Improvement of nuclear power plant management lessons learned in the '70s and '80s

The US Congress passed a law in 1978 that ordered electric utility companies to cease burning oil or natural gas in their power plants by 1990 and to build no more base load facilities that use these fuels. Except for those few regions of the country with unused hydro-electric potential, that left only coal and nuclear as central station options. The regulatory commissions which set electric rates are state, not federal, agencies. Many are not allowing utility companies to increase their rates to levels needed to recover capital costs associated with building new plants. Utilities with unrecovered costs are naturally reluctant to build, or even plan, new generating facilities. This leads many experts to fear the United States will be facing a capacity shortfall in some regions before the end of the century