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UK and USA cannot ignore the economic effects of Fukushima

Prospects for Nuclear Power in 2012, The Energy Report, 5 April 12 “Banks have signaled that they are unwilling to bear the risk of financing new nuclear projects, leaving three sets of interests that might be able to take it on: the utilities, the vendor or the consumer, in some form, via the state.”

Even before the Fukushima disaster, the long-awaited nuclear renaissance in the West seemed to be running out of steam. There were two main factors behind this failure; the new Generation III+ reactors produced to take account of the lessons of Chernobyl that would spearhead the revival were not living up to their promises, and, more importantly, banks were proving unwilling to provide finance.

The key markets for the renaissance were the U.S. and the UK. As pioneers of nuclear power, potentially large markets and countries that seemed to have abandoned plans for new nuclear plants, a successful revival in these countries would have been a powerful endorsement for these new technologies. Following on, the expected reversal of nuclear phase-outs in Germany and Italy would have provided two more large, high-prestige markets.

These follow-on markets are now clearly off the agenda. However, the U.S. and UK governments seem oblivious to the idea that Fukushima might have any implications for new build plants. The incentives in terms of loan guarantees in the U.S. and long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) at nonmarket prices in the UK are still in place. Government commitment appears undiminished.

Yet turning a blind eye to Fukushima is clearly not sustainable. The hope that the disaster can be written off as having relevance only to earthquake- and tsunami-prone countries with Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactors is no more credible than the hope that Chernobyl would have relevance only to a particular Soviet design operated in an inexplicable way…..  http://www.theenergyreport.com/pub/na/12441

April 5, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK, USA