Straight Talk on Nuclear Power

Two prominent analysts raise doubts about nuclear power as the “answer” to climate change alarm.

Ben Zyker warns conservatives about the costs.

“Recent analysis from the Energy Information Administration reports estimates of prospective nuclear electricity production costs more than double those of natural gas-fired electricity. (If we include the cost of backup generation to avoid blackouts, much longer transmission systems, and massive amounts of land, on-shore wind and solar power are at least five times as expensive as gas-fired electricity, and off-shore wind power is about eight times as expensive.) That assumes the price of natural gas used for power production at $3 per million btu.

“Even were natural gas prices to double to $6, gas-fired power still would be 23% cheaper than nuclear electricity. The hope that increased political support for nuclear power will yield increased competitiveness is deeply problematic.”

Robert Bryce see three problems:

Too much investment in renewables, too little on nuclear energy.

“Global spending on renewables is ten times greater than the spending on nuclear energy and it has been that way for about a decade.”

Not enough uranium.

“The U.S. nuclear sector used to be self-sufficient in uranium and nuclear fuel supplies. In 1980, the U.S. produced a record 43 million pounds of uranium oxide.”

And too much regulation.

“Here in the U.S., the industry has to overcome the bureaucracy at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Democratic Party’s reflexive opposition to nuclear energy.”