What effect will deregulation have on alternative energy — nuclear, solar, wind?
they wre heavily subsidized before deregulation. Some of those subsidies will continue, post-deregulation. You’ll see it on your bill — X amount extra to support renewable fuels. After those are removed, it’s hard to say. With nuclear power, the prices will be high enough that it’s worth running the existing plants. But not high enough that anybody’s going to build any more nuclear plants. Renewables . . . who knows? none of them is particularly economic at this point. Hydro is no longer considered environmentally friendly. Biomass is not very economic. Geothermal plants are economic, but are extremely limited, and they’re also not renewable. Solar — the science just hasn’t gotten there. Twenty years ago when I started studying this stuff, solar was “just a few years away” — and it’s still just a few years away. How does the future look? Can deregulation be made to work? First of all, we’re unlikely to see true deregulatoiin for a long time — we still have these subsidies and price
