The resurgence of nuclear power suffered a couple of hard blows in the past months putting the ‘nuclear renaissance’ back in the Dark Ages. The culprit was not anti-nuclear activists or even NIMBYs. No, the latest group to turn the other cheek to nuclear power is a consortium of investors and companies, including MidAmerican Energy Holdings, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. In a letter to residents of Payette County, Idaho Bill Fehrman, the president of MidAmerican Nuclear Energy stated “…the company’s due diligence process has led to the conclusion that it does not make economic sense to pursue the project at this time” referring to a proposed nuclear power plant for Payette County. [Referencing This Story]
Ouch!
When Warren Buffet bails out on nuclear power, other nuclear CEO’s are going to face a tough sell to their boards to invest, as South Carolina Electric & Gas utility found out with their expansion plans for the V.C. Summer nuclear station in Fairfield County. Even though SCE&G, along with Santee Cooper (a state utility), notified the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission they were planning to file an application to expand in 2005, they have since backed off, wanting to make sure another nuclear power plant “is the right option.” [Reference This Story]
Even with the ample federal incentives for new nuclear reactors in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, nuclear power doesn’t seem to be making economic sense. That could be because the latest figures for a new nuclear plant that the industry has provided regulators is anywhere from $12 billion to $24 billion, depending on the size of the plant. And that’s without that pesky waste storage issue that’s far from resolved. Even if the doomed receptacle at Yucca Mountain opens, it can’t hold a new generation of waste, deadly for 100,000 years.
Maybe nuclear power needs a new motto: To expensive to matter.