nuclear-news

2012 will be an even worse year for the nuclear power industry

Experts: Even Higher Costs and More Headaches Ahead for Nuclear Power in 2012 Market Watch,  WASHINGTON, Dec. 28, 2011  – “………Highlights of the new Cooper paper include the following: Fukushima has stimulated vigorous reviews around the world, in part because of the severity of the accident, in part because it is the worst accident affecting a nuclear reactor in a market economy and in part because it occurred in a nation that was assumed to have a high standard of safety and superb technical expertise.

The challenges perceived by those responsible for nuclear safety around the world in the wake of the Fukushima accident are quite substantial.

Perhaps more striking than the technical issues raised by Fukushima,
are the persistent institutional failures revealed by a comparison
between the post-accident evaluations of Three Mile Island (TMI) and
Fukushima. For decades, the nuclear industry has been plagued by:

Failure of voluntary, self-regulation;

Denial of the reality of risk;

Lack of safety culture;

Lack of a comprehensive, consistent regulatory framework;

The challenge of continuous change and the need to retrofit existing reactors;

Failure to resolve important outstanding safety issues;

Failure to require existing reactors to add safety measures because of cost; and

Complexity, confusion and chaos in the response to a severe accident.

With the global nuclear safety institutions expressing strong
concerns, particularly the advanced industrial nuclear nations, and
the aftermath of Fukushima likely to command attention for years as
the extent of the damage and the challenge of decommissioning unfold,
the issues are likely to continue to have traction.

The reviews stimulated by accidents are not limited to safety issues.
In the wake of Fukushima re-evaluations of energy options and nuclear
risks and economics have substantially dimmed the prospects for
construction of new nuclear reactors:
Major policy reviews by governments have led several nations to decide
to scale back or abandon their commitments to nuclear power (including
important large industrial national like Japan and Germany);

Financial institutions have conducted extensive reassessments of the
economic prospects of nuclear power and concluded that the costs will
rise (e.g. USB);

Utilities with nuclear plants in several nations have been downgraded
by rating agencies; and

Several major firms in advanced industrial nations have abandoned the
sector or been forced to scale back their activities (e.g., Shaw
Group, Siemens and Areva).

As the Cooper paper concludes: “As all stakeholders re-examine all
aspect of energy policy, the risks of nuclear reactors increase and
the attractiveness of nuclear power compared to other options
decreases.”

The full text of this news release is available online at
http://www.markcooperresearch.com/122811NuclearIndustry2012Prospectsnewsrelease.pdf
.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A streaming audio replay of a related news event will
be available on the Web at http://216.250.243.12/nuclear2012.mp3 as of
4 p.m. EST on December 28, 2011. The Cooper paper is available at
http://www.markcooperresearch.com/Nuclear-Safety-and-Nuclear-Economics-Post-Fukushima.pdf
.
SOURCE Vermont Law School, Peter Bradford, and Mark Cooper
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/experts-even-higher-costs-and-more-headaches-ahead-for-nuclear-power-in-2012-2011-12-28

December 29, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, business and costs