LEFT & RIGHT UNITE AGAINST NEW NUCLEAR ENERGY

It is fascinating to watch the political quick-stepping and fast-talk as Old Energy interest groups look for cover or allies and generate spin to defend and substantiate themselves in the New Energy world. Nuclear advocates have claimed it is more “green” than wind and solar energies. (Huh? See: NEW ENERGY V. ENVIRONMENT? NO) Now conservative Cato Institute anti-nuclear advocates are allying themselves with leftwing anti-nuke rockers, the kind of alliance that may not have happened since Cato’s time.

Aside: In the Taylor/Van Doren accounting of costs/kilowatt-hour, they mention that all the types of power considered get government subsidies. Taylor and Van Doren are ideologically consistent in opposing all subsidies. In Congress, however, many conservatives oppose subsidies to New Energy while turning a blind eye to subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear energies. At best, that is flip-floppery. In truth, it is hypocrisy.

Hooked on Subsidies; Why conservatives should join the left’s campaign against nuclear power
Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren, November 26, 2007 (Forbes)

WHO
Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren,senior fellows, Cato Institute; Bonnie Raitt, Graham Nash, the Indigo Girls and other anti-nuke rockers; NRG Energy; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)

WHAT
Conservative Cato Institute intellectuals Taylor and Van Doren approve of lefty rockers’ opposition to new nuclear energy power plants.

When costs are levelized, nuclear is expensive. (click to enlarge)

WHEN
Provisions in the 2005 energy bill subsidize new nuclear plants. Applications for new plants would capitalize on those provisions even as Congress is revisiting the subsidies in pending 2007 energy legislation.

WHERE
NRG Energy, based in Princeton, NJ, has applied to the NRC is for a new 2-reactor facility in Bay City, Tx. 19 other applications have been submitted.
The only nuclear plant in the last decade in a liberalized economy: Finland, 2004. The French electricity company that subsidized it with 60-year purchase contracts is not “making good money…”

When costs aren't levelized, there is near parity. (click to enlarge)

WHY
- Taylor and Van Doren claim the new applications are only due to the subsidies, not to nuclear energy’s economics. They cite Tufts economist Gilbert Metcalf’s studies: Electricity from nuclear w/subsidies: 4.31 cents/kilowatt-hour (c/kW-h).
Coal w/subsidies: 3.53 c/kW-h.
Clean coal w/subsidies: 3.55 c/kW-h.
Nuclear w/o subsidies: 5.94 c/kWh.
Coal w/o subsidies: 3.79 c/kW-h.
Clean coal w/o subsidies: 4.37 c/kW-h.
- Nuclear also has high upfront costs (10 to 15 times the cost of a natural gas plant) while long construction times means delayed pay back. The federal government would guarantee 100% of that $6.5 to $8.5 billion

Beyond the numbers, there are other considerations. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Taylor/Van Doren: “Pro-nuclear groups herald the coming flood of applications as proof that nuclear energy makes economic sense. Nonsense. The only reason investors are interested: government handouts. Absent those subsidies, investor interest would be zero.”
- Taylor/Van Doren: “How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors.”
- Taylor/Van Doren: “…There is no more to the right-wing case for nuclear subsidies than there is to the left-wing case for solar subsidies….friends don't let friends get hooked on subsidies. We're glad to see Raitt and her rocker compadres agree…”