Want to Reduce the Debt? Cut the Billions a Year In Nuclear Subsidies | Zero Hedge

 

Time noted in 2008:

Lovins [a veteran energy expert and chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute] notes that the U.S. nuclear industry has received $100 billion in government subsidies over the past half-century, and that federal subsidies now worth up to $13 billion a plant — roughly how much it now costs to build one — still haven’t encouraged private industry to back the atomic revival. At the same time, the price of building a plant — all that concrete and steel — has risen dramatically in recent years, while the nuclear workforce has aged and shrunk. Nuclear supporters like Moore who argue that atomic plants are much cheaper than renewables tend to forget the sky-high capital costs, not to mention the huge liability risk of an accident ….

The conservative Cato Institute reported in 2003:

With federal government spending through the roof and projected deficits setting new records every day, it is perhaps surprising that the Bush administration and Congress want to use billions of taxpayer dollars to single-handedly resurrect the moribund nuclear industry. Old habits, however, die hard. The federal government has always maintained a unique public-private partnership with the nuclear industry, wherein the costs of nuclear power are shared by the public but the profits are enjoyed privately. [crony capitalism, anyone?]

Want to Reduce the Debt? Cut the Billions a Year In Nuclear Subsidies | Zero Hedge