Over a decade ago, environmentalists challenged the nuclear industry's propaganda that they were clean and green. As a result, the Better Business Bureau's ( BBB ) National Advertising Division found that the Nuclear Energy Institute's ads falsely claimed that nuclear reactors make power without polluting the air and water or damaging the environment. The BBB said that, "The nuclear industry should stop calling itself 'environmentally clean' and should stop saying it makes power 'without polluting the environment.'" The director of the division said such claims were "unsupportable." The bureau agreed with environmentalists that nuclear fuel is made using electricity from coal plants and that nuclear waste poses a threat to the public health and safety.

The nuclear industry's brazen disregard for the BBB prompted the environmental groups to bring NEI before the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC found that

[B]ecause the discharge of hot water from cooling systems is known to harm the environment, and given the unresolved issues surrounding disposal of radioactive waste, we think that NEI has failed to substantiate its general environmental benefit claim.

Unfortunately those same false claims have now found their way into the legislation offered by Senator's Boxer and Kerry.

Even Andrew Kadak, "Professor of the Practice" at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has acknowledged that nuclear power contributes CO2 to the environment. In a speech before the American Physical Society entitled "A Renaissance for Nuclear Energy?" Kadak bemoaned the fact that the international community had already rejected nuclear power as a solution to climate change. However, Kadak recognized that:

For many years, nuclear energy, while arguably a -CO2 emitting energy source, has been judged to be unacceptable for reasons of safety, unstable regulatory climate, a lack of a waste disposal solution and, more recently, economics.

If the Senators actually want to abate climate change rather than merely enriching nuclear corporations, we need solutions that are fast, safe and affordable, and that rules out nuclear power. The Congressional Budget Office has already determined that the risk of default on the nuclear loan guarantees congress will supply to the nuclear industry is well above 50%. Is it really the Senator's intent to support the next taxpayer bailout?

Mid American, a subsidiary of Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, has already conducted their economic due diligence on a new nuclear plant and determined that it does not make economic sense to build. If the "world's greatest investor" will not waste his resources on new nuclear power, perhaps the Senate should listen.

But Warren Buffet's corporation isn't the only one who thinks nuclear power is an economic non-starter. In April, Jon Wellinghoff, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, stated that new nuclear and coal plants are not needed. Renewable energy like wind & solar and improvements in energy efficiency will provide enough energy to meet our future energy demands. Wellinghoff concluded that nuclear and coal plants are too expensive.

In June, Moody's Investor Services released their analysis of new nuclear generation and determined that nuclear power was a "bet the farm" risk. Why should the American taxpayer be expected to support such an investment?

The history of nuclear power plant cost overruns that led Forbes magazine to call nuclear power the "largest managerial disaster in business history" is repeating itself with the current generation of nuclear reactors. Last month, the French nuclear giant, Areva announced that they had lost 550 million euros, a 79% drop in their profits, due to construction delays with their reactor in Finland. According to Areva, the 3-billion euro nuclear plant has now accumulated 2.3 billion euros in estimated losses. Does the Senate really want to repeat this fiscal fiasco in the U.S.?

Nuclear power is a deadly and dangerous distraction from real solutions to climate change and our energy needs. Nuclear power is unsafe, uneconomical & unnecessary. Rather than greenwashing nuclear power, Senators Boxer and Kerry should cut the nuclear title from their bill and work to oppose any attempts to support this failed experiment.

Jim Riccio, Nuclear Policy Analyst

I wrote all about it over on Huffington Post -- check it out!

CBO considers the risk of default on such a loan guarantee to be very high—well above 50 percent. The key factor accounting for this risk is that we expect that the plant would be uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative to other electricity generation sources. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/42xx/doc4206/s14.pdf

(Joskow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Economics of Investment in New Nuclear Power Plants in the U.S, EIA Midterm Energy Outlook Conference, April 12, 2005. Note: Figures are in 2002$/kWe )

It was this economic track record that doomed nuclear power in the U.S. and led Forbes magazine to declare that the "failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster of monumental scale." Really, who in their right mind would guarantee loans to an industry with this track record? Obviously, not Wall Street!

Last July, six major U.S. Banking institutions (some of which have been bought or are now bankrupt) including Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch & Morgan Stanley sent a letter to the Department of Energy (DOE). The bankers told DOE that unless the U.S. Taxpayer backed 100% of the debt incurred by nuclear corporations that they would have difficulty “accessing capital markets.”

We believe many new nuclear construction projects will have difficulty accessing the capital markets during construction and initial operation without the support of a federal government loan guarantee. Lenders and investors in the fixed income markets will be acutely concerned about a number of political, regulatory and litigation-related risks that are unique to nuclear power, including the possibility of delays in commercial operation of a completed plant or “another Shoreham”. We believe these risks, combined with the higher capital costs and longer construction schedules of nuclear plants as compared to other generation facilities, will make lenders unwilling at present to extend long-term credit to such projects in a form that would be commercially viable. http://www.lgprogram.energy.gov/nopr-comments/comment29.pdf

The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) has also weighed in on these loan guarantees to the nuclear industry. The GAO recently found that the Bush Administration's DOE does not have the oversight in place to adequately manage the loan guarantee program. But rather than address the inadequacies identified by the GAO, the Bush administration has accelerated the loan guarantee program. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08750.pdf

Senator McCain has already been warned by the CBO, the GAO and Wall Street that building new nuclear power plants is an economic meltdown waiting to happen. Even a subsidiary of Warren Buffet's corporation Berkshire Hathaway has rejected a new nuclear reactor as economically unsound.

Senator McCain has abandoned his straight talk when it comes to nuclear power. The Senator needs to explain why the American taxpayer should be put on the hook for new nuclear plants that the industry would never build if they and their stockholders had to bear the risk.

--Jim Riccio

While we hope that their occurrence is unlikely, there are accident sequences for U.S. plants that can lead to rupture or bypassing of containment in U.S. reactors which would result in the off-site release of fission products comparable or worse than the releases estimated by the NRC staff to have taken place during the Chernobyl accident.

Mr. Moore went on to conclude that:

The facts concerning the Chernobyl disaster haven't changed and neither has the nuclear industry. Nuclear power is a dangerous technology that would never be built if corporations bore the true cost and liability for the potential consequences. However, it seems Mr. Moore has either forgotten the facts about Chernobyl or has been paid to ignore them. Neither of which is acceptable.

For more information on the Chernobyl Accident and reactor risks:

American Chernobyl: Nuclear “Near Misses” at U.S. Reactors Since 1986.
Greenpeace 2007.

Risky Business: The Probability and Consequences of a Nuclear Accident
Greenpeace

CHERNOBYL: Some Lessons and Implications for Lower Quality Electric Utilities, Donaldson. Lutkin & Jenrette Securities Corporation, 1986


For additional information on Mr. Moore & his current activities see:

Spinning the Atom in Mother Jones Magazine