DOE Experts Admit that Nuclear Power Electricity Generation is Uneconomic... and can't compete in Free Markets without heavy taxpayer-funded subsidies, public assumption of liability for accidents, and locking electricity consumers into lengthy, above-market price forced-purchase contracts.
From the DOE report: "...other forms of energy are far less expensive, and economic competitiveness 'is the most significant obstacle to new nuclear plant deployment.' "
"Even if new plants somehow manage to meet projected cost estimates [which, in over 50 years of experience, they haven't], the plants won't be able to produce electricity at competitive price."
It's a pig that can only fly if the public pays through the nose to guarantee the industry's profits.
The DOE's report estimates that new plants can cost as much as a staggering $2,128 per kilowatt of electricity generated. Natural gas-fired plants, by comparison, are likely to top out - under even the most expensive scenarios - at $682 per kilowatt.
Even the lowest, most optimistic, estimate for nuclear-generated electricity at $1,000 per kilowatt is 46% higher than the *highest* estimate for gas-fired electricity production.
Using a more realistic cost estimate for gas-fired plant construction produces a per-kilowatt cost of about $500 (a cost for which, unlike nuclear energy, there is a recent and ongoing track record in the real world), a nuclear power plant project built under the most optimistic of assumptions would still cost twice as much as a gas-fired plant.
In effect, by embracing and adopting the recommendations in the NTDG report as the basis for the "Nuclear 2110 Plan", the Bush administration and Congress are advocating heavy-handed government command and control of electricity markets to enrich nuclear power corporations, with consumers and taxpayers footing the bill and the liabilities.
This would stack the deck against all other energy sources.
Corporate Welfare forever:
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