Lest we forget, what as the cost basis used to drum up all the enthusiasm for the "nuclear renaissance"?
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE COST ESTIMATE
Based on information from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), DOE, and industry sources, CBO expects that construction of the first new nuclear power plant would begin after 2010. Estimates of the cost for such a plant range from $2.1 billion to almost $3 billion, including engineering, procurement, and construction, as well as costs associated with construction delays, and first-of-a-kind engineering costs.
...For this estimate, CBO assumes that the first nuclear plant built using a federal loan guarantee would have a capacity of 1,100 megawatts and have associated project costs of $2.5 billion. We expect that such a plant would be located at the site of an existing nuclear plant and would employ a reactor design certified by the NRC prior to construction. This plant would be the first to be licensed under the NRC’s new licensing procedures, which have been extensively revised over the past decade.
Based on current industry practices, CBO expects that any new nuclear construction project would be financed with 50 percent equity and 50 percent debt. The high equity participation reflects the current practice of purchasing energy assets using high equity stakes, 100 percent in some cases, used by companies likely to undertake a new nuclear construction project. Thus, we assume that the government loan guarantee would cover half the construction cost of a new plant, or $1.25 billion in 2011.
With that cost estimate, this is the market position that CBO saw.
CBO considers the risk of default on such a loan guarantee to be very high—well above 50 percent. The key factor accounting for this risk is that we expect that the plant would be uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative to other electricity generation sources. In addition, this project would have significant technical risk because it would be the first of a new generation of nuclear plants, as well as project delay and interruption risk due to licensing and regulatory proceedings.
But let's be very clear here - Progress Energy's Levy project, the one they want the Florida ratepayers to start paying for now (in spite of its history) does NOT have a license issued, neither does it have a loan guarantee from the taxpayers nor any other financing mechanism in place.
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