Gas should outlast nuclear's winter.

• Position: Firing up the nuclear power plants - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Electricity is taking some odd turns five years after Duke Power Co., now Duke Energy Corp., shelled out $7.5 billion for Houston-based PanEnergy Corp., a natural-gas giant. After nearly two decades in the shadows, nuclear power is emerging to share the spotlight.

But don't kiss off the vaunted gas strategies that Duke and Raleigh-based Progress Energy Corp., formerly CP&L, launched in the mid-1990s. Progress operates four nuclear plants in the Carolinas and Florida, and Duke operates three in the Carolinas. Uranium generates nearly half the power used in the Carolinas, and coal is responsible for most of the rest. Gas' tiny piece of the pie -- less than 3% -- is more important than it looks. CP&L is firing up a $250 million, gas-turbine plant in Rowan County this summer so it can meet spikes in demand without having to build a $1 billion conventional plant. Similarly, buying Pan-Energy gave Duke gas pipelines and wells, bases from which to launch not only peak-load plants but merchant plants that sell electricity on the open market.

Gas became the new energy sweetheart because it burns cleanly and quickly. Nuclear power, on the other hand, seemed dead after Russia's Chemobyl disaster in 1986. New safety requirements made the...