nuclear-news

Nuclear power, Price Anderson Act, and the economic facts

even without the safety concerns we should forgo new nuclear reactors because they are fundamentally uneconomic. Nuclear reactors are a bad deal for the private sector and they are a bad deal for American taxpayers

Nuclear Socialism, Krystal Ball, 19 March 11, Up until about a week ago, nuclear energy had been broadly embraced as our great radioactive hope for a clean energy future. In the face of a scary and uncertain situation in Japan, the president and some Congressional Republicans have urged us to stay the course on nuclear energy despite renewed safety concerns. The truth is that even without the safety concerns we should forgo new nuclear reactors because they are fundamentally uneconomic. Nuclear reactors are a bad deal for the private sector and they are a bad deal for American taxpayers……Nuclear construction has been stagnant since the 1970s…..

In fact, despite France’s often reported reliance on nuclear energy, Europe has also found nuclear energy to be costly compared to other renewable and is investing in wind and solar instead. Of all available technologies, nuclear is the least likely to survive in a market that priced risk and costs properly, which is why the market will not finance new plants. Politicians are attempting to artificially change these dynamics now by offering federal loan guarantees, a program that started under the Bush Administration and has continued under the Obama Administration. These loan guarantees mean that taxpayers shoulder the burden of loan defaults and cost overruns. Taxpayers underwrite the risks that investment firms are unwilling to gamble on……
So once we have taxpayers absorb the construction risks of these plants, we should be ready to break ground on new reactors, right? Not quite. The other problem with nuclear power is that the private insurance market which regularly insures against everything from flood damage to Tom Jones’ chest hair, was not willing to insure nuclear reactors against catastrophe in even close to sufficient amounts.
Enter the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act, which originally passed in 1957 as a temporary measure to get nuclear energy off the ground. The idea was that the taxpayer could underwrite the risks associated with a potential nuclear crisis just until nuclear energy had a proven track record of safety and private insurers were willing to step up to the table. The problem is that it’s more than half a century later and there are STILL no private insurers willing to take on the risk of a nuclear crisis. In fact, Price-Anderson was just extended another 20 years in 2005.

Krystal Ball: Nuclear Socialism

March 19, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized