While I suspect that public opposition to nuclear power will falter in either the fac of any kind of electrical crisis (likely simply because of decades of put-off infrastructure work on the grid) or any kind of oil crisis (in which there will be enormous calls for electrification of nearly everything, regardless of whether it makes sense or not), that doesn't mean I think nuclear power is the wave of the future.
There are two related problems with nuclear power that make it unlikely that nuclear will emerge as a major solution, particularly given the delays in public acceptance that Fukushima is likely to create. The first is the EROEI of nuclear - in an time of abundant cheap energy for many sources, low EROEI sources are fine - because there are so many high net energy sources to draw on.
There is a lot of debate over the EROEI of nuclear, but unless you calculate it in purely thermal terms, the returns come in on the lower side - 3-6. This is not enough excess energy to run a society on. Remember, oil at first production had a net energy return of 100-1 and it is still nearly 20-1. Replacing low energy density sources with high energy density sources makes a real structural change in the kind of society you can expect. Even the high estimates of EROEI, if true, will have to be readjusted downwards to take into account the need to make nuclear power plants safe in more "worst case scenarios" like the Tsunami. Moreover, many of the high estimates of EROEI don't include the costs of transmission or the full costs of decommissioning.
Even EROEI is not the central obstacle, however - it is the upfront costs of nuclear, financial and energy that will be nearly impossible for an energy system in overall decline to bear. Again, those costs jumped dramatically the day that the Fukushima disaster began - while memories are short, building plants to withstand rare and outer parameter events will be part of the cost. None of us can say that it is worth playing the odds on a 1000 year event now - and climate change increasingly makes 1000 year weather events likely. In some measure, the one thing that the Fukushima disaster is likely to do is simply ensure that we do have to take some kinds of failure into account, as I've argued.
More than any other kind of energy generation, nuclear frontloads its energy costs dramatically - reliable estimates vary from as low as 12 years before they produce more energy than went into building them to as high as 20. The upfront plant building costs are also vastly higher than for coal, natural gas or any other source.
At this stage (and this is the most critical point) just about EVERY SINGLE BIT of the upfront cost of nuclear power comes from fossil fuels. The energy that runs the economy to make the money to build them comes from fossil fuels. Uranium mining isn't done on solar electric. The transport of fuel and worker, the concrete and heavy materials, the containment systems - everything is built with a huge front load of fossil fuels and fossil fueled money.
So while nuclear power does return net energy and while it may be true that public opposition to nuclear power will fall, it probably won't matter - because no society in an energy decline, with declining fossil fuel resources, can afford to front-load a decade or two decades of energy in fossil fuels into a plant....
This scenario for nuclear power is only a microcosm of the overall scenario for any proposed renewable energy build out - most renewables have much lower upfront energy and monetary costs, but they also often have issues of both intermittency and low energy density themselves - when you have to build enormous solar and wind projects, you run into problems of resource allocation too.

rbrgs wrote:Without the subsidy that weapons making brings to uranium mining, the EROEI of nuclear electricity is negative. I have no idea where she gets 3-6, no study I've ever seen is even close to that, and don't forget that the decommissioning costs are open ended.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/201 ... 3000c.html

With TEPCO's announcement that the No. 1 through 4 reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 plant will be decommissioned, the question that has emerged is whether the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors at the plant and the reactors at the nearby No. 2 plant should resume operations. Sato isn't sure what the right answer is.

"I still haven't made up my mind about whether the No. 2 plant should be running again. A nuclear power plant requires an investment of 1 trillion yen per site, and what we decide to do with the No. 2 plant cuts to the very heart of our energy policy."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ami ... s_homepage
Amid nuclear crisis, Japan’s Tepco planned new reactors
"When Tepco first notified Fukushima’s energy department of its new reactor plans late on March 26, Nozaki immediately told Fukushima’s governor, Yuhei Sato, who reacted with fury. “What is going on?” he fumed. Tepco then sent a team from Tokyo to discuss the matter but was told by prefectural officials “to sort out problems on the ground first and stop thinking about new reactors,” Nozaki said.

The company pressed on, submitting a final report to authorities in Tokyo that it now describes as a mistake. “Tokyo Electric may want to ignore the feelings of Fukushima residents, but this is definitely not acceptable,” Nozaki said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ ... story.html
Utilities: Germany now imports energy after taking nuclear power plants off the grid

BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to take some atomic power plants offline in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster means Germany is now importing power from its nuclear-reliant neighbors, an umbrella organization of the country’s utility companies said Monday.

Germany now imports about 50 gigawatt hours — or the capacity equivalent of about 1 1/2 reactors — from France and the Czech Republic a day, the German Association of Energy and Water Industries said.

Electricity imports from France — which relies on nuclear energy for almost 80 percent of its power supply — doubled from the first to the second half of March, the group said. Exports to the Netherlands and Switzerland, in turn, almost entirely ceased.

Merkel’s government announced the shut down of nuclear power plants built before 1980 — seven of the country’s 17 reactors — only four days after Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami hit the Fukushima Dai-Chi nuclear facility.

Germany is normally a net exporter of energy, but nine of the country’s 17 reactors were offline at the end of March due to the closures and maintenance.

Nuclear power has been very unpopular in Germany ever since radioactivity from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster drifted across the country. Germany has decided to phase out the technology over the next 25 years, gradually supplanting atomic energy with other sources.

Merkel has emphasized that shuttering Germany’s reactors must be timed so that the country doesn’t simply end up importing nuclear power from its neighbors, where safety standards might not be better. She has also said moving away from nuclear energy must not lead to an increase of Germany’s carbon emissions.