Antinuclear

Financial agencies warn of nuclear power’s “economic meltdown”

New nuclear reactors are an economic meltdown waiting to happen and sadly President Obama has put the American taxpayer on the hook for the financial fall out

Obama, the Oracle of Omaha & Nuclear Power | Greenpeace USA, 24 Feb 2011,“……….the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has already cautioned against making these guarantees for new nuclear plants stating that:

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.

But its not only Warren Buffet & CBO that have rejected new nuclear power as an economic non starter:

• In June 2009, Moody’s Investment Services determined that new nuclear investments were a “bet the farm” risk. According to Moody’s “(w)e view new nuclear plans as a ‘bet the farm’ endeavor for most companies, due to the size of the investment and length of time to build a nuclear power facility.”

• In November 2009, Citi’s review of new nuclear power determined that the risks “are so large and variable that individually they could each bring even the largest utility company to its knees financially.” Citi concluded that, “(t)hese risks can be classed as Corporate Killers.”

• In August 2010, Standard & Poor’s stated that, “(g)iven the significant capital costs, even modest overruns or schedule delays can impair the balance sheets of even the largest U.S. Utility companies engaged in nuclear power plant construction. Furthermore the recent decline in natural gas prices also raises the question of the longer term competitive viability of nuclear power as a base load energy source.”

……….. New nuclear reactors are an economic meltdown waiting to happen and sadly President Obama has put the American taxpayer on the hook for the financial fall out.Obama, the Oracle of Omaha & Nuclear Power | Greenpeace USA

February 24, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized