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Commissioners are presently working on a “net metering” policy for customers who want to produce their own power through windmills and solar panels. Granahan said customers will be credited at the rate they pay for any excess power they sell to the utility.
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But as the article revealed, it was clear that the MG&E still hasn't discovered this new "Energy Source."
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This miracle juice goes by the distinctly boring name of
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energy efficiency,

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and it's often ignored in the hubbub over alternative fuels, the nuclear renaissance, T. Boone Pickens and the green-tech economy.
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That investment you make in a few additional inches of attic insulation represents a permanent reduction in your personal energy consumption.

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Instead of Beacon Hill being misled about the job creation of Predatory Gambling, why aren't we supporting, promoting and insisting on reducing our energy expenditures?

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Did I hear someone say "Follow the money" ?

Nuclear Energy: Not A Solution #2

For the last decade, watching the stealth of the nuclear industry and the long overdue eruption of energy and Climate Change on the consciousness of Americans, I have long advocated the necessity of doing the evaluation of the energy issue on a personal level to reach sensible solutions, rather than absorbing and repeating industry PR, like the spin of Entergy.

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Were weatherization and energy efficiency or renewables (solar or wind or geo-thermal or tidal/wave generation), subsidized at the levels of nuclear or fossil fuels, this would be a Congressional No-Brainer.

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And were the costs of disposal and decommissioning included, this would be a Congressional Non-Issue.

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I happened upon an article the clearly explained the chronology of the nuclear public relations and lobbying campaign in Washington Monthly.

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Excerpts of the massive subsidies, loan guarantees and exemption from liability and major lobbying efforts follow, but it is important to recognize that renewable are cost competitive.

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Nuclear only makes sense if $7,500 Per Kilowatt makes sense. That does not include disposal and decommissioning.

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In 2001, the Bush administration took office and began working to overhaul government agencies to make them friendlier to the industry. Layers of NRC regulation were stripped away. At the DOE, the top position in the Office of Nuclear Energy was promoted to an assistant-secretary-level appointment, and a host of new programs were added to promote the resurgence of atomic energy—among them Nuclear Power 2010, under which the government pays half the cost of site selection, planning, and licensing for new nuclear reactors.

The industry, meanwhile, worked to shift public perception, through an aggressive PR campaign that involved, among other things, planting ghostwritten op-eds advocating nuclear energy in local newspapers under the names of prominent local personalities, and setting up front groups that appeared to be independent environmental organizations, such as the New Jersey Affordable, Clean, Reliable Energy Coalition. It also began pressing Congress for subsidies and, starting in 2001, federal loan guarantees. But nuclear advocates made little headway on this front until 2003, when Republicans regained control of the Senate and Domenici was appointed chairman of the Energy Committee. He rehired Alex Flint, who had gone on to work as a nuclear power lobbyist, to direct the committee’s work. Flint spent the next two years wrangling with politicians, often in secret, over a new energy bill.

... [President George W. Bush] signed the Domenici-sponsored Energy Policy Act of 2005 into law. The act fulfilled many of the industry’s key legislative ambitions. Most importantly, it provided unlimited federal loan guarantees to cover up to 80 percent of project costs for next-generation nuclear plants and other "innovative technologies" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It also included a twenty-year extension of the Price-Anderson Act, which limits the liability of nuclear power plant operators in case of accidents, and $13 billion in direct subsidies for nuclear power, including $2 billion in "risk insurance" to pay extra costs caused by delays in construction and licensing for the first six new reactors.

...in less than a decade, the nuclear power industry had gone from energy pariah to political heavyweight. Its lobbying operation was now among the most formidable on Capitol Hill, thanks to a generous infusion of cash. (Since the mid-1990s, the energy and nuclear power sector has spent at least $953 million lobbying Congress and the executive branch, according to the Center for Responsive Politics—more than any group except the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.) That money helped the industry to meet most of the goals laid out at the 1998 forum and win tens of billions of dollars in new subsidies. All told, the nuclear power sector has secured more than $100 billion in federal support, at least $25 billion of it in the last four years alone, according to the nonpartisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense.
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That’s far more than renewable energy sources.
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Nuclear Energy Institute... was estimating $1,100 and $1,500 per kilowatt capacity—roughly on par with natural gas plants and cheaper than coal.
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In October 2007, Moody’s Investor Services piled on with a report projecting that new reactors would cost $5,000 to $6,000 per kilowatt to build, or up to $12 billion per unit.
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...Moody’s, ... now predicts
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new nuclear power plants will cost $7,500 per kilowatt to build.

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That’s more than double the capital costs for solar power and three and a half times the cost for wind.

National Energy Policy

Last year, Amory Lovins appeared on the Charlie Rose program and offered some insight into potential solutions. The link to Rocky Moutain Institute has been previously posted, but is always worth a re-visit. Mr. Lovins has been ahead of the curve for decades and his book and publications worth the read.