Why the U.S. Needs More Nuclear Power, by Peter W. Huber and Mark P. Mills, is exactly what it sounds like:
Think of our solitary New Yorker on the Upper West Side as a 1,400-watt bulb that never sleeps — that’s the national per-capita average demand for electric power from homes, factories, businesses, the lot. Our average citizen burns about twice as bright at 4 pm in August, and a lot dimmer at 4 am in December; grown-ups burn more than kids, the rich more than the poor; but it all averages out: 14 floor lamps per person, lit round the clock. Convert this same number back into a utility’s supply-side jargon, and a million people need roughly 1.4 “gigs” of power — 1.4 gigawatts (GW). Running at peak power, Entergy’s two nuclear units at Indian Point generate just under 2 GW. So just four Indian Points could take care of New York City’s 7-GW round-the-clock average. Six could handle its peak load of about 11.5 GW. And if we had all-electric engines, machines, and heaters out at the receiving end, another ten or so could power all the cars, ovens, furnaces — everything else in the city that oil or gas currently fuels.