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USA’s Nuclear Socialism – costs to tax-payer, profits to private investor

Reactor owners in the United States, therefore, have never been economically responsible for the full costs and risks of their operations. Instead, the public faces the prospect of severe losses in the event of any number of potential adverse scenarios, while pri­vate investors reap the rewards if nuclear plants are economically successful. “For all practical purposes, nuclear power’s economic gains are privatized, while its risks are socialized.”

Who Benefits From Nuclear Power Plants In India? By   Buddhi Kota Subbarao. Ph.D. 02 August, 2012 Countercurrents.org“…….In the United States, the nuclear industry and its allies are now pressuring all levels of US government for large new subsidies to support the construction and operation of a new generation of reactors and fuel-cycle facili­ties.

While it may be necessary in the United States for the private nuclear business houses to make strenuous efforts to realise large subsidies, in India it is easy for the government controlled Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL) to obtain all the necessary funds
for the asking of it since the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) of the Central Government is under the direct control of the Prime Minister who is the Executive head of the central government.

But it will be an eye opener for the Indians to know the contents of the report of Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)  where the UCS report catalogued in one place and for the first time the full range of subsidies that benefit the nuclear power sector in the United States. Continue reading →

August 3, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment