Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Nuclear Power Plants are Not Cost Efficient

AP IMPACT: Building costs rise at US nuclear sites july 10 2012 http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/07/10/9428/ap-impact-building-costs-rise-us-nuclear-sites?utm_source=iwatch&utm_medium=social_media&utm_campaign=twitter

ATLANTA (AP) — America's first new nuclear plants in more than a decade are costing billions more to build and sometimes taking longer to deliver than planned, problems that could chill the industry's hopes for a jumpstart to the nation's new nuclear age.

Licensing delay charges, soaring construction expenses and installation glitches as mundane as misshapen metal bars have driven up the costs of three plants in Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina, from hundreds of millions to as much as $2 billion, according to an Associated Press analysis of public records and regulatory filings....

Plant Vogtle in eastern Georgia, initially estimated to cost $14 billion, has run into over $800 million in extra charges related to licensing delays.... is now delayed seven months....

....The long-mothballed Watts Bar power plant in eastern Tennessee, initially budgeted at $2.5 billion, will cost up to $2 billion more...

...Regulators have been trying to make it easier to build, encouraging the use of off-the-shelf reactor designs that get approval in advance

1 comment:

  1. typical cost overruns are 250% on nuke plants. That was back in the day when environmental and quality control were routinely circumvented. Not so anymore with millions of people on the alert for shoddy practices during construction.

    With a Masters Degree in Thermal Fluids and Material Science, a professional history as a construction estimator, and being a Certified Energy Manager, I have calculated the Vogtle reactors as having a 1.666% annual rate of return on investment AFTER waiting 10 years for any revenue. No business model would want something like this.

    It proves that nuke is not a business model.

    The only model that "makes sense" is to buy a clunker plant and then get a power uprate from NRC and then run the heck out of it, pocket the profits, divest them into other Corporations for asset protection, and thus be OK when the plant blows up or melts down, which over 1% of them do. And that is in fact a business plan that is a crime against humanity. Out.

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