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Solyndra And The Real Risk To American Taxpayers
Solyndra And The Real Risk To American Taxpayers
The bankruptcy of Solyndra, a solar company that received a federal loan guarantee, has made the front page because of charges of cronyism. But among the biggest risks to taxpayers, who underwrite federal loan guarantees, isn’t renewable energy. It is nuclear power.
The Department of Energy declared its intent to conditionally issue a loan guarantee of $8.33 billion to Georgia Power and its utility partners in February 2010. Why should taxpayers be concerned? Congress and the DOE are ignoring the sordid history of nuclear power plant construction and bailouts, recent developments in nuclear plant construction, and the low-balled cost of Georgia Power’s proposed additions.
The initial wave of nuclear plant construction cost ratepayers $200 billion in cost overruns. Abandoned plants cost the public $50 billion. Because the finished plants were not the least cost resource, it is estimated that by the mid-2000s, ratepayers had paid $225 billion in excess charges. The deregulation scam in the late 1990s saw the public picking up $40 billion in stranded costs for the nuclear industry. The bailout came in the wake of industry whining about not being able to compete in deregulated markets. Since 2003, various cost estimates for nuclear power rose from about $2,000 per kilowatt to $6,000 or $7,000 per kilowatt.
Forbes magazine in 1985 called nuclear power the “worst managerial disaster in history.” The Economist in 2001 declared nuclear power “too expensive to matter.” Moody’s in 2009 viewed “nuclear generation plants as a ‘bet the farm’ endeavor for most companies … .” After multiple cancellations and delays of nuclear plants, an analyst for the Institute for Energy and Environment said, “2009 was the seventh year of the so-called ‘Nuclear Renaissance,’ but it looks a lot like the U.S. nuclear industry of the 1980s, a decade of no new orders, multiple delays and cancellations, hefty defaults and emerging cheaper alternatives.”
Government warned us too. In 2003, the Congressional Budget Office ...
The bankruptcy of Solyndra, a solar company that received a federal loan guarantee, has made the front page because of charges of cronyism. But among the biggest risks to taxpayers, who underwrite federal loan guarantees, isn’t renewable energy. It is nuclear power.
The Department of Energy declared its intent to conditionally issue a loan guarantee of $8.33 billion to Georgia Power and its utility partners in February 2010. Why should taxpayers be concerned? Congress and the DOE are ignoring the sordid history of nuclear power plant construction and bailouts, recent developments in nuclear plant construction, and the low-balled cost of Georgia Power’s proposed additions.
The initial wave of nuclear plant construction cost ratepayers $200 billion in cost overruns. Abandoned plants cost the public $50 billion. Because the finished plants were not the least cost resource, it is estimated that by the mid-2000s, ratepayers had paid $225 billion in excess charges. The deregulation scam in the late 1990s saw the public picking up $40 billion in stranded costs for the nuclear industry. The bailout came in the wake of industry whining about not being able to compete in deregulated markets. Since 2003, various cost estimates for nuclear power rose from about $2,000 per kilowatt to $6,000 or $7,000 per kilowatt.
Forbes magazine in 1985 called nuclear power the “worst managerial disaster in history.” The Economist in 2001 declared nuclear power “too expensive to matter.” Moody’s in 2009 viewed “nuclear generation plants as a ‘bet the farm’ endeavor for most companies … .” After multiple cancellations and delays of nuclear plants, an analyst for the Institute for Energy and Environment said, “2009 was the seventh year of the so-called ‘Nuclear Renaissance,’ but it looks a lot like the U.S. nuclear industry of the 1980s, a decade of no new orders, multiple delays and cancellations, hefty defaults and emerging cheaper alternatives.”
Government warned us too. In 2003, the Congressional Budget Office ...
http://njtoday.net/2012/01/03/solyndra-and-the-real-risk-to-american-taxpayers/
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