Andre may be correct, my concern was solely that I felt that he is overstating his case - but I would point out that at the same time as the maximum nuclear build was taking place plenty of other sorts of plants were being built.

In an effort to avoid over-stating my own case I also gave the present Chinese coal build as the lowest I could reference, around the 52GW needed power per annum.

I have since checked more carefully and it last year it was around 90GW, admittedly that is a different technology but it perhaps goes to show that the size of the build needed is not unreasonable per se, especially considering we are talking about what is possible by the whole world, not just China.

To re-iterate, my comment is not about nuclear per se, but just to assess whether builds on the scale that Andre is talking about are as 'mythical' as he asserts.
Wind power, and perhaps solar and geothermal will take a fair chunk out of the needed build anyway, as will nuclear build in China, where regardless of what you or I think of safety they intend a build of around 10 reactors a year by 2020, and they are ahead of schedule - at 1.5GW a reactor that is over 25% of the specified build.

It is clear that he has greatly over-stated his case on the impossibility of a build on the scale needed.

You mean Homer Simpson needs re-training? ;-)

My post has nothing at all to do with the desirability or otherwise of using nuclear power.

It was convenient to use the numbers from nuclear power stations for illustrative purposes for two reasons, it comes in 1 GW lumps and considerations of availability are not so difficult to work out as wind or solar, and secondly it is a more mature technology and so it was also easier to illustrate that the rate of build needed was perhaps not so greatly ahead of what we had previously done that Andre's assertion that it was 'mythical' appeared unsustainable.

Both wind and solar might well be preferred alternatives in many parts of the States, and certainly there are good possibilities to greatly reduce solar costs in particular, in which case once again the build would appear very do-able.

"It is hard for me to imagine us building 52 nuclear plants,"

It's important to realize that we don't need to build that much - maybe 10, and that's if we did only nuclear.

First, the calculations are incorrect. It assumes that oil BTU's and electrical BTU's are equivalent, and they're not. One electrical BTU can propel a vehicle 4 times as far as an oil BTU. Thus, for vehicle fuels (which are 70% of the problem), the numbers are 4 times too high. For the remainder, that ratio varies between 2 (efficient thermal electrical generation) and 4 (residential heat pumps), and is perhaps an average of 3. 1/4 of 70% is 17.5%, and 1/3 of 30% is 10%, for a total of 27.5% of what the chart presents.

2nd, we already have much of the electrical infrastructure in place: more than 4/5 of the capacity needed to replace US cars with EV's already exists. That reduces the new construction needed by another 80%, reducing our need from 27.5% to 5.5%! Now, that's transportation, which is only 70% of oil consumption, but you get the idea...

Building 52 nuclear plants would take at least 8 years (including finding sites for the plants, finding people, finding materials, etc.) even if it were done on an expedited basis. If the finances of banks and the federal government are in disarray because of peak oil related issues, I would expect it to take much longer than 8 years. - Gail the Actuary

Gail you assume business as usual. If you want to build a lot of Nuclear plants quickly, first you build a factory, than you build the plants on an assembly line, just like Henry Ford built cars. Before Henry Ford the auto manufacturers built car kits. When someone bought a car, the manufacturers shipped a kit by rail along with a team to assemble it. The cars were assembled at the home of the purchaser. The building method was expensive and time consuming. The workers were not very productive, but were highly skilled and highly paid. Ford used low skilled workers, who only knew how to attach one part to a car as it came down the assembly line. Why should we build reactors the way people built cars before Henry Ford?

I want more nuclear power since it can create lots of prosperity post peak oil for Sweden, Finland, Denmark and so on. There will probaly not be powerplants built everywhere but keeping the light on for myself, my neighbours, the nearest countries and exporting products across Europe and globally is a good thing. I wish that everybody who can invest in long term power sources and productive enterprizes do so.

What parts of the US are investing and will continue to be prosperous for decades and manny generations?

Yesterday I read a new open paper for planned nordic grid investments and one of the serious planning scenarios is to prepair for the grid parts needed around 2020 if global warming accelerates to utilize likely additional hydro power and power industry north of the arctic circle. And I know that this is not wishfull thinking since previous plans have been followed thru and since the investments are productive they are financed by their utility and not debt.

I think the early post peak times locally will be a time of economical growth and change if people react in a good way.