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Nuclear energy isn’t the answer

Nuclear energy isn’t the answer
Mountain Home News August 5, 2009
Nuclear energy sounds like the answer to this country’s energy problems, but it isn’t.For decades, nuclear power has been peddled as being an efficient and inexpensive energy. In the ’50s, nuclear advocates loudly promised the world that atomic power would provide electricity “too cheap to meter.” That promise dissolved with the reality of reactor construction costs in the 1970s and 1980s.But the price to consumers isn’t limited to just the cost of the power usage that is listed on your monthly electricity bill. It goes way beyond that. Nuclear power is not cheap. Since the very beginning the government has been heaping subsidies, which come from our tax dollars, into the building and running of nuclear plants. But these cash payments and tax breaks are not the most valuable subsidies that they receive. The most important subsidies that the investors and owners can receive come from shifting the risks onto the taxpayers or the surrounding area’s population.A lot of the risks to the investors are financial, such as the unexpected costs associated with construction, or the risk of defaulting on the costs of loans or the debts that can occur from construction delays or administrative failure and error…………………….

Since its inception, the nuclear industry has benefited greatly from government programs that shift the key risks of the nuclear fuel cycle away from investors and onto taxpayers. All operating nuclear power plants in the U.S. were built with very large public subsidies (our tax dollars again). These include large subsidies for research and development, for plant construction, for uranium enrichment, and for waste management. Since the very beginning, the nuclear industry has been supported by the public monies given to them from our government (our tax dollars), as well as monumental and lucrative tax write-offs.

Mountain Home News: Story: Nuclear energy isn’t answer

August 6, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1