Nuclear Reactors are an Expensive and Dangerous Source of Electricity

zoom

At the dawn of the nuclear era, the head of the Atomic Energy Commission predicted that nuclear power would supply "electrical energy too cheap to meter." However, the meltdown at Three Mile Island and the explosion at Chernobyl irreparably altered the image of nuclear power, causing this prediction to prove false. The dramatic decrease in nuclear construction can be directly tied to the meltdown at Three Mile Island. The horrific images of the Chernobyl disaster and the ever-growing death toll are a constant reminder of the dangers of nuclear power.

However, the risks of nuclear power are only part of the problem. It has been the nuclear industry's inability to manage the construction and operation of its nuclear reactors that has solidified public opposition to nuclear power in the United States. Chronic escalation of construction costs coupled with high operation and maintenance costs have sealed nuclear power's economic fate. When construction costs skyrocketed and operation and management costs spiraled out of control, nuclear power became an economic disaster. The U.S. Department of Energy compared nuclear construction cost estimates to the actual final costs for 75 reactors. The original cost estimate was $45 billion. The actual cost was $145 billion! Forbes magazine recognized that this "failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster of monumental scale." According to Forbes, "only the blind, or the biased, can now think the money has been well spent."

Despite talk of a renaissance, nuclear power is actually in decline in the United States. U.S. utilities have canceled almost as many nuclear reactors as they have constructed. No nuclear reactors have been ordered and subsequently completed in the U.S. since 1973. The last nuclear reactor to be constructed in the United States was completed in 1996; the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar reactor took almost 23 years to build and cost nearly $8 billion. Not exactly electricity "too cheap to meter."