House File 561, a bill that would allow an investor-owned utility to charge ratepayers for a proposed nuclear power plant construction project’s upfront costs even if the reactors are never built, amounts to “socialism” and would cost an average ratepayer more than $800 a year, Mark Cooper, senior fellow at Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment, said.
An average ratepayer who paid $67 a month in 2009 would pay an estimated $135 a month if MidAmerican gets approval for rate increase.
“Building new nuclear reactors is entirely uneconomic,” Cooper said during a teleconference with reporters on Tuesday. “Nuclear reactors cannot compete with a range of alternatives on price. Construction is so risky, the capital market has said they won’t fund them at normal rates.
The utilities recognize that, so they are pushing for special treatment,” Cooper said. “They want suspension of market forces and suspension of consumer protection. This is a danger to consumers; it is a danger to politicians.”
Source: Des Moines Register
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Richard Perry
February 15, 2012
The nuclear industry does not want to bare any risks that could cost them in the end, stick it on to the consumers and take a high margin of profit. They want the public to pick up costs when there is a meltdown. This is the only way they can make nuclear power competitive in the market. They cannot be trusted as they have lied about the actual cost of making power with nuclear plants from day one. Safety is also a joke as an employee can ajust switches to read inproper and cause a melt down like a one switch at There Mile Island caused a meltdown. They tell us that the plants a so safe, bull shit.