nuclear-news

Financial meltdown to end “nuclear renaissance”?

U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman, speaking to reporters during an international energy conference in Paris this week, said that long-term energy projects like building new nuclear plants could be at significant risk and “the most difficult to finance” because of the growing global financial crisis. With the global financial domino effect continuing to fall out of the subprime mortgage collapse, Bodman said a “nuclear renaissance” has the most to lose. In an Associated Press report, Bodman forecasted that a failure of the U.S. to resolve the ongoing financial crisis would have “a significant impact” on energy demand and said “that’s what leads to the need to come up with a solution.”

Our View: What that “solution” might be is an open question and raises the concern that the Bush financial “rescue effort” could hide federal backing for the high stakes rollers of new atomic power plant projects. A lot of pork can be stampeded through Congress in this $700 billion financial bailout of bad loans of historic proportions. This would be particularly true for a notoriously risky nuclear power industry that cannot attract financing other than unlimited federal taxpayer dollars.

October 3, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs | nuclear costs