Reply #22: The NRC has never denied a nuclear license renewal, from what I can see [View All]

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http://www.energybulletin.net/2178.html

And I highly doubt that environmental groups could stop one of these things if the energy industry really wanted them. Maybe back in the early 1980's, but not anymore. Who cares what the Union of Concerned Scientists thinks nowdays? Nobody in power does, that's for sure.

However, it appears that nuclear plants may not be as profitable and efficient as you suggest:
http://zena.secureforum.com/Znet/zmag/articles/hartjuly97.html

On April 10, GPU Nuclear Corp., owner of the Three Mile Island station, said it will ask the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities for permission to sell or shut down the Oyster Creek plant by 2000. Utility officials said the cost of electricity generated at the plant in Toms River, NJ, is about 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour more than the going market price. Oyster Creek began operating in 1969 and is licensed by the NRC to run until 2009.

A study by the Washington International Energy Group released in February predicts that 37 plants, representing 40 percent of the nation’s nuclear capacity, will likely shut down within the next seven years because their production costs are higher than projected electricity prices in their markets. Nine Mile Point, Zion and Oyster Creek were among the plants named. Other economists have predicted that anywhere from 10 to 40 plants will close in the near future.

If my tax dollars go toward subsidizing a power plant, I want the public to own it. I'll be damned if I'll subsidize a power plant only to allow a private corporation to keep all the profits from it. If they want to build one, and pass on the costs from it's construction to their customers, that's one thing. Then they'd have to compete with alternative energy sources in the sort of 'fair marketplace' that Republicans like to talk about (but never actually want to implement). That's how it's supposed to work, right? The good ideas make money and stick around, and the bad ones don't, and go away.

But having the public pay for a plant up front, while a private company owns it and keeps the short term profits to pay to their CEO (instead of reinvesting them)? Forget it.