Employees of TEPCO Who Were Missing at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station

TEPCO ^ | April 3, 2011

[Spaulding]

An interview with a business owner from Japan said when the nuclear plants were proposed, the business community was promised by the government they would be saving money in energy costs..What they found was nuclear energy has not saved the user money.

The revenue generated from state-controlled public utilities is always a murky area. Saving money, when cost is established by government tariffs is a rats nest of complexities, as the Marxists can easily demonstrate. For example you'll hear about the costs of decommissioning, about the costs of insurance (some will claim that nuclear plants couldn't be insured by the private sector). If you have run or been involved with financing a business you will see that there is so much detail missing there can be no evaluation of the real costs of nuclear energy. Suffice it to say that the operating costs, including decommissioning, are more than paid for after between three and four years of operation.

In the US for example, legal actions and licensing, usually closely coupled phenomena, can take 15 years. During that interval there is interest being paid on two to ten billion dollars in loans, along with legal fees. An unburdened nuclear plant operates at greater the 90% up-time, some at 98%, and lasts for 40 or so years. It's construction cost is paid for during the second year of operation. The cost of uranium fuel has not increased as oil has, and the costs of operation are about the same as a coal or natural gas plant. In other words, it is antinuclear activists and professionals, lawyers, who make their living from the fear of the unknown who cause the cost of nuclear to be higher than that of coal. The environmental costs of coal, one hundred freight cars each day for just one 1000 megawatt plant, dwarf those of nuclear. This caused the Sierra Club, which was once a sincere environmental advocate, to promote nuclear power.

Remember the California Environment Protection Agency which poisoned 120,000 wells by requiring gas refineries in Calif to include an oxidiser, MTBE, in Calif gasoline. The sience had already demonstrated the folly, as well as proved that it resulted in somewhat less power/gallon of gasoline. It also leaked through the steel tanks which had been created to hold gasoline, not MTBE, and contaminated wells at great distances from gas stations. But it made millions from taxes for the state, a result of the increased cost of Calif. gasoline and the reduced efficiency. The claimed purpose was to create cleaner air. MTBE is a carcinogen and contributed to pollution.

Ask yourself, who would benefit from increased dependence upon fossil fuels? Solar and Wind are largely a waste of our tax money, and will never be competitive with nuclear, coal, natural gas or oil. They will also always, in an industrial society, need reliable backup power, since the sun shines usefully for about a quarter of each day when there are no clouds, and wind is unpredictable. Our behavior is in the interest of major oil suppliers, not governed by our EPA. It is also in the interest of any group seeking to diminish our influence, both to promote freedom and in the world of commerce. Unfortunately, it also sounds attractive to most of the old associates of our titular president - titular becuase without two citizen parents, he is not a Constitutional president.