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American families unwilling to cop the financial risk exposure of nuclear power

The struggle for a nuclear renaissance has been and remains a struggle over allocation of economic risk. U.S. power markets allocate that risk to investors and lenders, who will not put up the money for new nuclear…… southeastern states decided to allocate that risk to their customers, some of whom have begun to rebel. Congress is being asked to allocate it to taxpayers. However, with each new reactor requiring the allocation of close to $100 in risk exposure to every family in America, this is proving a tough sell.

Honey, I Shrunk the Renaissance: Nuclear Revival, Climate Change and Reality, CleanEnergy Footprints, by Peter Bradford, 15 Oct 10, “……Did the nuclear renaissance jump, or was it pushed? In truth, the nuclear renaissance has always consisted of the number of plants that government was willing to build. This is true not only in the United States but also in every other country now building new nuclear units. 

The 2003 MIT study put the best possible face on the rationale for federal support with its list of possible cost reductions that would ensue. But at today’s nuclear cost estimates and the price of alternatives, these are not nearly enough to make new nuclear competitive. This remains true under any price on carbon likely to emerge from legislation along the lines of the Waxman-Markey bill passed in 2009 by the House.

The struggle for a nuclear renaissance has been and remains a struggle over allocation of economic risk. U.S. power markets allocate that risk to investors and lenders, who will not put up the money for new nuclear. The aforementioned southeastern states decided to allocate that risk to their customers, some of whom have begun to rebel. Congress is being asked to allocate it to taxpayers. However, with each new reactor requiring the allocation of close to $100 in risk exposure to every family in America, this is proving a tough sell.

The next generation? Or a stillborn renaissance?

CleanEnergy Footprints » Archive » Honey, I Shrunk the Renaissance: Nuclear Revival, Climate Change & Reality

October 16, 2010 - Posted by Christina MacPherson | business and costs, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear spin, reactors