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The
Nuclear Industry's Blank Check
AA editorial: 3/28/01 On February 11th, 1985 Forbes Magazine penned one of the most devastating documents about the nuclear industry. The following quote set the tone for this major piece on the nuclear industry's failure: "The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale. The utility industry has already invested $125 billion in nuclear power, with an additional $140 billion to come before the decade is out, and only the blind, or the biased, can now think that most of the money has been well spent." The expose went on to document disasterous policy after policy. A program so large that it was far larger than the U.S. Space program($100 billion) or the entire outlay for the VietNam war ($111 billion). Real operational costs are far higher than the above figures. For example, the primary cause of California's energy crisis was the gargantuan contract that Pacific Gas and Electric obtained for operating its Diablo Canyon nuclear power plants in 1988. The $54 billion contract was what drove prices in California up 50% between 1988 and 1994. This dramatic increase in prices set off the rebellion by large manufacturers that led to the devastating deregulation. The $54 billion for construction, financing and operation of the facility did not include several billion more for decommisioning costs. This huge amount of money for just 2 of the over 100 nuclear facilities in the U.S. places the real costs to America far higher than the Forbes claim. This disaster was brought to you by policies no american citizen ever had a chance to vote on, stop or resist payments on as it was written into the cold war document known as the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, that allowed federal secrecy and national security to override state's rights or any other federal laws in its drive to build nuclear facilities across the country. That law still exists on the books today, over a decade after the end of the cold war. Oh, and by
the way, they are attempting to use the same tactics of old, with new
legislation that locks the public into paying for a new generation of
reactors.
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