Fission is dead only in THIS country and only because of the *******s. Jane Fonda wasn't just an anti-war activist...
Whether it is fusion or fission, here is what would happen if we went hard over to nuclear.
With that said, Let's look at where and how energy is used for in this country:
From the US DOE:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pecss_diagram.html
Petrolem, 70% goes to Transportation. The other 30%, 2% is Power Generation, 5% Residential & Commercial (Heating), 24% Industrial (Feed Stock and some heating).
We never cab be "carbon free" since we need Petroleum for Industrial Feed Stocks.
Let's say we expand
Nuclear, not just to make all Electric Power Generation, but also so that all of our heating needs are done with
Nuclear.
Lets say we can move all Natural Gas to Transportation
Coal is not used to replace anything, but still provides feedstock (Coke, etc)
Hydro remains for Electric Generation
Natural Gas gets moved to Transportation
Biomass where it makes fuel and feedstock is maintained, but no heating (Wood Stoves, etc)
Petroleum is still used for feedstock, but not fuel
Nuclear would make up 59.6% of our Energy Needs
Petroleum would drop to 14.2%
Natural Gas would Stay 23.6%, but used for Transportation
Coal drops to 1.9%
Renewables stay at 6.2%
Our Petroleum usage would be about 35.7% of today. (14.2% vs. 39.8%). We presently supply about 30% of our petroleum needs, so we need to increase our domestic supply 20%, to make it to 35.7%. The Difference could be easily be made up with local drilling. As a minimum, we could reduce our imports by 92%!!!
Carbon Emmisions, would drop by 54%!!!
Natural Gas can be used to fuel vehicles as either compressed natural gas, or as Methanol (CH3OH). Methanol might work well, since it would be easier to modifiy existing cars to work on Methanol, than CNG.
And as time goes by, and we develop electric vehicles, the Petroleum usage and then natural gas usuage will drop, and those carbon based items will be used only as feed stocks and raw materials (plastics, etc!).