At 01:15 12/10/2003 -0700, you wrote:
So, if you don't mind a tenth of a cent or so added to your kWh for decommissioning, I suppose you will soon become an advocate of sensible nuclear power.
I think you'll find that it's more than a tenth of a cent. Nuclear power only cxame into existence because UK, US and French governments wanted to develop nuclear bombs. The capital costs of nuclear power development for electricity has been massively subsidised and are now written off. Here are a few paragraphs from "Nuclear Power No Relief From Energy Woes" by Susan Sargent published on May 19, 2001 in the Portland (ME) Press Herald. It's partisan but likely to be accurate. What follows is reminiscent to the false costs made by the nuclear power lobby in the UK about 20 years ago:
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Despite initial claims of "too cheap to meter," nuclear power in the United States has become too expensive to afford. The nuclear industry has received over the years, 60 percent of all federal energy research and development dollars. Yet customers of nuclear utilities still pay far higher prices than their conventionally supplied counterparts.
A 1993 Energy Information Agency study found the average bill from a nuclear utility was more than two dollars per kilowatt hour higher and nearly $17 per month than from a conventional utility.
Why the disparity despite the huge government handout? Because utilities have been unable to control the costs of constructions, retrofits, repairs, and maintenance, while storing waste pushed costs even higher.
One of the primary problems with nuclear power is its inability to perform without substantial federal and state subsidies. According to the Congressional Research Service, the nuclear industry has received more than $66 billion in taxpayer research and development subsidies since its inception.
Additional supports are granted in the form of a taxpayer-financed insurance policy known as the Price Anderson Act. At the state level, nuclear power plant operators have cost consumers higher-than-average electricity rates and have reaped billions of dollars in so-called "stranded costs" in states that have undergone deregulation of their electricity markets. Nuclear power has remained an energy option over the past decades largely due to these huge taxpayer subsidies.
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Keith
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk>
