Nuclear Renaissance Reality Check - Wall Street Journal

[webfarmer]

My impression is that when Obama or Chu says that should be "in the mix" that translates to: "We won't be shutting down any nukes and we'll let the 18.5 billion in loan guarantees from the 2005 bill keep moving on but we're not likely to spend any more than we politically have to on this turkey technology. We'll throw a bone to the coal industry on sequestration to keep those congress critters off our backs too."

I was expecting maybe three or four nukes from the current loan guarantees but as the states start passing legislation to dump the cost onto the consumers in advance of the plant starting, that might go up a bit. I'm not sure that's policy will stick once people start opening their bills with the new charge on it. Good analysis work here.

EMISSION CRITICAL: Nuclear Sector Lags In US Energy Policy Shift - WSJ - 26 Mar 09

". . . nuclear power is still struggling to win unequivocal government and market support, even as developers prepare to break ground on the first new reactors since 1996. A new nuclear plant costs too much to compete with natural gas or coal. Opponents of the industry have successfully argued that nuclear is too mature a technology to receive new government incentives. Legislation aimed at building up alternatives to fossil fuels has largely left nuclear out in the cold."

"The 26 proposed nuclear plants are for now an industry wish list. Nuclear plants are expensive - Progress Energy Inc. (PGN) recently estimated that two new reactors outside Tampa will cost $7 billion each. Duke Energy Corp. (DUK) plans to spend $1.8 billion to build a coal plant near Charlotte to produce nearly as much as one reactor.

'The cost of these plants is quite high...if you look at the companies sponsoring them, that's greater than their entire market capitalization,' said Glen Grabelsky, a managing director at Fitch Ratings in New York."

"Barring a dramatic change in the loan-guarantee program, four to eight nuclear plants are likely to be built by 2016, said Tom Kauffman, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based industry group."

""Nuclear power has received the lion's share of subsidies over the last 40 years, and despite all that has not managed to create a competitive technology," [Daniel] Lashof [of the NRDC] said."

Comments

[calenorn.livejournal.com]

Also, when nuclear supporters decry the horrors of coal mining one should have a look at what we to do the land when gathering uranium. It's just as bad. There is no way anyone can rationally paint nuclear power as green energy.

[webfarmer.livejournal.com]

Yes, the radioactive tailings issues is non-trivial. Also there's often a component of environmental racism for good measure given where these mines (and dumps) tend to be located.