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. The findings are striking: “since its inception more than 50
years ago, the nuclear power industry has benefited—and continues to
benefit—from a vast array of preferential government subsidies.
Indeed, as Figure ES-1 (p. 2 of the report) shows, subsidies to the
nuclear fuel cycle have often exceeded the value of the power
produced. This means that buying power on the open market and giving
it away for free would have been less costly than subsidizing the
construction and operation of nuclear power plants. Subsidies to new
reactors are on a similar path.” [6]…….

India can certainly move away from nuclear and build its base power
from renewables including hydro, wind and solar. There is no need to
clamour for nuclear electricity only because France has 78% and Japan
had 30% pre-Fukushima of its power from nuclear. France and Japan do
not have hydro and solar potential comparable to India. At present
India has only less than 3% of its electricity from nuclear. This is
the right time to phase out nuclear power in India instead of climbing
more on nuclear power curve and realising at some later date that it
is difficult to reduce the dependency on nuclear…..