Antinuclear

Nuclear Power’s poor future: costs of decommissioning and waste disposal

Nuclear a ‘technology of the past’, Mail & Guardian, 27 JUL 2015 SIPHO KINGS

“……….Speaking to the Mail & Guardian earlier this year, Steve Thomas, a professor of energy policy at the University of Greenwich, said, “It was always extremely doubtful whether Russia could provide the finance for all the nuclear power projects it claimed to be close to winning well before the oil price collapse.”

With the number of nuclear plants decreasing each year – there are now 388 in operation around the world – the energy source now accounts for around 4% of the global energy mix. According to the International Energy Agency three-quarters of these will be reaching the end of their operational life in the next decade.

Slivyak says this is where the last two big problems with a nuclear build come in: their cost to decommission, and the nuclear waste left over. “If you go with nuclear energy now, you have to stick with that technology for a century.” This includes a minimum of a decade in construction – with some plants taking three decades – and 60-years of operation before at least three decades of decommissioning, he says.

“In the US the cost of decommissioning is worked out at the same as the cost of building a new plant.”…………http://mg.co.za/article/2015-07-27-nuclear-too-old-too-complicated-too-uneconomic

July 29, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized