UK tax-payer might have to foot the bill for nuclear industry

…….over the years, nuclear has had the lion’s share of R&D and public investment in new energy technology, and we are still spending about half our energy R&D funding on nuclear fission and fusion. By comparisons, renewables, as a group, have been starved of funding

(UK) The cost of nuclear – environmentalresearchweb, 24 May 2010, “………The capital cost is high, and the ultimate cost, if something goes seriously wrong, could be very large.The UK’s nuclear liability law is based on the Paris and Brussels Convention on Nuclear Third Party Liability, which has been in operation since the 1960s. The operator is required to take out the necessary financial security to cover its liabilities and in the UK this is currently set at £140m…..

However if the worst comes, then even €700m is unlikely to be enough. The cost of just upgrading the emergency containment shelter at Chernobyl in 1997 was $758 m. Quite apart from the loss of life, with estimates of early deaths ranging up to several thousand and beyond, and also lifelong illnesses (e.g. related to immune system damage) for some of those exposed, the total economic costs of the Chernobyl disaster were much larger: e.g. Belarus has estimated its losses over 30 years at US $235 bn, with government spending on Chernobyl amounting to 22.3% of the national budget in 1991, declining gradually to 6.1% in 2002. And 5-7% of government spending in the Ukraine still goes to Chernobyl-related benefits and programmes. http://www.greenfacts.org/en/chernobyl…..

……major nuclear accidents are expensive. They are of course rare. Less rare is overspend on building nuclear plants. The EPR being built in Finland has seen overrun cost put at 55% so far. If and when a new nuclear construction programme goes ahead in the UK, we are told it will be the private sectors problem- the government is not providing subsidies. Lord Hunt commented ‘We have taken clear steps to minimise the risk of costs falling to Government’. But he added ‘Of course, in extreme circumstances, if the protections we have put in place prove insufficient, the Government would step in to meet the cost of ensuring the protection of the public and the environment’……..
…….over the years, nuclear has had the lion’s share of R&D and public investment in new energy technology, and we are still spending about half our energy R&D funding on nuclear fission and fusion. By comparisons, renewables, as a group, have been starved of funding until recently…….nuclear just gets in the way- diverting technical, skill and financial resources away from renewables and other sustainable options and making it harder and more costly to operate a viable low carbon future.

The cost of nuclear (environmentalresearchweb blog) – environmentalresearchweb