You want to talk economics? Lets
talk economics.
_____
RENEWABLES
1. Wind/Solar/Geo/Hydro gets a Production Tax Credit (PTC).
This PTC accounts for 87% of the federal finance support
that Renewables get.
http://greyfalcon.net/energyresearch3.png
2. This PTC for Renewables was blocked year 2000, 2002,
2004, and for the first three months of 2008.
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/01/28/renewing-renewable-tax-breaks
3. For 2009, the Renewable PTC was blocked 8 times so far by
Republican Senators (Like John McCain)
http://mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_10199155
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/15/mccain-energy-aspen/
4. The PTC generally only gets approved for 1 year at a
time, sometimes 2. And
has to get reapproved all over again the next year. (Usually within weeks of the last possible
moment to vote on it)
_____
NUCLEAR
1. Nuclear gets a pretty beefy amount of subsidies annually.
Solar and Geothermal hardly get anything by comparison.
http://greyfalcon.net/subs.png
2. PTC secured for 8 years
http://snl.com/interactivex/article.aspx?CdId=A-73782
3. Federal Loan Program 3x larger
than the entire rest of the electric power industry combined
http://greyfalcon.net/nuclearloans.png
4. A 2 billion dollar cost overrun fund for the first six
plants.
http://snl.com/interactivex/article.aspx?CdId=A-73782
5. More than half of the DOE’s
energy related R&D fund (for the past decade, and the past half century)
And it's still begging for more.
http://greyfalcon.net/energyresearch.png
http://citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear_power_plants/articles.cfm?ID=13449
http://inl.gov/featurestories/2008-02-05.shtml
6. Hasn’t payed a thin dime to
deal with high level waste since 1998 due to lawsuits that Yucca Mountain isn't
open yet. Even though new cost estimates have found Yucca mountain
costs over 3x what they previously thought.
http://nytimes.com/2008/02/17/us/17nuke.html
http://grist.org/news/2008/08/05/yucca/index.html
7. Profits budgeted for the plant decommissioning have Zero income tax.
8. And I'm pretty sure some Federal Power Purchase
Agreements, favorable transmission, and debt recovery/waiving in there too.
http://nirs.org/factsheets/quickeconfact208.pdf
9. Both in the McCain-Lieberman and Lieberman-Warner Cap and
Trade bills, McCain insisted on gigantic Half-Trillion dollar handouts the the Nuclear power industry. (It should also be noted, the
McCain-Lieberman bill was a rather pathetically weak climate bill. And that McCain might even be backing out of
supporting Cap&Trade entirely)
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/6/16/223415/517
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/6/16/124515/466/
(This of course doesn't include the annual 9 billion for
Nuclear security, 2 billion for administrative, and who knows how much for
dealing with
____
After all that,
Nuclear power can't get a single dime of PRIVATE capital
financing for new power plants.
(Slow return rate, High loan default risk, and Large investment increment, exactly what open competative markets hate.)
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5785236/Nuclear-power-a-hedge-against.html
http://manhattan-institute.org/html/eper_01.htm
http://nirs.org/factsheets/wallstreet.pdf
And it still costs orders of magnitude more than Baseload SolarThermal, and Baseload GeoThermal.
$6000-8000/kW for Nuclear
$2000-4000/kW for Baseload GeoThermal/SolarThermal
http://energycentral.com/centers/energybiz/ebi_detail.cfm?id=525
http://nirs.org/images/fplturkeypointcostchart.jpg
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/11/12/13338/791#comment3
http://greyfalcon.net/solarthermal2
http://greyfalcon.net/energy2.png
http://greyfalcon.net/geothermal2
It should be no wonder that asside
from the
(
Nuclear power just can't survive in a competitive open market.
