Cost of nuclear waste could kill off plans for a new fleet

[bananas]

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/cost-of-nuclear-waste-could-kill-off-plans-for-a-new-fleet-20080326

Cost of nuclear waste could kill off plans for a new fleet
Posted by tracy on 27 March 2008.

The government says the decision on building new nuclear reactors will be entirely up to the market and utility companies will have to pay their "full share" of decommissioning and waste management costs, but Gordon Brown is going to have to cook the books like a cordon bleu chef he if wants to attract new investment.

While Brown teams up with French president Nicholas Sarkozy at Emirates stadium today to push through his dream of a new nuclear era, a government advisor is publishing a new cost analysis that suggests energy companies cannot be charged a fully commercial price for waste disposal without "killing the prospect" of a new generation of nuclear reactors.

The analysis by Ian Jackson, who has worked in the nuclear industry for over 20 years and is a former nuclear regulator, says that a "fully commercial price would make disposal far too expensive, killing the prospects of any new nuclear build programme in Britain".

That means that the government could not charge energy companies the rates already being paid by foreign utility companies storing waste at Sellafield - which, commercially speaking, they should be - without scuppering any plans for new nuclear reactors. The government would need to cap costs at six to 12 per cent of their actual commercial value to make it worth while for investors.

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[MercutioATC]

1. ...which is why nuclear power is a horrible idea.

Well, it's one of the reasons.

It's not commercially viable when one takes into account the cost of waste disposal.


There are so many other energy production possibilities that don't have this issue. Why is nuclear power still being discussed?

[Vincardog]

3. Why is nuclear power still being discussed? BIG money and BIG Government and BIG Business

[Systematic Chaos]

4. Same reason that wind and solar, after half a century

are little more than an overhyped wet dream? :shrug:

[OwnedByFerrets]

5. Without government subsidies,

Nuclear Power would never have had the first plant built. They are still subsidized because of the tremendous cost of operation.

[jpak]

2. K&R

:thumbsup: