I can't answer your questions but I have a one of my own. How was this building in
Germany costing money? I can see some money, if there was security, enough maintenance
to keep the building okay in case the project moved forward, etc. But I can't see how
this money would be anything but a fraction of a percent of the cost to just build the
thing in the first place.
Now from what I do know, the amount of power generated will easily pay for all the
associated costs of building, running, and dismantling. I know you are calling all
those costs horrendous but on the scale of years it must be close to nothing. Even a
dumb company can forcast enough to buy bonds which will in turn pay for the future
clean-up.
In fact, because of two specific examples that I do have good knowledge about, I have
a better reason why no plants have been built for so many years. The labor unions have
such a stranglehold on government projects that the costs are much higher then they
would be for a 'normal' project. I figure that a few people read that and say 'Yeah
but without unions the workers would get screwed' I don't want to argue that thread,
it's just that the unions in this one place had conspired amongst themselves so that
always one of them was on strike at any given time. (I can't remember the term for
this, but if all the soft drink makers agreed to triple their price tommorow they'd be
sued by the government so fast that Coke would be a nickle for 2 liters before the
year was out.)
To go back on topic, with at least one union on strike the work would be slowed,
obviously. This had the added benifit of increasing the length of the job, good for
the unions; bad for the company. At one place the company was planning on a two
reactor plant but canceled the second plant because of cost over-runs. (The second
reactor had been delivered and it was just sitting there inside a fence rusting, never
to be used).
A guy published a story about the oil industry when I was working for an oil company.
The sage advice came from a manager who had worked oil all his life, just like his
father and HIS father had: "Don't think about it as oil. All they are pumping is
money." With nuclear it's the same way, everyone makes money. The banks loan money to
the nuclear company, with interest of course. Even if the nuclear company has to take
a loss in the end, guess what? that makes for a tax write off. It's all a big circle.
Kevin Tarr
Trump high, lead low
