What is the difference in energy output between a coal fire electric plant and a nuclear plant?

Which energy plant is most cost effective method for producing electricity?

It depends on the cost of the fuel. If the price per unit of heat
generated from coal is lower than that for uranium, then the electricity
produced from coal will be cheaper. However, the story does not end
here - we also need to take into account other costs, such as the
cost of cleaning the pollutants that are released when burning coal
(such as sulfur dioxide and of course CO2)
and of disposing of the waste that remains
after uranium is used to produce electricity. And there are other
"life cycle" costs, such as the pollution produced when mining for coal
and uranium, and the costs of securing the power plants against
terrorists, etc. Finally, there are costs, and there are costs - any
future cost has some uncertainty, so even if the average future cost
is the same, the cost with the higher uncertainty is often considered
to be a higher cost. For example, the total health care cost of
pollution emissions from a coal-fired power plant might be about the
same of a small release of radioactive coolant from a nuclear power
plant, but while the amount of pollution from the coal-fired power
plant is fairly easy to predict, the number of accidents resulting
in release of radioactive materials from nuclear power plants is much
harder to estimate. So it is possible that we will incur a much
larger cost if far more accidents occur than we had initially estimated.

Bottom line - it is tough to give a clear answer as to which is more
cost effective. The safest thing to do is conserve energy. :)

23 percent of the electricity is produced by nuclear energy. Nuclear energy output continues to move in an upward trend. If production is a function of cost then costs for nuclear energy must be decreasing.

1. Scientist at DLR are searching for new ways of producing electricity from wasted process heat.
2. Can a solid body be caused to release electrical energy simply by heating it on one side?
3. A thermoelectric module is mounted on a block of metal. Heat differential creates a current. The thermal response is made possible in solid state physic by the Peltier effect.
4. The electrical current is made to pull along an accompanying heat flow, with such force that it surpasses even large temperature differences, much like water being pumped uphill.
5. The flow of heat through the thermoelectric material create an electric current. Efficiency levels are very low. There are no moving mechanical parts.
6. Wasted heat is becoming a viable source of electricity.
7. The only thermoelectric materials are special tellurium compounds. Favoured materials include chalcogenides, skutterudites, silicides, and clathrates.