nuclear-news

South Carolina would do better to switch to renewable energy not to nuclear dead end

Nuclear power enjoys large subsidies http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/opinion/readers/2016/01/24/letter-nuclear-power-enjoys-large-subsidies/79131694/  Michael Kohl January 24, 2016 J. Winston Porter’s recent opinion piece regarding eliminating energy credits for wind and solar was misleading considering his support of nuclear energy. The nuclear industry has the highest degree of subsidization. Normally, utilities rely upon a variety of funding sources including corporate bonds. After the financal collapse of the Washington Public Power Supply System in 1983 with the loss of $2.3 billion to municipal bond investors, no financially prudent fund or investor will invest in the building of new reactors.

If nuclear power has a blank check for building new reactors in South Carolina, why is the nuclear industry concerned about solar and wind power? Perhaps it is that financially prudent utilities such as Duke Power and SCE&G are beginning to hedge their bets; not only investing in these alternative sources of power but also encouraging their customers to do so.

For less astute utilities such as Santee Cooper, the choice is to stay with coal where the cost of pollution control continues to rise. Nuclear reactors that are economically competitive, safe for the population and deal with the unresolved issues of nuclear waste require a level of ingenuity similar to that for expeditions to Mars.

Unfortunately for the nuclear industry, today’s most successful technical entrepreneurs are interested in going to Mars and building electric cars but not in the further development of nuclear power. What utilities in South Carolina today face is whether it is better to cut their losses on nuclear power and concentrate on becoming a 21st century utility that serves a distributive source for maintaining power generated by gas, hydropower, solar and wind, or stick with a government-sponsored boondoggle called nuclear power.

January 24, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general