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Nuclear industry causing a “tsunami” of debt

The many financial failure tsunamis of nuclear power Ace Hoffmann October 7th, 2009 “…………………Seismologists, geologists, and other experts say our coastal nuclear reactors are NOT properly protected (and can’t be) against reasonably foreseeable — even expected — tsunamis…………

Real tsunamis aside, a financial crisis is often called a tsunami as well. The nuclear industry is in the midst of a financial crisis, as are we all. Ian Talley  clarified how the Department of Energy’s nuclear loan guarantees could be used:

>”$18.5 billion in loan guarantees can leverage loans far in excess of that value.”

He added that the maximum amount of “LG” is 80% of the cost of a nuke.

The basic concept is that someone other than the federal government will loan the extra billion (if the lowest of the two ridiculously low industry estimates Talley gave of $5 billion is correct) or the extra $4 billion (if my estimate of $20 billion for a new nuke started today is correct).

Either way, it isn’t easy to get loans for a billion dollars these days, even if someone knows a gung-ho pro-nuclear government has provided an additional $4 billion to throw away on the risky venture…………..

From the utilities’ standpoint, the biggest stumbling block for new nuclear construction at the moment appears to be spent-fuel-related. With Yucca Mountain not technically on the horizon (though not “killed” altogether, by any means), the government isn’t willing to make the dumb deal it made back in the 1980s, when it promised to take all the used reactor cores away and magically make them disappear.

Needless to say, it wasn’t a dumb deal for the utilities and they ALL — every one that is operating today — signed on. The government would take the highly radioactive — and pyrophoric — used nuclear reactor cores and manage their long-term care. That’s “long-term” as in: Longer than the United States has existed as a country, times a thousand……………….

Aside from the waste problem, new nuclear construction almost suffered from an insurance problem. Instead, the Price-Anderson Act was extended a few years ago in one of the most notorious pieces of midnight legislation to come out of the Bush years (and that’s saying a lot). If Price-Anderson had not been extended, that too would have stopped new nuclear construction because the Act prevents citizens from seeking damages against the utility in the event of an accident. No Price-Anderson would have meant no new nukes. And the old ones would have shut down, too. But now, although both Price and Anderson are long gone, the Price-Anderson Act has been renewed and you still can’t get insurance for your home against a nuclear accident anywhere in the world. (Some form of Price-Anderson has been copied in every country which has operating nuclear programs.)

In addition to the waste problem and the insurance problem — the former unsolvable and the latter solved by government fraud — there are still the costs and delays of construction..

Offshore wind power, solar power, energy conservation and other solutions can be brought online virtually immediately — by the time a permit for a new nuclear power plant is granted, especially a new design, you could have thousands of megawatts of renewable energy up and running………………

Fraud has always been rampant in nuclear construction and operation, and continues with the new international trade agreements, where even so-called “American” companies such as GE and Westinghouse are really just fronts for, in those cases, Japanese corporations, and where both EdF and AREVA , French corporations owned and operated by the French government, claim in America that they are as American as apple pie, just because the heads of the American divisions are American.

Ace Hoffman’s blog — mostly about nukes: Talley followup: The many financial-failure tsunamis of nuclear power

October 10, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, 2 WORLD, business and costs | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, radioactive, uranium