NYT: Loan Program May Stir Nuclear Industry

[wtmusic]

"WASHINGTON — When experts on power grid reliability asked themselves recently how a cleaner energy future would look, seven of eight regional councils imagined how their systems would work with 10 percent wind power.

Only one, representing the southeastern United States, chose a radically different option: doubling nuclear power capacity.

Thirty years after the American nuclear industry abandoned scores of half-built plants because of soaring costs and operating problems like the Three Mile Island accident, skepticism persists over whether the technology is worth investing in.

Yet the pendulum may be swinging back. The 104 plants now running have sharply raised their output, emboldening utilities across the country to make a case for building new ones."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/business/energy-environment/24nuke.html?_r=1&em

[kristopher]

1. Only one, representing the southeastern United States, chose... nuclear power

And it isn't a coincidence that ground zero for the teabagger movement and RepubliCon headquarters is "the southeastern United States".

Nuclear power, mythical clean coal, and "drill baby drill" are the entirety of the Republican energy policy.

[joshcryer]

5. If they got the $50 billion they were requesting, they would have been building 'em.

Right now they don't get loan guarantees capable of bringing on investors.

Simply too much risk involved when natural gas expansion is so high.

Ban CO2 and see what happens. ;)

[kristopher]

7. Bullshit.

They can't get investors - period.

[joshcryer]

8. $18 billion is hardly enough to keep the plants we have online. If you want to build more...

...you need guaranteed loans that will allow you to actually build them.

Otherwise of course you won't get investors.

[kristopher]

11. Bullshit.

ALL OTHER FORMS OF GENERATION get investment with NOTHING but a power purchase agreement or, in the cse of many renewables, nothing.

The difference is the rate of failure to complete the projects. Since nukes more often than not never generate a single watt, what investor would be idiot enough to put their money in a 50/50 gamble?

[kristopher]

2. How many nuclear power plants have been built with strictly private funds?

No government guarantees of any kind.

[joshcryer]

3. How many wind farms have?

Name one that didn't get subsidies or loans.

[kristopher]

6. All wind farms that I know of are privately funded

There are various subsidies that come into play depending on the state and the current party in power, but they are not quasi-government projects. Take, for example the nuke plant in Tx that is having so much trouble about deceptive information on pricing by the public utility commission or the one in FL that just said they'll shut down because their request for a rate increase was disapproved.

Look at how those projects are financed - public money is collected by the BILLIONS up front years before any power is ever generated.

In contrast, no wind or solar project ever gets a penny before it produces electricity.

Why is that significant?

Because many times those plants NEVER produce electricity. There have been 253 nuclear plants ordered in the U.S. and 48% were not built. 10% were prematurely closed, and 13% were shut down for a year or more.

What happened to those public funds?

[joshcryer]

9. Loans must be paid back regardless of completion.

But I concede that nuclear power subsidies are very large, and lost to the common good. Though by no means whatsoever anything compared to fossil fuel subsidies.

[kristopher]

10. What about the money collected for all the nuke plants that never generate electricity?

Who pays that *ratepayer* money back?

[joshcryer]

4. $18.5 billion, which was already in there. Renewables got $30 billion, iirc.

This will only go to refurb plants, it certainly won't pay to build a new one.

From the end of the article, "Daniel L. Roderick, senior vice president for nuclear plant projects at GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy, a partnership between General Electric and Hitachi of Japan, said that a year and a half ago, there were expectations that more than 20 units would be under construction by now in the United States. “That number is currently zero,” he said."