Is there an obvious summary of the range of estimates available?
What I'd love to see is a range of estimates of the dangers of including nuclear power in the energy generation mix vs. the dangers of not including it, neglecting the bizarro land belief that we will choose to kill technological civilisation and move to some bucolic utopia rather than kill tens of millions of people through global warming and coal fired electrical generation, because we won't - and the transition to that utopia would kill hundreds of millions.
However, there is a danger on the long term, in phasing out the plants (and henceforth, the operating expertise), and stopping development of new generations. It is a technology with very long lead times. We cannot predict with certainty that we won't need it in 20-30 years. Renewables are on a fast growth curve and can go on like that for 30 years, but we cannot be sure about minimal demand.
What I mean is: even with conservation (and certainly demand destruction), total electricity demand may increase due to a crash switch to PHEV, heat pump heating (now installed in 6% of new houses build in France, so it is really taking off)... And demand for non-fossil heat could come from seawater desalination if we have dramatic changes in rainfall patterns.
We have no guarantee that renewables alone can cope with both nuclear/fossil phase-out, and those new demands. Quite the contrary I think for the 20-30 yrs term. Pierre
