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Should taxpayers bail out failing nuclear industry?

Nuclear companies face reactor design problems, ethics questions   FACING SOUTH (USA) 16 Nov 09 Federal regulators have expressed serious safety concerns about the design for 14 of the nation’s 25 proposed new nuclear reactors, raising questions about the future of what the industry calls its “renaissance.”
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced last month that Westinghouse failed to demonstrate that the building designed to shield its AP1000 reactor (pictured at right) from outside threats such as tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes is adequate. In addition, there are concerns about whether the shield building, which also provides a radiation barrier, will be able to support the 8 million-pound emergency cooling water tank that’s supposed to sit on top……………

“With billions of taxpayer dollars at stake in the proposed nuclear loan guarantees, the Department of Energy owes it to the public to get on the same page as the NRC about these serious AP1000 reactor design problems,” said Sara Barczak, a nuclear power specialist with SACE. “We believe that the DOE should assure the public that utilities considering problematic nuclear reactor designs, such as the AP1000, would not qualify for these loan guarantees.”

A report released earlier this year by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that the potential risk exposure to the federal government and taxpayers from guaranteeing loans to build new nuclear plants — now estimated to cost upwards of $6 billion each — could range from $360 billion to $1.6 trillion. At the same time, a study put out earlier this year by the University of Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment estimated the per-kilowatt cost of new nuclear plants at two to more than three times the cost of efficiency and renewables…………..

But the nuclear power industry is pushing hard for more taxpayer assistance — or what some of its critics are calling a “bailout.” Last month, the Nuclear Energy Institute, industry’s lobby group, announced that it wanted to build 45 new reactors by 2030 and was seeking $100 billion in additional loan guarantees.

ISS – Nuclear companies face reactor design problems, ethics questions

November 16, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, business and costs, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, radiation, radioactive