As the economy grows, electricity generation will expand accordingly. Consumption of electricity is expected to grow about 3 percent per year to reach 5,250 billion kwhs by the year 2010. The mix of energy resources is likely to shift toward natural gas. Recent surveys estimate the United States has at least a 20-year supply of readily available gas from existing reserves. While nuclear energy has competed successfully with coal for the past 20 years and is competing economically with coal and gas today, coal and gas will be a significant threat to the nuclear electricity industry during the next 20 years.
Oil represents only a small fraction of the mix.
Nonetheless, nuclear power can hold its own for the next 10 years through plant-life extensions. The cost of nuclear production, which has consistently decreased in the last decade, is a strong motivating force to continue using nuclear power. The nuclear option also has the advantage of not producing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, unlike nonnuclear production sources. While we expect nuclear production from existing plants to remain flat or increase slightly, the overall contribution of nuclear production to energy demand will drop from the current 20 percent to 13 percent by the year 2010. Increased consumption will be met by natural gas, which will likely increase production capacity to 2,250 billion kwhs.