On Friday, during the CERAWeek conference in Houston, MIT professor Andrew Kadak provided a graphic that showed the share price performance of electric utilities that rely on nuclear power versus utilities that rely primarily on fossil fuels.

The nuclear utilities included in the survey — Constellation, Entergy, Exelon, and PG&E –- bested their fossil-fueled counterparts by a wide margin. Through April 2008, the shares of the nuclear utilities rose by about 286 percent. The shares of the fossil-fueled utilities – AEP, DTE, First Energy, and Southern Co. – rose by about 60 percent. During his presentation, Kadak remarked, “Nuclear companies have consistently outperformed” their counterparts.

In a related nuclear note, this week, Congressional negotiators removed a $50 billion loan guarantee provision from the stimulus bill that could have been used for low-carbon electricity production, including nuclear. Environmental groups opposed the loan guarantee package because they feared it would be used for nuclear power. Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder said “This is a huge win for our planet and for taxpayers who want stimulus funds to be invested wisely….The bailout in question would have thrilled nuclear industry lobbyists but done virtually nothing to stimulate the economy.”