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The staggering and increasing costs to USA taxpayer of the “nuclear revival”

While the nuclear power loan guarantees essentially subsidize new power plants, what has not been factored in are the hidden costs of “clean” nuclear power: the financial legacy of past mining and milling operations have reached into tens of billions of dollars in the West’s “National Sacrifice Areas.”

Hot Rocks: Hidden Cost and Foreign Ownership of “Clean” Nuclear Fuel Emerging,THE HUFFINGTON POST, D.A. Barber, 1 April 2010, “…..Political Costs Critics say the new nuclear power subsidies should not come as a surprise. Over the last decade, the nuclear industry has spent more than $600 million lobbying Washington and another $63 million in campaign contributions, according to the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University.

Critics like Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C. have questioned whether banks will back new nuclear plants – which cost nearly 35% more than coal or natural gas plants – until the nuclear waste issue is dealt with. The Administration has all but killed the only nuclear waste facility – Yucca Mountain in Nevada – after spending over $9 billion trying to make it work, as well as “reprogram” $115 million toward termination of the site…

..The federal government also faces nearly $50 billion in lawsuits from utilities because it had agreed to begin taking waste at Yucca Mountain in 1998 in exchange for one-tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour produced by the reactors. Federal courts have awarded more than $1 billion in settlements for breach of contract…..

Factoring Yucca Mountain into the other known hidden costs, the government’s price tag to date to prop-up nuclear power is at least $21.6 billion. And only $8 billion of the proposed $54 billion in loan guarantees have been allocated.

In November 2009, senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.) introduced the Clean Energy Act of 2009, which “provides a framework that will facilitate the revival of nuclear power” with another $4 billion is grants and expand the federal “loan guarantee” program by as much as a $1 trillion, according to critics. Senator Webb’s home state of Virginia is the location of two nuclear power plant manufacturers, French-based Areva, Inc. and Babcock & Wilcox Co……
“President Obama needs to remember what Candidate Obama promised: no more taxpayer subsidies for nuclear power,” said Michael Mariotte, executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service. “The American people have made clear they are tired of taxpayer bailouts for giant corporations and the nuclear loan guarantee program could end up being the largest bailout of all.”

D.A. Barber: Hot Rocks: Hidden Cost and Foreign Ownership of “Clean” Nuclear Fuel Emerging

April 2, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | AUSTRALIA, nuclear costs, nuclear renaissance, nuclear spin, radiation, radioactive, reactors, uranium