Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumMore nuclear subsidies? "Political talk threatens Ohio energy project"
We are told routinely how low the fuel costs are for nuclear power. If that is the case, then why is the industry not able to privately fund a modern domestic enrichment plant?
Firm seeks loan to build centrifuges that provide power
2:06 AM, Apr. 29, 2012
Written by
Gregory Korte
PIKETON, OHIO
...The stakes are high: Its an election year, and Ohio is a swing state. USEC estimates the project at its peak will generate 3,158 jobs in Ohio, and 4,284 elsewhere. Pike County, home to the centrifuges, has a 13 percent unemployment rate the highest in Ohio. The median household income is about $40,000, while the average job at USEC pays $77,316.
The project has enjoyed bipartisan support. A USA TODAY review of DOE records shows at least 46 members of Congress 32 Republicans and 14 Democrats have pressured the Obama administration to approve the loan guarantee for USEC. Quick action is paramount, said one bipartisan letter. It is imperative that this application move forward now, said another.
The congressional support comes from states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri, Alabama, Indiana, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina an almost exact overlay of states that would benefit from the 7,442 jobs the company says would be created.
USEC executives have also funneled another $461,000 through its political action committee to members of Congress from both parties. Since 2005, when Congress first authorized the Department of Energys loan guarantee program, USEC has invested $15.6 million on lobbying, congressional records show.
...
USEC, which is spending $15 million a month just to keep the test project running, lost $540 million last year. Its stock price closed Thursday at 83 cents a share, near an all-time low and down from a high of $23.91 five years ago. That means a company worth less than $120 million is seeking $2 billion in financing.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120429/BUSINESS01/304290074/Political-talk-threatens-Ohio-energy-project
veganlush
(2,049 posts)republicans don't get that nuclear power is always socialism? It's the perfect thing to quiz your right-wing friends and family about. Nuclear power isn't now nor never will be a private enterprise. It always relies on tax-payer hand-outs, without which it could not exist for one simple reason: No "private" outfit could ever get insurance for a business that has the potential for so much destruction. can you imagine your premium when you tell the Allstate agent that your proposed business has the potential of rendering all land air and water, buildings and everything else for miles around utterly uninhabitable for many, many decades? That is why risk has to be socialized. We pay the huge price as a society for their businesses meltdown. Nuclear power is socialism period. Ask your right-wing brother-in-law why he loves it so.
Viking12
(6,012 posts)"...why don't we?"
we should just call the rightie's bluff. Make nukes a totally free market proposition, and free of all government regulations. that would be the end of it, pure and simple.
veganlush
(2,049 posts)we're not doing a good enough job at exposing the truth. Leave no right-winger uneducated on this. If they understood these truths even they would oppose nuclear power, which is totally infeasible in a free market.