In a country that adds more fossil-fueled power generating capacity every year than exists in total in Britain, it's just too hard to keep up with demand using renewables; so some of China's power companies are building biomass power plants where they can, but use coal as the primary source. I am still convinced that the biggest challenges in switching to solar, wind, biomass and other power sources are in overcoming the historic advantage held by fossil fuels (subsidies, vested interests, prevailing technologies, engineering standards, legislation, apathy...) and as the linked article shows, the temptation to move to nuclear is strong.
In many ways nuclear is an easy option for power suppliers, because the plants are on a similar scale to coal, and don't require changing energy distribution channels. But apart from the remaining uncertainties about nuclear safety, what's scary is the speed with which it has to be adopted if increased nuclear capacity is the chosen strategy to meet the energy crunch in growing economies like China, India and South Africa. The supplies and skills aren't as readily available as for coal, and Chinese nuclear plants under construction face shortages and delays that could increase as more countries enter the nuclear fold. Skills shortages coupled with the need for quick implementation raise the spectre of greater risks that things can go wrong.
[Update on 7 November 2007: Here's a new article on the nuclear skills shortage in the UK.]
Renewable energy also faces supply shortages, and for similar reasons: it hasn't been part of the mainstream energy business on a big scale, and technologies are developing rapidly. Small-scale renewables have more to overcome, but the potential benefits are far greater. For one thing, distributed power generation provides more opportunity for local communities to be involved in developing and operating the systems (read: jobs) and for another, there is no need to standardise a given technology. Take the most appropriate for a given situation, and the next project might be something else entirely.
Maybe one day it'll be like plug 'n play computer hardware: just as the operating system on your computer doesn't need to know in advance what new peripherals will be developed, so too we could just plug in the most recent and efficient power sources without having to overcome the resistance of the electricity utility that provides the overall power structure. Technically it's a cinch; but institutional inertia is another matter.
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