Nuclear Industry Turns Away From Nuclear Power

In two rather surprising admissions this week some major players in the nuclear industry have denounced nuclear power as being not financially viable.

German power companies RWE and E.ON who were operating a joint venture called Horizon Nuclear to build new reactors in the UK have scrapped those plans.
Costs, lack of enough credit and lack of private sector interest for investing in nuclear power were cited as reasons for backing out of the project.

The company had a list of 10 potential sites to build a total of 2 new reactors:
Draft list of ten sites potentially suitable for new nuclear build published for public consultation and Parliamentary scrutiny as part of the Nuclear NPS: Bradwell (Essex); Braystones (Cumbria); Hartlepool(Borough of Hartlepool, Tees Valley); Heysham (Lancashire); Hinkley Point (Somerset); Kirksanton(Cumbria); Oldbury (Gloucestershire); Sellafield (Cumbria); Sizewell (Suffolk); Wylfa (Anglesey).

The Wall Street Journal cites these financial constraints on building new reactors:
“Building new nuclear plants costs around €4,000 per kilowatt of capacity installed, more expensive than coal, wind or gas; long-term electricity prices would have to be around 33% higher than current U.K. levels for companies to make an adequate return on investment, according to analysts’ estimates.”

US Nuclear Not Financially Viable
The former CEO of Exelon, one of the largest nuclear power plant owners in the US came out against nuclear power. Just 17 days since his retirement he made some surprisingly candid statements.

“Nuclear power is no longer an economically viable source of new energy in the United States” “And it won’t become economically viable, he said, for the forseeable future.”
On Exelon’s earlier purchasing spree where they bought up old nuclear reactors around the country, John Rowe said this:
“I’m not fond of investments that don’t pay off before I’m incapable of comprehending it,”  Rowe was referring to the previous CEO that did the purchases but retired due to suffering from Alzheimer’s before the plants broke even on the investment.

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