Lavish US Lobbying Pushes Nuclear Energy
By Stephen Leahy*
BERLIN, Jul 31 (IPS) - Climate change and the resulting need for
low-carbon energy sources is driving the current interest in nuclear
energy despite the industry's near universal legacy of staggering
cost-overruns, technical difficulties and dependence on enormous
government subsidies.
Government interest in new nuclear energy plants seems far more
political than practical or economic in light of the fact that Europe's
latest nuclear plant under construction in Finland is four years behind
schedule and 50 to 70 percent over budget.
Any claims that nuclear is a viable low-carbon or clean energy source
are negated by its extraordinary costs that have increased at least
five-fold in the past decade.
"Nuclear energy has always been heavily subsidised by governments around
the world," Ellen Vancko, a nuclear energy analyst at the Union of
Concerned Scientists, a U.S.-based non governmental organisation.
Under proposed U.S. legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
(Waxman-Markey Energy Bill), billions more dollars are headed the
nuclear industry's way in the form of research and development funding,
production tax credits, and 20 billion dollars in loan guarantees.
Added to that a major push by some politicians in the U.S. Senate to
dramatically expand government-backed loan guarantees to subsidise the
construction of 100 new nuclear plants in the U.S. over the next 20
years, Vancko told IPS.
"The U.S. taxpayer could be on the hook for 360 billion to 1.6 trillion
dollars. This potentially is as large or larger than the U.S. financial
crisis," she says.
No nuclear energy plant has been built in the U.S. for the past 25 years
simply because they are expensive to build.
Moreover, the U.S. government lost its appetite for funding nuclear
because the industry's default rate on government-backed loans has been
over 50 percent, according to the Government Accountability Office.
That meant U.S. tax payers have ended up paying off the industry's
multi-billion dollar losses and, bizarrely, producing windfall profits
for some power utilities, Vancko says in an interview.
And nuclear is even more expensive today.
In 2001, the industry estimated cost of a new plant to be 1,000 dollars
per kilowatt (kW) or one billion dollars for a typical 1000 megawatt
plant. In 2008 it was 7,000 to 9,000 dollars/kW, says Steve Thomas,
professor of energy policy at the University of Greenwich in the U.K.
"Costs have risen to 9 or 10 billion dollars per plant and that does not
include the cost of financing," Thomas said in an interview.
Financing costs could easily double the cost unless backed by government
loan-guarantees, which would still add billions to the ultimate cost.
And these costs do not include costs of uranium mining and processing,
waste management and cleanup, or plant decommissioning.
These current industry cost estimates are not for the much-touted
"Generation 4" nuclear technology and its claims of low-cost,
hi-efficiency and safety. "Gen 4 reactors are 30 years away from
implementation," Thomas says.
Ten billion dollars today buys nuclear reactor technology that is based
on a 1980s design with some improvements in safety and efficiency, he
said.
Meanwhile, there are stacks of studies that prove the fastest and
cheapest ways to cut energy costs, boost energy security and reduce
carbon emissions are through energy efficiency and alternative energy
like wind and solar, Vancko says. "The U.S. could reduce its carbon
emissions 50 percent by 2030 through energy efficiency alone."
(*This is the first of a two-part series on nuclear energy and subsidies
by Stephen Leahy, international science and environment correspondent
for IPS.) (END/2009)
Copyright © 2009 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved. |